Controversy at UN-backed drug conference

From UN-backed drug conference criticized by some participants for focus on harm reduction

...Keeping the Door Open, a Vancouver-based organization that promotes dialogue on drug use, also cohosted the conference. Chair Gillian Maxwell shared Reist’s enthusiasm.

“It seems the majority of the people in the room think it’s impossible to prevent drug use, and, therefore, you get the war on drugs, which is a war on people,” Maxwell said.

She maintained those who can use drugs responsibly should be able to do so without fear of persecution. Money spent on enforcement and punishment could be better spent on prevention and treatment, Maxwell said.

But Alcohol-Drug Education Service’s Judi Lalonde told the Straight that Maxwell’s argument of harm reduction was one made too many times at the Vancouver conference.

“Representation from the groups for legalization are probably about 95 percent, to possibly 5 percent in the area of prevention,” Lalonde claimed, speaking from the conference. “I’m quite disappointed with the whole process of the last few days.”

Lalonde said that she also attended a Beyond 2008 conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, in January, and that it was very different from Vancouver’s.

While Florida’s event “allowed for a real dialogue from a balanced perspective”, Lalonde continued, Vancouver’s “became a forum for lobbyists and activists”...

 

From 80% of Drug Policy Experts Oppose the Drug War

...What happens when a diverse group of drug policy experts from throughout North America convene to discuss solutions to the world drug problem? They begin by agreeing that the drug war must end.

Beyond 2008 is a worldwide forum sponsored by the United Nations to solicit expert testimony evaluating the UN's international drug strategy. The north American conference, which just concluded in Vancouver, brought together an impressive coalition of AIDS organizations, public health groups, human rights advocates, treatment specialists, former police officers, substance abuse researchers, academics, government officials, and others.

Perhaps unintentionally, the UN had created an unprecedented opportunity for a broad coalition of interested parties to articulate their consensus that the time for drug policy reform has come.

As long as the U.S-style "war on drugs" continues, criminals will control what drugs are sold, how much they cost, how deadly those drugs are, and how young their customers will be.

That was the message delivered yesterday by Jack Cole, a retired New Jersey police officer who spent 26 years making arrests in connection with "billions of dollars in cocaine and heroin" as well as other drugs. [The Province]

Surprised to find themselves outnumbered and outclassed, the drug warriors in attendance struggled to retain their composure. Some failed:

Cole was heckled outside the conference by Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former Republican speechwriter who is now with Florida's Project Sundial (Supporting United Nations Drug Initiatives and Legislation)...

 

 

From U.S.-style war on drugs a dismal failure and Canada shouldn't try it, says former cop

...As long as the U.S-style "war on drugs" continues, criminals will control what drugs are sold, how much they cost, how deadly those drugs are, and how young their customers will be.

That was the message delivered yesterday by Jack Cole, a retired New Jersey police officer who spent 26 years making arrests in connection with "billions of dollars in cocaine and heroin" as well as other drugs.

"The war on drugs in the U.S. has been a dismal failure," said Cole, the founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

He was speaking at Beyond 2008, a United Nations global forum at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University's downtown campus.

Cole said delegates should urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper not to make the mistake of following the hardline U.S. drug "prohibition and punishment" stance.

The U.S. war on drugs has cost on average $69 billion a year for the past 35 years and led to 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offences, said Cole.

"Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill-spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent and easier to get than they were 35 years ago and more people are dying in the streets at the hands of drug barons," said Cole, who claims LEAP has 10,000 members, including cops, judges and probation and parole officers...