Canadian Senate Calls
for Study of Drug Policy
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/133.html#canadiansenate
By
unanimous vote, the Canadian Senate last week approved a
motion to create a
five-member special committee to reassess that
nation's drug policy.
Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who
introduced the motion, has said that his
intention is to move the
nation away from a criminal justice approach to
drugs and toward
a drug policy based upon public health which will "truly
reflect
the values of Canadian society." Committee members will
be
chosen shortly...
Senator Colin Kenny, in a statement in support of
the Senator
Nolin's motion, said "The Senate is the ideal institution
to
examine the whole problem of illegal drug use. The social
and
economic costs of the war on drugs constitute such a burden
for
Canadian society that we must reexamine the issue with
complete
objectivity. We hope to propose new avenues to the
government,
less expensive and above all more effective."...
"In 1996, Parliament undertook a half-baked study
which was very
restrictive in terms of the Order of Reference. That
report did
not, could not address core issues, and so its impact
was
minimal. This looks like an entirely different and
more
important opportunity. The timing too is important because
what
we are beginning to see in Canada is a political shift toward
more
fear-based, American-style campaigning. On the other hand,
there has
developed in Canada a profound sense of unease with
regard to our
prohibitionist drug policy. Crime, corruption and
health problems have
made it increasingly apparent to most
Canadians that what we are doing in the
name of drug control
simply is not working. The idea of abandoning
prohibition,
therefore, is one for which we are seeing greater
acceptance,
even among the most conservative Canadians." said
Eugene
Oscapella of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy
To access the Order of Reference on the web,
visit
http://www.parl.gc.ca then click on
English, then on Parliament
Business, then on Chamber Business, then on
Journals, then on
Senate, then on April 11, and scroll to pg.
4.
================