ReconsiDer Tidbits

 

U.S. says jump, we say how high?

Canada's justice minister, Anne McLellan, lets Washington dictate
Canadian drug policy

Canadian Press / America's 'War on Drugs' has failed even to curb
drug use in the U.S., but Canadian Justice Minister Anne McLellan
vows to press on.

Any Canadian who has ever wondered just who is in charge of this
country's policy on illegal drugs got a clear answer from Justice
Minister Anne McLellan last week: The government of the United
States is in charge, that's who.

Naturally, Ms. McLellan didn't say this in so many words: that much
honesty would be awkward. But for those familiar with the
international War on Drugs, events last week allow no other
interpretation.

On the surface, here's what happened: The International Narcotics
Control Board, a 13-member United Nations body set up to monitor
compliance with international treaties banning drugs, issued its
2000 report. The report, while lauding Canadian police for various
drug busts, criticized Canada for not doing enough to enforce the
ban on production of drugs such as ecstasy. It was even more pointed
in criticizing Canada's failure to crush the flourishing marijuana
trade. The fault for that, the INCB claimed, lies not with diligent
police but liberal judges who give marijuana growers and sellers
"too-lenient" sentences. The INCB singled out British Columbia as a
sort of Holland-on-the-Pacific, a province awash in pot thanks to
liberal judges.

In contrast to its critical words for Canada, the INCB was
unstinting in its praise of American drug policies. (Curiously, the
report didn't mention the half-million people in American jails for
drug offences, or the record number of drug-related deaths, or the
fact that on American streets drugs are cheaper, purer and more
available than ever.)

The Canadian government, having been accused of shirking its
soldierly duties in the War on Drugs, snapped to attention. "It's
clear that we can do more and we must do more," Anne McLellan said.
"We're going to put more resources toward that. Certainly we as a
government are seized with the issue."

Ms. McLellan's response -- yes sir, how high shall I jump? -- may
look innocent enough to a casual observer. An international body
charged with overseeing laws that Canada signed said we're not
living up to our obligations, and the Canadian government responded
by promising to do better. That looks co-operative and reasonable.

That image is shattered, however, when one realizes that the INCB is
little more than the mouthpiece of the American government.

That the INCB is something of a toady to Washington D.C. --
faithfully enforcing the severe American interpretations of
international drug laws -- is something international experts
emphasized to me while I did research for a series of articles about
drugs last year.

The INCB is little more than the mouthpiece of the American government.

One such expert was a former UN official who held very senior posts
in drug policy for many years. American drug officials, this person
insisted, were zealots who used the INCB -- and many other pressure
tactics -- to ensure other countries toed the American line on the
drug war. The former official insisted on anonymity for fear
American officials could sabotage this person's career.

Of course, these accusations might be dismissed as intramural
griping -- were it not for the fact that the INCB has in the past
been seen behaving like a wing of the U.S. State Department.

As I related in my series last fall, Australia in 1996 considered
trying a small-scale "heroin-maintenance" trial -- in which heroin
addicts would be given clean heroin to see if this would stabilize
their lives enough to help them ultimately kick their habit. The
U.S. government is adamantly opposed to any such notion and it
dispatched a high-level official from the State Department to talk
with an Australian committee examining the idea. The U.S. official
noted that Australia had an opium-growing industry in the poor state
of Tasmania, an industry licensed by the UN. He also noted, as
recalled later by a participant in the meeting, that if the UN "were
to decide that Australia were not a reliable country, that of course
that industry could be at risk." And who is it that could make the
decision to yank the Australian opium licence? The INCB.

Nonetheless, that Australian committee, and every other body of
health officials and law enforcers that examined the issue,
recommended the trial go ahead. But the opium industry was spooked
and, together with the Tasmanian government, lobbied the prime
minister to reject the trial. He did.

More recently, Australia has worked on the idea of a "safe-injection
site" for heroin addicts. The INCB, as always, interpreted the
international treaties in the manner favoured by the U.S. government
and concluded this would be in violation of the treaties. The INCB
threatened Australia with the loss of its opium licence. It was the
same old threat, but this time it was made publicly --something the
INCB can do thanks to its aura of international impartiality.

Canada has its own reason to question the relationship between the
U.S. government and the INCB. A year ago, the U.S. State Department
issued its annual report on the drug situation around the world. In
its assessment of Canada, the State Department eerily foreshadowed
the INCB report of last week. While the State Department praised
Canadian police, it attacked Canadian judges for handing out what it
considered soft sentences. It also criticized police funding as
inadequate and presented the Holland-on-the-Pacific picture of
British Columbia (The report also misspelled the province as
"British Colombia," which was either a clever jibe or, more likely,
an indication of the author's knowledge about this country.)

For a meddling superpower, this blunt, public criticism isn't
especially constructive ...

For a meddling superpower, this sort of blunt, public criticism
isn't especially constructive since the U.S. is, well, a meddling
superpower. And that rankles. Robert Metzger, chief judge of the
B.C. provincial courts, was so incensed he publicly chided the
Americans. "They don't seem to have a handle on their own problems,"
he told The Vancouver Sun. "I don't see why they should be
criticizing us for ours." The federal government conspicuously said
nothing.

But what the U.S. government cannot do without causing offence, the
INCB can. Thus, the sorry spectacle last week. The INCB simply
repeated American criticisms of Canada while lauding American
policies. But the INCB attacks, far from offending Canadians,
produced Anne McLellan's immediate promise to polish Canada's boots
and get marching in the War on Drugs.

Why the federal government reacted so differently to the State
Department and INCB criticisms is no mystery. For the Canadian
government to be seen acting in thoughtless obedience to American
diktats on drug policy would insult Canadian democracy, belittle
Canadian sovereignty and tick off a lot of Canadian voters who cling
to the idealistic notion that Canadian policies should be decided in
Canada. But the government's thoughtless obedience to the INCB's
diktats is, to all appearances, a happy demonstration of
international co-operation. That the orders in both cases are the
same, and ultimately come from the same people in Washington D.C.,
is mere trivia: This is politics, my fellow Canadians, and in
politics appearance is everything.

For Canadians who expect homegrown rationality in their public
policy, this confirmation that drug policy is being drafted in
Washington D.C. was depressing enough. But further events last week
made the government's display of spinelessness all the more wretched.

First, a committee of the European Parliament adopted a report on
drug use that came to a blunt conclusion: "Legal sanctions against
drug possession and use appear to have no effect whatsoever." The
report recommends European nations press ahead in the direction many
have already taken -- treating drug use as a matter for health
professionals, not police officers. That means making the use and
possession of small amounts of drugs de facto legal while
concentrating resources on health and social programs to reduce the
harms of drug abuse.

And what might that do to rates of drug use? The answer to that was
answered in part by another event last week. At a conference in
Stockholm, the World Health Organization released a major
international survey of teenagers' drug use that found 41 per cent
of American teens had used marijuana or hashish, compared to just 16
per cent of European teens. Sixteen per cent of American teens had
used amphetamines and 10 per cent had used LSD -- compared to 6 per
cent of European teens that had used any illegal drug aside from
marijuana. It was just the latest evidence that the United States,
after all its vast spending and punitive drug laws, has the highest
rate of teen drug use in the world.

Thus, last week not only saw a Canadian minister cravenly take
marching orders from Washington D.C. It also saw further proof that
the orders coming from the American capital are both useless and
destructive. For Canadians who still hope their government may one
day abandon dogma and craft a drug policy based on reason and
evidence, it was an ugly week indeed.

Dan Gardner is a senior writer with the Citizen.