Canadian Politics: Canada's Drug Policy A Bust - Page 3

In fact when contacted the government spokesperson made no bones about the fact that they will be putting an even heavier emphasise on law enforcement then prior governments. His claim that Canadians said that's what they want is somewhat spurious, as the majority of Canadians in previous polls had supported the idea of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

According to the study that in spite of the high amounts of money already spent on law enforcement actual illicit drug use in Canada is on the rise, and with it so too the cost to the health cares system with the resulting increase in injection related cases of HIV/AIDS. Combine that with fact that there is no evidence that increased law enforcement programming decreases drug usage, the case for spending more energy on prevention, risk reduction, and treatment when it comes to illicit drugs becomes that much stronger.

But that doesn't seem to matter to our new government. According to Dr. Thomas Kerr, a professor in the University of British Columbia's medical faculty, and one of the reports authors, Canada does not have an evidence based drug policy. "I'm paid to treat disease and death, and I don't like what I'm seeing," he says. "There's way too much ideology and politics, and not enough science and principle."

Judging by the reactions coming from the office of the current Minister of Health, and the rest of the Conservative government, I don't think Dr. Kerr should be holding his breath waiting to see anything different soon.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the forthcoming book What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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