Stephen Harper's War on Progress
The Conservative leader is making it all too easy for me. He's concerned about the abuse of drugs. Fine; me, too. But his solution is to increase drug enforcement and lengthen prison sentences, which has absolutely no record of improving the situation at all, is prohibitively expensive, and generates a multitude of unintended (negative) consequences. At a speech in Vancouver (could he have possibly picked a less-appropriate location to go on a diatribe about the evils of pot?), Haper vowed to "get tough" on sellers of hard drugs and move away from the de-criminalizing of marijuana advanced by the Liberals. I suppose because he's seen that enhancing the drug war has been so successful elsewhere. Awesome former mayor of Vancouver, Larry Campbell (now sitting in the taskless thanks of Canadian politics, the Senate), makes a statement about the meth problem in Canada in the article:
"There's absolutely no statistical information that can back it up. The reason we're so horrified is that the results are so visual, and so awful."
I've been away for a few years, so I'm not sure how much press meth gets in Canada. But the research I've seen from the US confirms that the claims of a widespread epidemic are somewhat overblown. Regardless, the solution to drug problems is not more enforcement and tougher sentences. We need to be more creative and come up with solutions that will actually be effective (and ideally, allow individuals the freedom to decide what they put into their own
bodies).
UPDATE: This commentary is timely and relevant.
posted by The Offensive Coordinator @ 4:36 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I also noticed the panic about meth. This summer there was a multi-part "expose" of the meth problem in Saskatchewan; I felt it was blown out of proportion, but then again, I am not connected to the drug circles. As they say, where there's smoke, there's fire, and in Harper's case, if there's a lot of smoke ie law enforcement, then (presumably) the political fire will justify those means. Okay, that was confusing, but I think Harper would rather show that he is doing something about the drug "problem" rather than rely on stats 10 years down the road. If there's a whole bunch of drug enforcement officers, constituents will think that the problem will be taken care of. In ten years, when it is revealed that the problem wasn't taken care of, Harper will be maxin' and relaxin' at his Alberta ranch enjoying the riches his scheming brought him ten years earlier. Go Layton!!!!
P.S. the expose was in the Star-Phoenix.
Well OF COURSE Harper was doing this for political reasons, there is rarely anything else that motivates a politician. He's attempting to secure the votes of anyone who thinks the War On Drugs is a winnable war. But as the headline from the Onion said: "Drugs Win Drug War".
I sincerely hope the L in Layton was a typo and you were actually enthusiastically supporting former Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton.
Just kidding. We'll fight about it at New Year's.
I agree. I don't know much on the background of meth and what not but from what I have read/ seen/ understood etc... it does have very awful results. And upping enforcement. Yeah that's so gonna solve the problems! (please note that last bit was sarcastic)
Thanks for your professional perspective, Fleury. I'm glad to see a pharmacist seeing that resricting access to DM will not solve the meth problem. All it does is make people who want some cough relief go through hassle do get drugs that will help them. Furthermore, the experience in jurisdictions that have put meds with pseudophedrine behind the counter have not solved the meth problem at all, because the majority comes from big meth labs in Mexico anyway.
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