Health Matters

MAKING CANNABIS POLICY WORK

Over the past 20 years, governments have financed successive law
enforcement efforts aiming to address the proliferation of cannabis
use and distribution. Those strategies have rarely been properly
evaluated and have made the situation worse in many ways.

Stop the Violence BC (STVBC) brings together law enforcement
officials, legal experts, public health officials and academics from
BC's largest universities (www.stoptheviolencebc.org).

In its second report, STVBC shows that data from governments
themselves proves anti-cannabis policies are not working. Entitled
How not to protect community health and safety, the report
demonstrates how ineffective prohibition has been as a policy. It
focuses on the impact of drug law enforcement on cannabis
availability and the expansion of organized crime in BC.

We have seen dramatic increases in funding for law enforcement and
increased mandatory minimum sentences for cannabis offences, but
there has been no apparent effect on the availability and
accessibility of cannabis. Massive law enforcement funding has led to
large increases in arrests and seizures, but little effect has been
felt on drug use by teens and young adults in British Columbia.
Indeed, if the policies were effective, rates of use would not have
gone up, and prices would not have dropped (58 per cent over the
20-year period from 1981).

As was the case with the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and 30s,
the prohibition of cannabis has not eliminated easy availability of
the drug. Simply put, prohibition has never worked. This was
especially well described by Noble Prize-winning economist Milton
Friedman who observed in a 1991 interview: "If you look at the drug
war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government
is to protect the drug cartel."

Not only has prohibition not achieved its objectives, but it has
created a lucrative opportunity for organized crime that in turn
fuels other criminal activity and gang violence.

Stop the Violence BC wants to engage all British Columbians in a
discussion aimed at developing and implementing cannabis-related
policies that improve public health while reducing social harms,
including violent crime and gang activity. Specifically, STVBC is
calling for cannabis to be governed by a strict regulatory framework
aimed at limiting use while also starving organized crime of the
profits they currently reap as a result of cannabis prohibition.

Supporting the STVBC approach is the Health Officers' Council of BC
(HOC). The organization bring together public health physicians who
advise and advocate for public policies and programs directed to
improving the health of populations. On Dec. 22, the HOC unanimously
passed a resolution to support Stop the Violence BC.

The HOC position is clearly summarized by Dr. John Carsley, a medical
health officer in Vancouver: "From a scientific and public health
perspective, we urgently need to pursue alternatives to the blanket
prohibition of marijuana which are based on evidence. Strict
regulation, guided by a public health framework, is clearly the
logical way forward."

We discuss policy alternatives in our next issue.