Legalized Drugs: Dumber Than You May Think

May 7, 2012, Vol. 17

Author | John P. Walters

Even smart people make mistakes?—?sometimes surprisingly large ones. A current example is drug legalization, which way too many smart people consider a good idea. They offer three bad arguments.

First, they contend, “the drug war has failed”?—?despite years of effort we have been unable to reduce the drug problem. Actually, as imperfect as surveys may be, they present overwhelming evidence that the drug problem is growing smaller and has fallen in response to known, effective measures. Americans use illegal drugs at substantially lower rates than when systematic measurement began in 1979?—?down almost 40 percent. Marijuana use is down by almost half since its peak in the late 1970s, and cocaine use is down by 80 percent since its peak in the mid-1980s. Serious challenges with crack, meth, and prescription drug abuse have not changed the broad overall trend: Drug use has declined for the last 40 years, as has drug crime.

The decades of decline coincide with tougher laws, popular disapproval of drug use, and powerful demand reduction measures such as drug treatment in the criminal justice system and drug testing. The drop also tracks successful attacks on supply?—?as in the reduction of cocaine production in Colombia and the successful attack on meth production in the United States. Compared with most areas of public policy, drug control measures are quite effective when properly designed and sustained.

Drug enforcement keeps the price of illegal drugs at hundreds of times the simple cost of producing them. To destroy the criminal market, legalization would have to include a massive price cut, dramatically stimulating use and addiction. Legalization advocates typically ignore the science. Risk varies a bit, but all of us and a variety of other living things?—?monkeys, rats, and mice?—?can become addicted if exposed to addictive substances in sufficient concentrations, frequently enough, and over a sufficient amount of time. It is beyond question that more people using drugs, more frequently, will result in more addiction.

About a third of illegal drug users are thought to be addicted (or close enough to it to need treatment), and the actual number is probably higher. There are now at least 21 million drug users, and at least 7 million need treatment. How much could that rise? Well, there are now almost 60 million cigarette smokers and over 130 million who use alcohol each month. It is irrational to believe that legalization would not increase addiction by millions.

We can learn from experience. Legalization has been tried in various forms, and every nation that has tried it has reversed course sooner or later. America’s first cocaine epidemic occurred in the late 19th century, when there were no laws restricting the sale or use of the drug. That epidemic led to some of the first drug laws, and the epidemic subsided. Over a decade ago the Netherlands was the model for legalization. However, the Dutch have reversed course, as have Sweden and Britain (twice). The newest example for legalization advocates is Portugal, but as time passes the evidence there grows of rising crime, blood-borne disease, and drug usage.

The lessons of history are the lessons of the street. Sections of our cities have tolerated or accepted the sale and use of drugs. We can see for ourselves that life is not the same or better in these places, it is much worse. If they can, people move away and stay away. Every instance of legalization confirms that once you increase the number of drug users and the addicted, it is difficult to undo your mistake.

The most recent form of legalization?—?pretending smoked marijuana is medicine?—?is following precisely the pattern of past failure. The majority of the states and localities that have tried it are moving to correct their mistake, from California to Michigan. Unfortunately, Washington, D.C., is about to start down this path?s. It will end badly.

The second false argument for legalization is that drug laws have filled our prisons with low-level, non-violent offenders. The prison population has increased substantially over the past 30 years, but the population on probation is much larger and has grown almost as fast. The portion of the prison population associated with drug offenses has been declining, not growing. The number of diversion programs for substance abusers who commit crimes has grown to such an extent that the criminal justice system is now the single largest reason Americans enter drug treatment.

Despite constant misrepresentation of who is in prison and why, the criminal justice system has steadily and effectively focused on violent and repeat offenders. The unfortunate fact is that there are too many people in prison because there are too many criminals. With the rare exceptions that can be expected from human institutions, the criminal justice system is not convicting the innocent.

Most recently, crime and violence in Central America and Mexico have become the third bad reason to legalize drugs. Even some foreign leaders have joined in claiming that violent groups in Latin America would be substantially weakened or eliminated if drugs were legal.

Many factors have driven this misguided argument. First, while President Álvaro Uribe in Colombia and President Felipe Calderón in Mexico demonstrated brave and consequential leadership against crime and terror, such leadership is rare. For both the less competent and the corrupt, the classic response in politics is to blame someone else for your failure.

The real challenge is to establish the rule of law in places that have weak, corrupt, or utterly inadequate institutions of justice. Yes, the cartels and violent gangs gain money from the drug trade, but they engage in the full range of criminal activities?—?murder for hire, human trafficking, bank robbery, protection rackets, car theft, and kidnapping, among others. They seek to control areas and rule with organized criminal force. This is not a new phenomenon, and legalizing drugs will not stop it. In fact, U.S. drug laws are a powerful means of working with foreign partners to attack violent groups and bring their leaders to justice.

Legalization advocates usually claim that alcohol prohibition caused organized crime in the United States and its repeal ended the threat. This is widely believed and utterly false. Criminal organizations existed before and after prohibition. Violent criminal organizations exist until they are destroyed by institutions of justice, by each other, or by authoritarian measures fueled by popular fear. No honest criminal justice official or family in this hemisphere will be safer tomorrow if drugs are legalized?—?and the serious among them know it.

Are the calls for legalization merely superficial?—?silly background noise in the context of more fundamental problems? Does this talk make any difference? Well, suppose someone you know said, “Crack and heroin and meth are great, and I am going to give them to my brothers and sisters, my children and my grandchildren.” If you find that statement absurd, irresponsible, or obscene, then at some level you appreciate that drugs cannot be accepted in civilized society. Those who talk of legalization do not speak about giving drugs to their families, of course; they seem to expect drugs to victimize someone else’s family.

Irresponsible talk of legalization weakens public resolve against use and addiction. It attacks the moral clarity that supports responsible behavior and the strength of key institutions. Talk of legalization today has a real cost to our families and families in other places. The best remedy would be some thoughtful reflection on the drug problem and what we say about it.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/john-p.-walters

War on drugs failed?

War on Drugs! We haven’t had a war on drugs since the introduction of Harm Minimisation policies and the subsequent ‘hijacking’ of that policy platform by the one dimensional drug use promoting Harm Reduction strategy.

Let’s do a quick juxtapose; Poverty, child exploitation, crime, assault, murder, rape – these things continue to be a plague in our even ‘advanced’ western cultures and often don’t diminish and even increase at times, but at no point do functional, sane people declare attempts to combat or curb these social blights futile, and that one clear experimental option we haven’t tried and need to, is decriminalising such behaviour!

The ‘decriminalisation experiment’ is not for the benefit of the current and emerging generations mental, physical and social health or even community well-being, rather it is to assuage the cries of drug addled hedonists or nihilistic self-destructive pursuits of a few libertine social experimenters. In this cacophony of pseudo-intellectual ‘rationalism’ we are tacitly urged to abandon a generation to a social experiment which only legacy will be community, familial and individual loss and tragedy.

Shane Varcoe – Executive Director

Dalgarno Institute, Australia

In two recent editorials, the Globe called the war on drugs a dreadful failure and Insite an inspiring success. Legalization is the current theme.

DPNC Vice-President Gwen Landolt sent them this reply:

In its ongoing campaign to decriminalize marijuana, The Globe and Mail relies on the bizarre argument that decriminalization will reduce the drug cartel’s power and wealth (editorial -April 27, 2012).

This ignores the fact that this cannot ease the level of crime and violence, because it will not stop the profit motivation of drug traffickers. Without legal prohibitions, the traffickers will only increase their trafficking of the drug to many more users since there would be no legal restrictions against its use. The huge profits resulting from such sales will encourage even more money laundering, and criminals inextricably linked with other international organized crime. This is already happening with gangsters from British Columbia increasingly doing business with drug cartels in Mexico: this association will only increase if marijuana is decriminalized.

The resources of law enforcement, can in no way, stop this illegal activity unless demand is curbed by prohibition.

Antonio Mario Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), stated, in his 2007 report, that legal controls on drug use have been highly successful. Over the last decade, world output of cocaine and amphetamines has been stabilized, with reduction in marijuana use and opium production. Without legal prohibitions against these drugs, there would have been even more drug chaos.

C. Gwendolyn Landolt

National V.P.

Item number nine in the letter to members of the Cat Lake reserve from the children in Grade Six is as blunt as it is painful.

“It hurts us and shoomis and kokum (grandpa and grandma) when you’re doing drugs and you’re not at home.”

Cat Lake is the epicentre of prescription drug addiction in Canada. Community leaders figure that between 70 and 80 per cent of the adults are hooked on narcotic pain killers OxyContin or Percocets.

Governments and local health authorities are slowly gearing up to deal with the runaway addiction that has slammed communities across the country, but especially First Nations.

But the help can’t come quickly enough for the children of Cat Lake.

“We feel that we don’t know what to do to help you stop doing Drug,” the children wrote as “Point Number Five.”

“We want you to stop because it hurts our family and we don’t like it when we’re angry,” according to point number four.

The children in this lake-soaked corner of northwestern Ontario 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay put together the list over the course of a few days in a workshop with the help of a local band member.

They are desperately yearning for ways to end to the crisis in their community that triggered waves of theft and left children hungry and bereft of the stability and support they crave.

Out of a population of about 700, local officials say they collect 500 needles a week through the needle-exchange program.

They have put 172 adults on their list of confirmed addicts, and another 250 are suspected. Almost everyone else is either a child or an elder.

Oxy, the highly addictive and extremely expensive little pill, has become a way of life here and in many reserves.

The drug is supposed to be taken for intense pain, by prescription only. It produces an instant high when crushed, snorted or injected and that high has triggered a massive demand for the drug across the continent. Some of the biggest profits are drawn from some of the poorest people in Canada.

In Cat Lake and other parts of northwestern Ontario, health care workers just assume most of their adult patients are using.

And yet, the narcotic pain killer is no longer being produced.

Purdue Pharmaceuticals has pulled it from the shelves, prompting First Nations leaders to warn of a pending crisis of withdrawal for which no one is well prepared.

Oxy addicts can build up a tolerance and require larger, more frequent doses to get high. But kicking the addiction, for many, is too punishing many to bear.

Abnormal sleeping patterns, violent shakes, diarrhea, headache and anxiety are common, for days on end. Relapses are frequent.

The dealers’ stockpiles of the opioid are now dwindling and the price is climbing steeply. Authorities have been bracing for a withdrawal epidemic on reserves.

Const. Kyle Brend of the Nishnawbe-Aski Police force in Cat Lake said the spike in price for the drug has forced users to reconsider their habits — but not always for the better.

A full-strength pill can sell for about $1000 and a quarter-dose for about $250. When a supply would come into the community, users would scour their houses for possessions to sell, hit up their relatives for cash, raid their savings, or gamble for cash, Brend said. There’s a bit less of the door-to-door scavenging for drug money of late.

“You sell a digital camera for $60. You sell a couple things like that, you have money. It’s getting harder nowadays with the prices.”

Instead, addicts are looking for other ways to get high.

Rumours and Internet chatter about how to abuse the new version of Oxycontin — called OxyNEO — abound. Health workers suspect increased usage of cocaine and especially morphine. Brend sees evidence of more booze, even though Cat Lake, like many reserves in the area, is supposed to be dry.

“Now it seems there’s a lot of drinking to offset what they’re not getting in the pills.”

The police are cracking down as best they can on contraband. But even though Cat Lake has only one entry point — the airport — now that the winter road has melted, the community has only ever ejectedone person for dealing, Brend recalls.

The pills are easy to hide — in pockets, packages, even inside diapers or the lining of clothing. The entire community knows who is dealing, including the chief and council as well as the police, but authorities never catch them in the act because they are protected by tight-knit family and friends.
Half of adults in North Caribou Lake struggle with addiction

In North Caribou Lake, another northwestern Ontario community struggling with addictions, a 20-something dealer stands out in the street in broad daylight, surrounded by a small group of band members. He melts away when anyone in authority casts a wary eye.

So instead of focusing on crime and punishment, community leaders focus on healing the addicted and convincing any remaining non-users to stay clean.

“STOP NOW!” reads item number 8 on the children’s list. “We want you to get help and get better.”

Help on that front is on the way, but ever so slowly, and in small doses. Stopping right now is far easier said than done.

In North Caribou Lake, where about half the adults are addicted, the local nursing station is not yet set up with the medical treatment program that many health authorities believe is the most effective way to kick oxy addictions. The medical treatment, Suboxone, mitigates the horrible withdrawal symptoms. But the recovery program takes weeks and requires health authorities to monitor the patients very closely.

Many reserves in the region can only administer Suboxone in rare cases, under specific circumstances. The nurses in charge of the day-to-day health of remote communities aren’t empowered to set up full-fledged treatment programs. That’s changing, but ever so gradually.

In Sioux Lookout — a short flight to the south of Cat Lake and North Caribou Lake — the hospital just added a five-bed unit for mental health. The unit has quickly turned into an oxy treatment centre. But with thousands of addicts in the region, the beds are always full and the wait list is growing longer, now standing at four months.

In Cat Lake, Health Canada and band administrators are scrambling to start a Suboxone program that will combine a land-based recovery.

They had trouble finding space for a recovery centre, since housing and infrastructure are in severe short supply. They plan to convert an old building near the band office into a respite where Suboxone can be administered and patients can be monitored closely for a week.

Then, the recovering addicts will be sent out into the bush, with few supplies except the very basics. For several weeks, under the eye of a health professional, they’ll set up camp, hunt, fish, soak in nature, and — hopefully — conquer their addictions.

The first intake of three people starts on April 30. The waiting list has 15 names on it. But it should have hundreds, says health director Valerie Spence.

Still, it’s something.

“It’s a relief actually. I can breathe,” says Spence. “It was really hard seeing my family, my friends, all getting sick. I have a niece, she went to withdraw for about two weeks. I saw first-hand how it can effect people. She used to be normal. She’s not the same any more…..She lost herself, I would say. She’s slowly coming back.”

But down in Sioux Lookout, the co-medical director of the First Nations Health Authority is not breathing any sigh of relief. Dr. Claudette Chase despairs over the lack of comprehensive plan that would, she believes, treat more people and prevent so many relapses.

Recovering addicts need a “seamless service”, not just in regional centres, but in their own communities so that the help they receive stands a chance of sticking.

“We’ve got the Cadillac service for three weeks, and (then) often people drop off the face of the earth, to nothing.”

Some recovering addicts from Cat Lake seek out family and friend support in other communities so that they don’t have to go back to the oxy-dominated society of their home reserve. But Chase has come to expect relapse.

“Most patients who have left the unit, not all, but most of them who didn’t go on maintenance have eventually relapsed. Because often they go home, and the communities are trying very hard to build support services but it’s early stages,” she said.

Canadians need to ask themselves, however, why they and their governments are so willing to fund and support heart surgery or hospitalization for drug addicts in their final days, but won’t embrace what’s needed to control the crisis, she added.

“I do think that’s an important question for us to ask ourselves. Why is this happening? Why won’t we take this on? Because it is so far from rocket science,” she said.

“It would be great to see Health Canada jump in with both feet.”

That way, Chase said, the parents would stand a chance of making good on Item Number 11 of the children’s list: “Please go for treatment and get HEALTHY!”

February 15, 2012

Presented to:

Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs

By:

DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK OF CANADA
4438 West 10th Avenue, Suite 178
Vancouver, BC V6R 4R8
(604) 731-2425

Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Re: Bill C-10
Amendments to Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA)
Part 2, Clauses 32-33, 39-48, and 50-51

Illicit drug use imposes tremendous economic and social costs on society in the form of health care, enforcement, loss of productivity in the workplace and at home, disability and death of addicts.

According to Antonio Mario Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), however, legal controls on drug use have been highly successful.[i] This is contrary to some claims, based solely on ideology, that prohibition does not work. The latter is an incorrect assumption.

One has only to analyze the results of prohibition in the US between 1920 and 1933. Alcohol consumption declined dramatically during prohibition, noted by the large decrease in cirrhosis deaths (29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929). Admissions to State mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928. Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct declined by 50%.[ii]

For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30% to 50%. That is, prohibition did not end alcohol use, but it did succeed by reducing by one-third the consumption of a product that had wide historical and popular sanction.[iii] In contrast, the use of marijuana, heroin and other controlled drugs have never been a widely accepted activity in the US or in Canada.

Parliament’s Role to Determine Appropriate Sentences

It is Parliament’s role to advise courts and judges across the country, so that offenders are led to understand the severity of the offences they commit. This objective can be achieved, inter alia, by mandatory minimum sentences. Unfortunately, the application of judicial discretion in sentencing does not always achieve this objective. It is detrimental to the interests of the Canadian public to rely solely on judicial discretion in sentencing, as it can lead to a loss of confidence and faith in the criminal justice system. This is due to the fact that, regretfully, judicial discretion does not necessarily mean the application of common sense by judges when sentencing. In fact, judges, when sentencing, have frequently failed to balance the objectives of denunciation and general deterrence, with their desire for rehabilitation of the offender. This has led, in all too many instances, to a chaotic sentencing regime for offences, especially in regard to marijuana grow ops and marijuana possession. That is, operators of grow-ops all too frequently are given minimum fines, and this “slap on the wrist” approach is regarded by the offenders as merely the cost of doing business, and in no way serves as a deterrent. According to The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Report (2009) on the illicit drug situation in Canada, domestically produced marijuana continues to provide a source of considerable profit for Canadian based organized crime.[iv]

Similarly, possession of cannabis is regarded by some liberal judges, for personal ideological reasons, to be merely a minor offence. Consequently, in exercising their “discretion”, they have mostly handed down sentences of probation only.[v]

According to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (July 2007), Canada has the highest proportion of marijuana users in the industrialized world, reaching 16.8% of those between 15 and 64 years of age. Cannabis offences rose 13% in Canada between 2009-2010.[vi] The lenient sentencing (probation only) for cannabis possession has led to a public perception that marijuana use does not cause harm. Well-informed individuals should understand, however, that marijuana is not a harmless drug. In fact, there are many, many studies indicating the contrary. Please refer to our website https://dpnoc.org/, under the heading, Drug Facts, Marijuana and http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/marijuanainfo for studies on harm caused by marijuana use.

Drug Courts

There are, at present, only six drug courts in Canada. This is in contrast to literally thousands of such drug courts in the USA.

Drug courts provide non-violent drug users with the option of obtaining treatment in lieu of conviction. That is, these courts provide a window of opportunity for the addict to obtain treatment, which the addict may not otherwise consider. It is significant that, whether the treatment is undertaken voluntarily, or by way of a court order, the rate of success remains the same.

It is significant that in the USA, 75% of drug court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program.[vii]; [viii] The National Crime Prevention Centre also reports that there is a significant decrease in drug use and drug related crimes for those who complete the court designated program[ix]. However, it is troubling that apparently only 14% of the participants of court-supervised treatment in Canada actually complete such programs.[x] Therefore, strategies are urgently required to encourage participants to complete treatment programs, as well as to greatly increase the number of drug courts established across this country in order to assist drug addicts.

[i] The Observer September 5, 2010 (UK)

[ii] US Drug Enforcement Administration Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization online at www.dea.gov, page 9.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Report on the Illicit Drug Situation in Canada- 2009.

[v] Dauvergne, “Trends in police-reported drug offences in Canada,” Juristat, Vol. 29, No 2, May 2009.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Roman et al, the Urban Institute and Caliber, “Recidivism Rates for Drug Court Graduates: Nationally Based Estimate-Final Report,” Washington D.C., 2003.

[viii] Department of Justice, Backgrounder (2 June 2005).

[ix] Public Safety Canada, National Crime Prevention Centre, Building the Evidence – Evaluation Summaries, “Drug Treatment Court of Vancouver (DTCV),” 2008-ES-18.

[x] Ibid.

The following article is written by Gwen Landolt, the retiring President of The Drug Prevention Network of Canada. This piece will be published in the January edition of the REAL Women voice, REALity.

Chuck Doucette has been elected the new President of DPNC.

THE COURTS MEDDLING ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Courts’ meddling on issues about which they are not properly informed has caused chaos.  There is no better example of this than the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to legalize marijuana for medical purposes.

In 2000, in the case Regina vs Parker, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered that marijuana used for medical purposes was a constitutional right, even though there was little evidence introduced to support this conclusion.  It was simply an ideological decision made by activist judges.

Marijuana for Medical Purposes Not Justified

Medical literature is replete with hundreds of studies about the physical and emotional harm that can result from this plant.  Recent studies reveal that psychosis, a severe form of mental illness, is much higher in people who begin using marijuana at or before 15 years of age.  Amotivational syndrome (characterized by a person who has no initiative, no drive and no energy) is well documented in people who use this drug regularly.  Increased problems with depression and anxiety have also been documented.  The same dose that “works” today won’t work forever and increased amounts are needed to obtain the same effect.  This is what defines chemical dependence.

The tar and carcinogens in smoked marijuana are just as dangerous as in cigarettes or even worse, since many cigarettes have filters.  Marijuana smoke is an irritant to the lining of the nose and lungs, which can cause chronic cough, sinus irritation and lung diseases, such as emphysema and lung dysplasia.  Decreased testosterone in males and altered menstrual cycles in females are other adverse effects.  The brain is also affected negatively, with a decrease in both the memory capacity and the ability to think, along with an increase in seizure risk.  Slowed reaction times are also clear consequences of marijuana use and can have significant detrimental effects on driving skills.

With such harmful effects, the question then arises whether it is worth these risks to allow marijuana for medical reasons. Unfortunately, the current data on the medical use of marijuana are very limited and what little there are available, indicate that it is not usually effective for pain relief, as claimed by advocates.

In addition, there are no standardized dosages as well as no standards of concentration of the plant or its purity. All in all, the use of marijuana for medical purposes was not a reasonable decision for the Ontario court to make. The Ontario Courts, therefore, were way off base in ordering marijuana’s availability for medical treatment.  So, what else is new with judicially active Ontario courts?

The Obtuse Allan Rock, Liberal Minister of Health

Instead of appealing this nonsensical and dangerous court decision, the then Liberal Minister of Health, Allan Rock, eagerly set about authorizing access to marijuana for medical use, by amending the regulations, and also by establishing a federal government operated marijuana grow-op, in an abandoned copper mine, in Flin Flon, MB. This was a disaster.  There was no consistency in the quality of the marijuana produced, and the smokers refused to buy the government’s product.  Canada, by the way, is the only government in the world that produced its own marijuana for sale.

As a consequence of the marijuana users refusing to buy the government’s marijuana, the government issued licenses to the marijuana users to grow their own marijuana, or to allow someone else to grow it for them.  The licensees, however, had to first obtain a physician’s certificate indicating the medical need for the marijuana.

This led to a new legal challenge in the Ontario Superior Court by a marijuana user, who was unable to obtain the required physician’s authorization to grow his own marijuana.

On April 13, 2011, the Superior Court of Ontario, declared the medical marijuana program was unconstitutional because the government’s system to supply medical marijuana was ineffective.  The government appealed this decision and the appeal is to be heard in the Ontario Court of Appeal in March 2012.

In the meantime, Health Canada has come up with yet another system of providing medical marijuana.  The Minister of Health, Leona Aglukkaq, announced, in June 2011, that the current system of allowing medical marijuana users to grow their own or have someone else grow it for them had become dangerous. These growers do not follow local electrical, health and safety by-laws. Further, there were so many licenses to grow marijuana,  that it was virtually impossible for municipalities to know who was licensed, and whether the licensed growers were conforming to the conditions of the license.  As a result, Ms. Aglukkaq’s new rules provide that medical marijuana patients will be required to obtain a document from their doctor, authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.  This document will then be presented only to a government licensed commercial grower of marijuana.

Doctors Refuse to Cooperate with the new Government Plan

The 75,000 members of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), however, announced that they would have nothing to do with this plan.  The CMA stated that its refusal to participate is due to the fact that marijuana is an untested and unregulated substance about which most physicians know little or nothing.

The fact is that marijuana has never gone through the normal regulatory review process and this has made physicians wary of its use for medicinal purposes. Physicians also fear being exposed to legal action and becoming a “go-to” source for people seeking marijuana, not to alleviate their pain, but rather, to alter their consciousness.

No drug company wishes to evaluate smoked marijuana as a medicine, as there is no money in it for them.  Similarly, funding agencies refuse to become involved with this problem, as they don’t see smoking marijuana as a safe, viable drug delivery system.  For these reasons, “medical” marijuana has not been endorsed by any of the major medical societies i.e., Canadian Medical Association, the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Osteopathic Association (A0A), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

Marijuana users want to smoke it – and are using the medical approach to achieve this so as to normalize its use. They are assisted in this objective by the politically activist judges on the Ontario courts.

Do you believe in the goals of abstinence-based Prevention and Treatment?

If so, we want you to become a full-fledged Member of the DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK OF CANADA.

Our reasons for wanting you to join are simple.

It’s a numbers game.

Governments and private funders in communities across Canada are investing enormous amounts of money in approaches to drug problems that do NOT encourage or support abstinence-based Prevention and Treatment.

The DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK OF CANADA is a small organization with an even smaller budget, and it is not our goal to become a large organization with a big bank account.

But we are rapidly becoming the strongest and clearest voice for clean and sober Prevention and Treatment programs in the media, in communities and in Parliament and local government.

Please join us and become part of that growing voice that calls for more support for solutions that really work.

Please fill in our application form  Download our membership application here. and send it back to us by mail or email. If you are an organization, we ask that you contribute $200 for one year. If are an individual, please include $50 for one year.

You will have a vote at our Annual General Meeting, and you will be sent our website and blog regularly where your comments, thoughts and Prevention and Treatment stories will be published if you share them with us. You will be invited to attend conferences and participate whole-heartedly in the issues at hand.

Most importantly, you will become another crucial voice in support of abstinence-based Prevention and Treatment. Your voice will be central in helping more men, women and children avoid or escape the indignities of a life in addictions.

Four former Vancouver City Mayors have recently seized the headlines with a letter demanding that we legalize marijuana. Last night, the current mayor followed suit in a well-thought-out, less than 140 characters, Twitter statement.

The second is a position paper by the International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy.

Marijuana: Is legalization the answer?

I am sure you have heard the well spoken, practiced media lines of those who would like you to believe that we would all be better off if we legalized marijuana. There are several groups with slightly different messages. Some want to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes only, some want to legalize it for adults only, yet others want to legalize it for everyone. Together they get their message across often and for some reason it seems like the majority in the media support them. Unfortunately, the average person hears these messages often and after awhile they start to think they sound reasonable. Here is a list of some of the most common statements.

1. They say they would legalize and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco.
2. They say they would tax the sale of legal marijuana and use all the tax money for treatment and other programs.
3. They say they would control the purity of marijuana sold at the legal store.
4. They say legalization would get rid of Organized Crime.
5. They say legalization would eliminate the illegal marijuana grow operations.
6. They say less young people would use it, if it was legal.
7. They say less young people would get a criminal record for possession, if it was legal.
8. They say alcohol (and/or tobacco) is legal, why not marijuana.
9. They say the laws cause more harm to people than the use of marijuana.

Do these statements sound reasonable? Would it work? How do we know? The decision making model used in the new D.A.R.E. Program, teaches our children that it is important to take time to consider the potential consequences of our actions before we make a decision to do something. Thus, before we decide to change the laws with respect to marijuana, we should consider the potential consequences. To help in that process, I have listed a few questions under each of these headings that I think need to be addressed.

First, you can start by asking one very basic question. Ask them to show you how they are going to stop children from using alcohol and tobacco. They have both been legal and regulated for years, yet they are used by more children than any of the illegal drugs and continue to cause more deaths and other costs to society than all the illegal drugs combined. You will find that they don’t have all the answers. They are big on opinions but short on facts to back them up.

Dr. Robert Gilkeson, a noted child and adolescent neuropsychiatrist, addresses this issue in the following statement: “The toxic properties of chemical molecules and their cellular damage are not matters of opinion or debate. They are not determined by adolescent servicemen, or by scientifically uneducated lawyers, legislators, judges, or doctors without the facts. We cannot vote for or against the ‘toxicity’ of a drug. How much a drug impairs cell structure or chemical function is neither subject to nor governed by congressional committee, public referendum, or the federal constitution. Everyone is entitled to his own ‘opinion’. He is not entitled to his own ‘facts’. Chemically, marijuana is a far more dangerous drug than most of the scientifically ignorant media and American consumer have been duped into believing.”

1. If they say they would legalize and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco, ask them:

• Would it be legal for everyone?
• Who wouldn’t it be legal for?
• What laws/regulations would you have regarding those who couldn’t legally buy it?
• How would you enforce those laws/regulations?
• Where would you allow legal marihuana to be sold?
• What laws/regulations would you have to control where and how it is sold?
• How would you enforce those laws/regulations?
• How would your new laws/regulations regarding the sale of legal marijuana be different than the present laws/regulations in place regarding the sale of alcohol and tobacco?
• Have the present laws/regulations concerning alcohol and tobacco been effective in eliminating the harms associated with the use of these two substances?
• Why would it be different for marijuana?
• Where would you get the marijuana to sell in your store?
• What laws/regulations would be in place for the legal suppliers?
• How would you enforce those new laws/regulations?
• Would people be allowed to grow their own?
• Would people be allowed to grow it for friends?

2. If they say they would tax the sale of legal marihuana and use all the tax money for treatment and other programs, ask them:
• If you added a tax on it, could you sell it for less than what organized crime charges?
• If organized crime still sold it cheaper, why would anyone buy from your legal store?
• If you tried to undersell organized crime, how much tax would you be able to collect?
• Would you collect enough tax money to offset the social and economic costs (health, treatment, prevention, enforcement of the new laws/regulations, administration, etc)
• How would this be different than it is now for alcohol and tobacco where the taxes collected are far less than the measurable social and economic costs?

3. If they say they would control the purity of marihuana sold at the legal store, ask them:
• What THC level would you allow to be sold?
• What information would you use to determine what the THC level should be?
• What laws/regulations would you have to control the purity level?
• How would you enforce these new laws/regulations?
• What if someone wanted a higher THC level than your store sells?
• Why would people stop buying from their usual dealer?

4. If they say legalization would get rid of Organized Crime, ask them:
• Would you make it legal for Organized Crime to sell it?
• Why would they stop selling it?
• How would you make them stop selling it (what would be different than now)?
• Would it be legal for Organized Crime to grow it?
• If not, how would you stop them from growing it?
• When you say (alcohol) prohibition failed, what failed?
– alcohol related medical problems were at an all time low during prohibition.
• Did Organized Crime go away when we legalized alcohol?
• What would be different if you legalized marijuana?
-we now have even more organized criminal groups and they still make money selling alcohol, as well as, many other legal products like tobacco, guns, stolen property, stolen ID, counterfeit money and fake trademarked merchandise, etc.
• What about the other drugs that Organized Crime sells (heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc) would you legalize them too?

5. If they say legalization would eliminate the illegal marijuana grow operations, ask them:
• Why would those who are currently growing it, stop (refer to questions in previous sections)?
• Even if you were able to supply the same quality at a cheaper price in your legal stores, why would they stop growing it for export to other countries?
• How would the present dangers concerning grow operations change under your new laws/regulations?

6. If they say less young people would use it, if it was legal, ask them:
• What age would you make it legal for kids to buy marijuana from your store?
• What laws/regulations would you have to keep kids under that age from buying it?
• How would you enforce these new laws/regulations?
• How would legalizing marijuana change the perceived risk of smoking it?
– several studies have shown that as the perceived risk goes down, use goes up.
• How would making it legal to sell to adults lead to less use by youth?
• How would making it legal for adults to possess lead to less use by youth?
• Would legal marijuana be less addictive for youth?
-there are more youth in treatment for addiction to marihuana than for all other drugs combined (including alcohol).
• Why would legal marijuana be any different than alcohol and tobacco?
– now more kids use alcohol and tobacco than marijuana.

7. If they say less young people would get a criminal record for possession, ask them:
• How would this differ from the present Young Offenders Act which already prevents young people (under 18) from getting a criminal record?
• What laws/regulation would you have in place concerning the amount a person was allowed to have in their possession for personal use?
-the present law allows for 30 grams, which is approx. 90-120 cigarettes.
• How would you enforce these new laws/regulations?
• How would you prevent young people from selling marijuana to other young people? (assuming their was an age limit for buying it legally)

8. If they say alcohol (and/or tobacco) is legal, why not marijuana, ask them:
• Would you suggest alcohol is the model we should use for marijuana?
– alcohol use kills about 9,000 people per year in Canada.
• How would you keep marijuana use from going up the way alcohol use went up after prohibition ended?
• What would you do to control driving while impaired by marijuana?
– would less people smoke and drive if it were legal?
• What about tobacco, did making it legal make it safe to smoke?
– tobacco use kills about 37,000 people per year in Canada.
– smoking marihuana is like mixing alcohol and tobacco together. It impairs like alcohol and causes cancer and respiratory problems like tobacco.
• How much marijuana can you smoke without getting high?
– you can drink a little alcohol without getting drunk, the whole point of smoking marijuana is to get high.
• Do we really want to make the same mistakes with marijuana that we made with alcohol and tobacco?
-shouldn’t our goal be to try and reduce the use and subsequent harms associated to all drugs (including alcohol)?

9. If they say the laws cause more harm than the marijuana, ask them:
• Will it help console distraught parents (whose children are smoking marijuana) to tell them, that marijuana is now legal?
– what do we tell those concerned parents who call when their children have dropped out of school, have no motivation and are getting into trouble because they are smoking marijuana?
• Would the problems related to young people smoking marijuana be any less if they smoked legal marijuana?
• Don’t we already have too many kids using marijuana, leading to all kinds of bad decisions regarding school, work, driving, safe sex and other problematic behavior?
– the more people that use, the more that end up having problems resulting from that use.

• Are they concerned about the use of other drugs, like crystal methamphetamine?
– there is a strong correlation between the use of marijuana and use of other drugs (like crystal meth), the more kids that smoke marijuana, the more that go on to use other drugs.
-if we want to stop kids from using meth (and other drugs), we need to get to them early, before they start to use marijuana and help them make good decisions to prevent or delay first use.
• What would they do to help prevent the harms to young people from smoking it?
– risk of harm is significantly higher for a maturing youth under age 21.
– a recent study from Dalhousie shows clearly that youth below grade ten do not understand harm reduction (how to use safely). At that age, they need help learning the skills and information that will help them decide not to use.
-saying marijuana never killed anyone is like saying tobacco never killed anyone. You can’t overdose from either but the effects of continued use can be deadly. We do not know enough about marijuana to say how much it takes, but we do know that it contains all the same carcinogens as tobacco. They may smoke less, but they inhale deeper and hold the smoke in their lungs longer.
• Would there be less accidents (auto, industrial and other) if marijuana were legal?
-marijuana, legal or not, impairs the ability to drive and when mixed with alcohol it is even more impairing than either by itself.
• Would there be any laws/regulations regarding the use of marijuana by people in safety sensitive areas (airline pilots, bus drivers, police officers, dentists, doctors, surgeons, etc.)?
• Would people make better decisions when high on legal marijuana than they do on illegal marijuana?
– marihuana use affects the ability to make good decisions. There are a lot of people in jail who admit they were high when they committed their offence and that they probably would not have committed the offence if they weren’t high. The more people smoking marijuana, the more bad decisions being made. Police don’t usually get calls to report someone who made a good decision…

Yes, I understand the frustration with the current situation and I agree that something has to change. However, when I ask the questions, I just don’t see the evidence to support legalization as the best choice. When I examine the potential consequences, I fail to see how that would lead to less problems for our children. There has to be a better choice!

Wouldn’t it be better to help our children make good decisions and resist the pressure to use marihuana, alcohol or tobacco? Rather than choosing to give up (legalizing), why don’t we try prevention? I mean get serious about it. Do it right!

Prevention does work, if you do it right. Some examples of effective prevention strategies that succeeded in changing social acceptance are the anti-smoking, drinking and driving, and seat belt campaigns. These comprehensive, long term (10+ years) strategies all reduced incidence and related harms. They all included an increase in penalties, a multitude of educational programs and consistent media messages, coordinated at both the national and provincial level.

In comparison, what have we done for drug prevention? We have a lack of coordination, very few educational programs, and nothing in the media to help young people learn the potential consequences of a decision to use drugs. Instead, we hear people talking about the benefits of legalizing marihuana and other drugs. Even some of our community leaders are calling for the legalization of marihuana. Is it any wonder some children are confused and making bad decisions?

We have never had a comprehensive long term drug prevention strategy in Canada (or a so called “War on Drugs”). Until we have had one, we cannot say that it has failed. Rather than giving up, lets start something! Let’s show them we care!

C.D. (Chuck) Doucette, Vice President
Drug Prevention Network of Canada
www.dpnoc.org

Drug Legalisation: An Evaluation of the Impacts on Global Society
An International Task Force on
Strategic Drug Policy
Position Statement
December 2011

The flawed proposition of drug legalisation

Various well funded pressure groups have mounted campaigns to overturn the United Nations Conventions on drugs. These groups claim that society should accept the fact of drugs as a problem that will remain and, therefore, should be managed in a way that would enable millions of people to take advantage of an alleged ‘legal right’ to use drugs of their choice.

It is important to note that international law makes a distinction between “hard law” and “soft law.” Hard law is legally binding upon the States. Soft law is not binding. UN Conventions, such as the Conventions on Drugs, are considered hard law and must be upheld by the countries who are members of the UN.

International narcotics legislation is mainly made up of the three UN Conventions from 1961 (Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs), 1971 (Convention on Psychotropic Substances), and 1988 (Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances):
• The 1961 Convention sets out that “the possession, use, trade in, distribution, import, export, manufacture and the production of drugs is exclusively limited to medical and scientific purposes”. Penal cooperation is to be established so as to ensure that drugs are only used licitly (for prescribed medical purposes).
• The 1971 Convention resembles closely the 1961 Convention, whilst establishing an international control system for Psychotropic Substances.
• The 1988 Convention reflects the response of the international community to increasing illicit cultivation, production, manufacture, and trafficking activities.

International narcotics legislation draws a line between licit (medical) and illicit (non-medical) use, and sets out measures for prevention of illicit use, including penal measures. The preamble to the 1961 Convention states that the parties to the Convention are “Recognizing that addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind”. The Conventions are reviewed every ten years and have consistently been upheld.

The UN system of drug control includes the Office of Drugs and Crime, the International Narcotics Control Board, and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The works of these bodies are positive and essential in international drug demand and supply reduction. They are also attacked by those seeking to legalise drugs.

It is frequently and falsely asserted that the so-called “War on Drugs” is inappropriate and has become a very costly and demonstrable failure. It is declared by some that vast resources have been poured into the prevention of drug use and the suppression of illicit manufacturing, trafficking, and supply. It is further claimed that what is essentially a chronic medical problem has been turned into a criminal justice issue with inappropriate remedies that make “innocent” people criminals. In short, the flawed argument is that “prohibition” monies have been wasted and the immeasurable financial resources applied to this activity would be better spent for the general benefit of the community.

The groups supporting legalisation are: people who use drugs, those who believe that the present system of control does more harm than good, and those who are keen to make significant profits from marketing newly authorised addictive substances. In addition to pernicious distribution of drugs, dealers circulate specious and misleading information. They foster the erroneous belief that drugs are harmless, thus adding to even more confused thinking.

Superficially crafted, yet pseudo-persuasive arguments are put forward that can be accepted by many concerned, well intentioned people who have neither the time nor the knowledge to research the matter thoroughly, but accept them in good faith. Frequently high profile people claim that legalisation is the best way of addressing a major social problem without cogent supporting evidence. This too influences others, especially the young, immature and ill informed who accept statements as being accurate and well informed. Through this ill-informed propaganda, people are asked to believe that such action would defeat the traffickers, take the profit out of the drug trade and solve the drug problem completely.

The total case for legalisation seems to be based on the assertion that the government assault on alleged civil liberties has been disastrously and expensively ineffective and counter-productive. In short, it is alleged, in contradiction to evidence, that prohibition has produced more costs than benefits and, therefore, the use of drugs on a personal basis should be permitted. Advocates claim that legalisation would eliminate the massive expenditure incurred by prohibition and would take the profit out of crime for suppliers and dealers. They further claim that it would decriminalise what they consider “understandable” human behaviour and thus prevent the overburdening of the criminal justice system that is manifestly failing to cope. It is further argued irrationally that police time would not be wasted on minor drug offences, the courts would be freed from the backlog of trivial cases and the prisons would not be used as warehouses for those who choose to use drugs, and the saved resources could be used more effectively.

Types of drug legalisation

The term “legalisation” can have any one of the following meanings:

1. Total Legalisation – All illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana would be legal and treated as commercial products. No government regulation would be required to oversee production, marketing, or distribution.

2. Regulated Legalisation – The production and distribution of drugs would be regulated by the government with limits on amounts that can be purchased and the age of purchasers. There would be no criminal or civil sanctions for possessing, manufacturing, or distributing drugs unless these actions violated the regulatory system. Drug sales could be taxed.

3. Decriminalization – Decriminalization eliminates criminal sanctions for drug use and provides civil sanctions for possession of drugs.

To achieve the agenda of drug legalisation, advocates argue for:
• legalising drugs by lowering or ending penalties for drug possession and use – particularly marijuana;
• legalising marijuana and other illicit drugs as a so-called medicine;
• harm reduction programmes such as needle exchange programmess, drug injection sites, heroin distribution to addicts, and facilitation of so-called safe use of drugs that normalize drug use, create the illusion that drugs can be used safely if one just knows how, and eliminates a goal of abstinence from drugs;
• legalised growing of industrial hemp;
• an inclusion of drug users as equal partners in establishing and enforcing drug policy; and
• protection for drug users at the expense and to the detriment of non-users under the pretense of “human rights.”

The problem is with the drugs and not the drug policies

Legalisation of current illicit drugs, including marijuana, is not a viable solution to the global drug problem and would actually exacerbate the problem.

The UN Drug Conventions were adopted because of the recognition by the international community that drugs are an enormous social problem and that the trade adversely affects the global economy and the viability of some countries that have become transit routes. The huge sums of illegal money generated by the drug trade encourage money laundering and have become inextricably linked with other international organised criminal activities such as terrorism, human trafficking, prostitution and the arms trade. Drug Lords have subverted the democratic governments of some countries to the great detriment of law abiding citizens.

Drug abuse has had a major adverse effect on global health and the spread of communicable diseases such as AIDS/HIV. Control is vitally important for the protection of communities against these problems.

There is international agreement in the UN Conventions that drugs should be produced legally under strict supervision to ensure adequate supplies only for medical and research purposes.
The cumulative effects of prohibition and interdiction combined with education and treatment during 100 years of international drug control have had a significant impact in stemming the drug problem. Control is working and one can only imagine how much worse the problem would have become without it. For instance:
• In 2007, drug control had reduced the global opium supply to one-third the level in 1907.
• During the last decade, world output of cocaine and amphetamines has stabilized; cannabis output has declined since 2004; and opium production has declined since 2008.

We, therefore, strongly urge nations to uphold and enhance current efforts to prevent the use, cultivation, production, traffic, and sale of illegal drugs. We further urge our leaders to reject the legalisation of currently illicit drugs as an acceptable solution to the world’s drug problem because of the following reasons:
• Only 6.1% of people globally between the ages of 15 and 64 use drugs (World Drug Report 2011 UNODC) and there is little public support for the legalisation of highly dangerous substances. Prohibition has ensured that the total number of users is low because legal sanctions do influence people’s behaviour.
• There is a specific obligation to protect children from the harms of drugs, as is evidenced through the ratification by the majority of United Nations Member States of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 33 states that Member States “shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances”.
• Legalisation sends the dangerous tacit message of approval, that drug use is acceptable and cannot be very harmful.
• Permissibility, availability and accessibility of dangerous drugs will result in increased consumption by many who otherwise would not consider using them.
• Enforcement of laws creates risks that discourage drug use. Laws clearly define what is legal and illegal and emphasise the boundaries.
• Legalisation would increase the risks to individuals, families, communities and world regions without any compensating benefits.
• Legalisation would remove the social sanctions normally supported by a legal system and expose people to additional risk, especially the young and immature.
• The legalisation of drugs would lead inevitably to a greater number of dependencies and addictions likely to match the levels of licit addictive substances. In turn, this would lead to increasing related morbidity and mortality, the spread of communicable diseases such as AIDS/HIV and the other blood bourne viruses exacerbated by the sharing of needles and drugs paraphernalia, and an increased burden on the health and social services.
• There would be no diminution in criminal justice costs as, contrary to the view held by those who support legalisation, crime would not be eliminated or reduced. Dependency often brings with it dysfunctional families together with increased domestic child abuse.
• There will be increases in drugged driving and industrial accidents.
• Drug Control is a safeguard protecting millions from the effects of drug abuse and addiction particularly, but not exclusively, in developing countries.
• Statements about taxation offsetting any additional costs are demonstrably flawed and this has been shown in the case of alcohol and tobacco taxes. Short of governments distributing free drugs, those who commit crime now to obtain them would continue to do so if they became legal.
• Legalisation would not take the profit out of the drug trade as criminals will always find ways of countering legislation. They would continue their dangerous activities including cutting drugs with harmful substances to maximise sales and profits. Aggressive marketing techniques, designed to promote increased sales and use, would be applied rigorously to devastating effect.
• Other ‘legal’ drugs – alcohol and tobacco, are regularly traded on the black market and are an international smuggling problem; an estimated 600 billion cigarettes are smuggled annually (World Drug report 2009). Taxation monies raised from these products go nowhere near addressing consequential costs.
• Many prisons have become incubators for infection and the spread of drug related diseases at great risk to individual prisoners, prison staff and the general public. Failure to eliminate drug use in these institutions exacerbates the problem.
• The prisons are not full of people who have been convicted for mere possession of drugs for personal use. This sanction is usually reserved for dealers and those who commit crime in the furtherance of their possession.
• The claim that alcohol and tobacco may cause more harm than some drugs is not a justification for legalising other dangerous substances. The pharmacology and pharmacokinetics of psychotropic substances suggest that more, not less, control of their access is warranted.
• Research regularly and increasingly demonstrates the harms associated with drug use and misuse. There is uncertainty, yet growing evidence, about the long-term detrimental effects of drug use on the physical, psychological and emotional health of substance users.
• It is inaccurate to suggest that the personal use of drugs has no consequential and damaging effects. Apart from the harm to the individual users, drugs affect others by addiction, violence, criminal behaviour and road accidents. Some drugs remain in the body for long periods and adversely affect performance and behaviour beyond the time of so-called ‘private’ use. Legalisation would not diminish the adverse effects associated with drug misuse such as criminal, irrational and violent behaviour and the mental and physical harm that occurs in many users.
• All drugs can be dangerous including prescription and over the counter medicines if they are taken without attention to medical guidance. Recent research has confirmed just how harmful drug use can be and there is now overwhelming evidence (certainly in the case of cannabis) to make consideration of legalisation irresponsible.
• The toxicity of drugs is not a matter for debate or a vote. People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Those who advocate freedom of choice cannot create freedom from adverse consequences.
• Drug production causes huge ecological damage and crop erosion in drug producing areas.
• Nearly every nation has signed the UN Conventions on drug control. Any government of signatory countries contemplating legalisation would be in breach of agreements under the UN Conventions which recognise that unity is the best approach to combating the global drug problem. The administrative burden associated with legalisation would become enormous and probably unaffordable to most governments. Legalisation would require a massive government commitment to production, supply, security and a bureaucracy that would necessarily increase the need for the employment at great and unaffordable cost for all of the staff necessary to facilitate that development.
• Any government policy must be motivated by the consideration that it must first do no harm. There is an obligation to protect citizens and the compassionate and sensible method must be to do everything possible to reduce drug dependency and misuse, not to encourage or facilitate it. Any failures in a common approach to a problem would result in a complete breakdown in effectiveness. Differing and fragmented responses to a common predicament are unacceptable for the wellbeing of the international community. It is incumbent on national governments to cooperate in securing the greatest good for the greatest number.

ISSUED this 21st day of December, 2011.

DPNC Director Al Arsenault shared with us this powerful and ugly story of how a controlled narcotic is marketed, sold and then re-distributed through criminal activity here in Canada. The piece was written by Tom Blackwell for the National Post.

Read it in its mind-boggling entirety HERE.

The Orchard Recovery Centre, who were well-represented by E.D. Lorinda Strang and Communications Director, AnnMarie McCullough, at our DPNC November 16th Conference held at Pacifica, have shared with us their latest newsletter. You can find the entire piece on our DPNC BLOG, listed under the menu heading, LINKS.

This is exactly the kind of sharing of information – especially great stories of Prevention and Treatment – that we welcome form all.