TIME TO STOP THE DRUG NONSENSE

Illicit drugs were once again in the headlines this week, after news
broke that the federal government is moving to criminalize an
hallucinogenic herb called Salvia divinorum, a naturally-occurring
plant of the sage family which grows in southern Mexico.

The plant has been around since, well, forever. It's available to buy
at a few "head shops" in Winnipeg. You know, those places that sell
marijuana pipes and t-shirts that depict the likes of Jimi Hendrix
and Che Guevara. Smoking the herb causes brief hallucinations,
uncontrollable laughter, lack of co-ordination and in some cases,
loss of consciousness.

Once again, the government is using the old excuse of "protecting the
children" to justify criminalizing the herb, which will only serve to
further clog up our courts and put more non-violent, otherwise
law-abiding people behind bars.

"Teens face enough pressure already," St. Boniface Conservative MP
Shelly Glover opined on Monday in what could possibly be the most
bone-headed political quote of 2011. "With heavily-covered stories of
young people in Hollywood using salvia to get high, we have a
responsibility to protect our youth."

By "Hollywood," she was of course referring to that infamous YouTube
clip of the oh-so-innocent Miley Cyrus making a fool of herself while
high on salvia.

The Tories are proposing to add Salvia divinorum to Schedule 3 of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), a move that would take up
to two years, Glover said. Schedule 3 includes other psychedelic
drugs like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and mescaline as well as some
barbiturates, amphetamines and GHB. Violators can be punished by
penalty of a maximum of three years in prison.

Considering the fact Salvia divinorum has been around for thousands
of years, it's interesting that it really hasn't made headlines much
at all. Most Canadians have never even heard of it.

That is, until someone like Cyrus is seen using it. Then the
self-appointed morality police leap into action, under the guise of
protecting children, to further strengthen our ineffective system of
drug prohibition that has not only failed to curb drug use, but has
actually made problems associated with drugs even worse.

Most people assume that drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and others are
illegal for a good, sensible reason, when in fact they're not. Fact
is, illegal drugs actually haven't been illegal in Canada for very long.

First, a little history lesson. Canada's current system of drug
prohibition began in the early 20th century, when the Opium and
Narcotic Act of 1929 became Canada's main instrument of drug policy.

Opium was one of the first drugs to be outlawed in Canada, made
illegal by Parliament in 1908 as a result of growing hysteria and
racism sparked by Chinese immigrants, some of whom were recreational
users of the drug brought over from Asia.

Opium is an effective pain reliever. Asian immigrants were, in those
days, forced to do gruelling physical work in laundromats and other
terrible places that literally worked them to death for paltry wages.
So they used opium to relieve their pain and add a bit of pleasure to
their otherwise miserable lives in Canada, a place they came to
hoping for something better.

Prohibition of other drugs followed, and since then, countless lives
have been ruined by and billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on the
futile enforcement of Canada's draconian drug laws, while drug use
continues to take place as it always has.

Making drugs illegal has done nothing to prevent crime or reduce
their use. There's ample evidence out there to suggest drug
prohibition actually increases drug abuse, rather than reducing it.

As Dr. Diane Riley of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy notes,
drug prohibition has led to the illegal drug industry growing to an
estimated $400 billion, "fuelling organized crime, corrupting
governments, increasing violence and distorting economic markets. In
many parts of the world, the war on drugs results in the spread of
infections like HIV, violations of human rights, damaged environments
and prisons filled with drug offenders convicted of simple possession."

Valuable police resources are wasted on raiding illegal drug
operations that wouldn't exist if drugs weren't illegal in the first
place, just as American police were forced to waste their time
cracking down on bootlegging operations during America's ill-fated
alcohol prohibition of the 1920s.

As historian Andrew Sinclair writes in his book Prohibition: The Era
of Excess, alcohol prohibition in America "transferred $2 billion a
year from the hands of brewers, distillers, and shareholders to the
hands of murderers, crooks, and illiterates."

The same has happened in every country where drugs have been
outlawed. Drug production and sale has been taken over by gangsters,
terrorists, and criminal organizations that have added illegal drug
production to their list of other criminal offenses, which often
include weapons smuggling and prostitution, to name just a couple.

Newer drugs like crack and crystal meth, which are more addictive and
destructive than any other illegal drugs ever produced, are a direct
result of drug prohibition. Just as alcohol prohibition in America
led to the rise of poisonous moonshine, outlawing drugs has directly
resulted in the creation and sale of stronger, more potent narcotics.

Canada is no exception to this rule, but all the while, citizens are
told by politicians and various special interest groups that drug
prohibition is a good thing.

Without it, the streets would be rampant with crime, we're told. Our
children would be corrupted by drug pushers, and there would be no
safe haven from the scourge of the rampant epidemic of drug abuse
sure to result if government dared to legalize such substances.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. There isn't a
community in the world where drugs aren't already easily available to
those who know where to get them, which includes most 14-year-olds.

While our government and police are busy trying to enforce the
prohibition of illicit drugs, the most lethal drug known to man --
alcohol -- is perfectly legal to buy and consume.

Alcohol kills more people each year than all other drugs combined.
Yet no one is screaming to have it criminalized, and our government
is more than happy to sell you some, as long as you're old enough to buy it.

Sadly, none of our politicians have the courage to come out and say
what needs to be said. Drugs -- all drugs -- should be legalized and
controlled, the same as alcohol is now. Consciousness-altering
substances have always been around, and they always will be. It's
time our government, and Canadians in general, grew up and recognized
this fact.

It could take up to two years for Salvia divinorum to actually become
illegal, once all the Parliamentary hurdles are cleared.

That's enough time for Canadians to rise up and say enough is enough
- -- prohibition must end.

- --with files from QMI Agency and Interlake Publishing