by Donald MacPherson on January 8, 2012
It almost too late for a Happy New Years greetings but what the heck – Welcome to 2012 which I hope will be a great year full of positive change and forward movement towards creating a better world and better drug policies for Canada. Here we go! It has been a while since I have been able to get to my own personal blog as I have been crazy busy working with a number of other folks across the country to launch the new Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. The Coalition is a national civil society organization working towards improving Canada’s drug policies and will be coming to a neighbourhood near you in the coming months.
In May of 2009 representatives of 30 NGOs in Canada came together to discuss the need for a strong civil society movement to advocate for improvements to Canada’s drug policies. After two days of hard work the following vision was agreed upon and a core group of us set out to raise funds to develop the organization:
“The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition envisions a safe, healthy and just Canada in which drug policy and legislation as well as related institutional practice are based on evidence, human rights, social inclusion and public health”
In March of 2011 a number of organizations convened in Ottawa to officially launch the organization and develop priorities for action. Thanks to funding from the MAC AIDS FUND and the Global Drug Policy Fund at Open Society we have been able to develop a website and begin a series of public discussions on drug policy across the country.
Check out our new website at www.drugpolicy.ca to see what we are up to and please join us in this work. You can participate in a number of ways including being on our mailing list, volunteering to help on various projects, sending some funds our way, and if you really want to get involved organize some public dialogue events in your community. We would love to help with that. We also would love to hear your ideas on how to generate a new drug policy for Canada that reflects the vision outlined above. So give us a shout and keep in touch as we move forward into 2012 and beyond.
by Donald MacPherson on June 5, 2011
- The Harper government says fighting crime is a priority for Canadians and an omnibus crime bill will be introduced in the first 100 days this parliament. This bill will cost taxpayers billions of dollars in increased prison, courts and policing costs with no evidence that these expenditures will lead to safer communities. This poll suggests Canadians have a different view of what is important in the next budget.
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This Nanos/IRPP poll, which was done in May suggests that Canadians have a lot on their minds other than the Conservative crime agenda, an agenda that is poorly thought out, extremely expensive and from all the research that I have seen, including the government’s own papers, won’t actually work to improve public safety one bit. This Justice Department paper on mandatory minimums states: “Drug consumption and drug related crime seem to be unaffected in any measurable way by severe mandatory minimum sentences. Both mathematical modeling techniques and field work arrive at the conclusion that treatment-oriented approaches are more cost effective than harsh prison terms.”
When asked what is most important in the top five categories in the poll Canadians seem to want their new government to focus on much more tangible and measurable goals such as creating jobs, reducing the deficit, improving health care and of course finding ways to cut taxes while achieving the first three. Why is our government so determined to try and address drug problems with legislative solutions that have been proven not to work. Maybe they will reconsider this when light is shone on the consequences of going down this road. In the U.S. there has been reams of research on the experience south of the border with mandatory minimum sentencing practices over the past 20 years. Check out the Sentencing Project to learn about the failure of these policies in the U.S.
The crime agenda was addressed in Thursday’s Throne Speech. Here is an excerpt:
Here for law-abiding Canadians
The Government of Canada has no more fundamental duty than to protect the personal safety of our citizens and defend against threats to our national security.
Our Government will move quickly to reintroduce comprehensive law-and-order legislation to combat crime and terrorism. These measures will protect children from sex offenders. They will eliminate house arrest and pardons for serious crimes. They will give law enforcement officials, courts and victims the legal tools they need to fight criminals and terrorists. Our Government will continue to protect the most vulnerable in society and work to prevent crime. It will propose tougher sentences for those who abuse seniors and will help at risk youth avoid gangs and criminal activity. It will address the problem of violence against women and girls.
Our Government has always believed the interests of law-abiding citizens should be placed ahead of those of criminals. Canadians who are victimized or threatened by crime deserve their government’s support and protection, and they should have the right to take reasonable steps to defend themselves and their property when the police cannot be there to assist them. Our Government will reintroduce legislation to clarify and strengthen laws on self-defence, defence of property and citizen’s arrest.
This is all pretty vague stuff and who knows what the details of the legislation will look like. The promising news in here is that there was no mention of the drug strategy and specifically drug crimes in the Throne Speech. Could the Conservatives be getting smarter on the drug file? Perhaps they have left themselves some room to alter their course and put forward some more considered legislation based on a good analysis of the research and experience in other jurisdictions. Let’s hope so, but it will not surprise any of us if the new Harper Government brings back crime bills that on the surface aim to target organized criminals in the drug business but in reality will only contribute to our prisons incarcerating the lowest level drug dealers, people who use drugs, the mentally ill, and an inordinate number of Aboriginal people. Of course there are few if any services for these complex populations and no one expects an increase in funding for prison rehab programs. In fact these kinds of programs will most likely suffer funding cuts in the upcoming “downsizing” of government services. [click to continue…]
