NCJ Number
170578
Date Published
1998
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Although there is significant support in Canada for drug policies that reflect a medical model of the problem, the laws that are enacted will continue to reflect the prohibition model, largely because of the diplomatic and political influence of the United States in promoting the prohibition model.
Abstract
Canada's modernized prohibition drug law embodied in Bill C- 8 will largely defy central principles of public health, rational pharmacology, and a cost-effective response to issues of drug use, drug markets, and related social and health problems. It will also ignore the drug policy lessons that other nations such as Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany have learned regarding the efficacy and negative spillover effects of legal repression on public health, safety, and the cost- effectiveness of public policy within the last decade. The reasons for Canada's unsuccessful efforts of law reform in incorporating the medical model of drug abuse include the strong diplomatic pressure of American prohibition ideology. Although many Canadian politicians and even an increasing number of law enforcement officials are criticizing current prohibition practices, a major and formal move away from criminal drug-use repression would have to be launched against enormous American pressure and sanctions. The current Canadian developments regarding drug policy also bear witness to the reality that the political governance of psychoactive substances reflects institutional interests, bureaucratic inertia, and political scapegoating, especially in socially, economically, and politically unstable times. 1 note