Our society has, based on mythology and misinformation, accepted and supported the demonization of certain drugs and the consequent dehumanization of drug users and abusers.

The average Canadian's image of a drug user is that of dangerous young man who will rob them to obtain money to buy drugs, or a female prostitute spreading disease and delivering "crack babies" as a result of enslavement to drugs. These misconceptions are the enduring and erroneous foundations of drug prohibition. (1)

Even today, almost a century after the federal government outlawed opium to punish Chinese immigrants, public attitudes toward the dangerousness of drugs are shaped by ignorance of their impact and by mistaken prejudices regarding their users. (2,3,4) These are the same prejudices and irrationalities that originally led to the criminal prohibition of certain drugs. Drug laws can be viewed as racist: the white man's nicotine and alcohol legal, while the Mexican's cannabis and Chinese' opium are illegal.

It is glaringly hypocritical of us to criminalize illicit drug users to protect public health while we collect taxes on the most harmful recreational substances, alcohol and tobacco.

Drug laws are unevenly enforced. Statistics compiled by _The Vancouver Sun_ show that police in B.C. are more tolerant of cannabis use than any other province. (5) 17.2% of all reported incidents of cannabis possession in B.C. lead to a charge, compared to a high of 70.8% cent in Ontario. Police in Victoria charge cannabis users at a rate more than eight times higher than those in Vancouver.

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the Canadian Public Health Association, "available data indicate dramatically increasing rates of HIV among the drug using population of Canada's Aboriginal peoples. The injustices suffered by Aboriginal peoples in Canada have led to the loss of culture and identity of individuals and whole communities. This, and other factors, have led to the present situation in which Aboriginal people are over-represented among urban injection drug users, in correctional institutions and in data on sexually-transmitted diseases, and under-represented in treatment and HIV data. In fact, the lack of available findings is a key gap to understanding the situation and effectively addressing it. Additionally, issues of jurisdiction, governance, culture, racism and homophobia combine to further complicate this situation of overlapping risk-factors." (6)

In 1996, the Ontario Human Rights Commission accepted that "drug abuse and drug dependence are diseases, illnesses, malfunctions and mental disorders, which can create mental impairment and result in mental disorder and physical disability." Consequently, drug addicts are an "identifiable group" protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code (7) and arguable by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (8).

Chapter 22 of the Statutes of Canada (formerly Bill C-41) also recognizes people with mental and physical disabilities as an identifiable group protected from hate and discrimination, including propaganda likely to expose them to hatred or contempt. (9)

The terminally ill are often denied pain killing drugs for fear they will become addicted. The RCMP is still arresting those who run compassion clubs for those with medical conditions ameliorated by the use of marijuana.

Drug prohibition drives a wedge between parents and their children, health professionals and their patients, teachers and their students, and police and their communities. It is impossible for the many young people who use drugs today to obtain reliable information about the concentration of psychoactive ingredients, the purity of samples they purchase or less harmful ways of using drugs.

Long before the white man traveled on hempen sails to find religious freedom in a New World, the natives on a land now called North America used sacramental plants to commune with nature, the universal brotherhood, and the Great Spirit.

The Incas chewed coca leaves, but only for spiritual purposes and only with the permission of their spiritual leader, the Inca. The conquistadors from Spain turned what was once a sacrament into a reward for work and, later, a stimulant for the energy to do more work. Changing the purpose and use of coca leaves was but one part of the European destruction of a great civilization.

Indigenous tribes throughout North America ate the buds of the peyote cactus as an expression of thanksgiving, a request for guidance, or in support of a brother who wanted to give thanks or seek direction. Peyote was always used in a formal, ceremonial way, and "recreational" use was considered a sacrilege.

It took the white man (who knew or cared so little about the Native American way) until 1899 to find out what was going on and, of course, make it illegal.

Oklahoma passed a law against peyote in 1899; New Mexico outlawed it in 1929. Not until the 1960s, when a sufficient number of white people began seeking mystical experience, was peyote considered "a menace" that had to be controlled nationally.

Section 462.2 of the Criminal Code provides for a $100,000 fine and/or up to 6 months in jail, for any printed or video promotion, advocacy or encouragement of the use of prohibited substances. The law makes no exceptions for journalistic, educational, scientific, scholarly, spiritual or political works.

It has been clearly shown that terrorist groups are funded by the illegal drug trade, made profitable by current drug laws. Colombia's desire to have decriminalization considered as a way of combatting the illegal drug trade which is savaging that country was rejected by the United States and Canada.

Until drug prohibition goes the way of alcohol prohibition, many third world countries will suffer from a "War on Drugs" conducted on their soil.

The erosion of civil liberties at home and abroad is a price paid in support of present drug policies.

In order to comply with United States' demands to stop coca production, Colombia uses aerial spraying to drop herbicides on illicit crops. Since these crops are the peasants' only source of income they move into the Amazon rain forest and farm on steep hillsides. This constant push on peasants has led to the clearing of over 1.75 million acres of rain forest. (20) The National Academy of Science reports that approximately 3 million acres of forest lands are now being cleared annually for illegal crop production.

When aerially sprayed, the herbicide Glyphosate can drift for up to about half of a mile. In Colombia, where the herbicide Glyphosate is sprayed from airplanes, children have lost hair and suffered diarrhea as a result of its application. (21)

Since it is illegal to manufacture cocaine, its producers must hide their facilities in the forests of South America making it impossible to properly dispose of chemical wastes. It is estimated that the unregulated manufacture of cocaine results in 10 million liters of sulfuric acid, 16 million liters of ethyl ether, 8 million liters of acetone and from 40-770 million liters of kerosene being poured directly into the ground in the Andean region, mainly Colombia. (22)

Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to quantify the damage from drug crop cultivation and eradication efforts because of the violence surrounding drug production.

No eradication or interdiction program in the past 35 years has had any serious impact on the supply of illegal drugs in the North America. Rather than cutting off the supply, these campaigns have consistently spurred new source countries, new trafficking routes and new drugs.

With at least 80,000 square miles of viable land remaining and extensive economic hardship throughout the Andes, it is unlikely that farmers will stop cultivating drug crops. The U.S. has renewed eradication efforts in the Andes and the UN Drug Control Programme has initiated the SCOPE (Strategy for the Elimination of Coca and Opium Poppy) program, promises the global eradication of illicit drug crop production by 2008.

Hemp based products have many environmentally friendly uses, replacing other more expensive or rare materials, were it not for the legal difficulties preventing full utilization.

Industrial hemp can replace some uses of cotton. Cotton is typically grown with large amounts of chemicals harmful to the environment.

Trees take approximately 20 years to mature, in contrast to the four months it takes hemp to be suitable for paper manufacture. Paper made from hemp lasts centuries, in contrast to paper made from wood pulp.

Footnotes

1) Murphy, Emily F., The Black Candle, Toronto : T. Allen, 1922 http://cannabislink.ca/papers/menace.htm

"They are good-for-nothing lazy fellows who live by begging or stealing, and pester their relations for money to buy the hashish, often assaulting them when they refuse the demands. The moral degradation of these cases is their most salient symptom; loss of social position, shamelessness, addiction to lying and theft, and a loose, irregular life makes them a curse to their families."

2) Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino, Fantino - Battle Demand For Drugs, Toronto Sun, Sat, 21 Apr 2001, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n699/a02.html

"Our jails are already filled with druggies we've put there."

3) Columnist and former police officer Leo Knight, Drugs For Addicts Would Be Kwan's Folly North Shore News, Mon, 24 Jul 2000, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1051/a07.html

"Euphemistically called the "Downtown Eastside" for those eschewing the reality of 'Skid Road,' it has long been populated by the poor, the besotted, fallen whores and those who prey on those less able to protect themselves ... home to a battalion of Honduran crack dealers and Asian street thugs, not to mention our own homegrown white trash."

4) HIV/AIDS and Injection Drug Use: A National Action Plan, May 1997, produced by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the Canadian Public Health Association, http://www.ccsa.ca/docs/hivaids.htm

5) Ontario Human Rights Commission, Policy on Drug and Alcohol Testing, June 1996, http://www.ohrc.on.ca/english/publications/drug-alcohol-policy.shtml

6) Entrop v. Imperial Oil Ltd., Interim Decision #8 Sept. 12, 1996, Decision No. 96-030-I.

6) Trade and Environment Database (TED), TED Case Studies: Columbia Coca Trade (Washington DC: American University, 1997), pp. 4-8.

7) Cox, C., "Glyphosate, Part 2: Human Exposure and Ecological Effects," Journal of Pesticide Reform, Vol. 15 (Eugene, OR: Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, 1995); Lloyd, R., "Publisher Warns about Impacts of Drug War," World Rainforest Report 37, (Lismore, NSW: Australia, 1997); Drug Enforcement Agency, Draft Supplement to the Environmental Impact Statements for Cannabis Eradication in the Contiguous United States and Hawaii (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1998).