The Oshawa Express - Drug Bill not the answer
   
Drug Bill not the answer


Dear Hon. Jim Flaherty, Finance Minister, Government of Canada:

Dec. 17, 2007, was the National Day of Action against Bill C-26. This Bill calls for the mandatory minimum sentencing of illegal drug users and growers. It would mean for example that a grandmother with one marijuana plant in her garden would go to jail for six months! The strategy of tougher penalties has been proven ineffective in the U.S. for deterring crime and preventing drug use.

If the goal of the Bill is deterrence, then this is not going to work and in fact will increase the powers of organized crime. Further, have you given any thought to how much this is going to cost taxpayers? The cost of putting just one person in jail for six months will cost a minimum of $46,000, not including additional 'invisible' costs such as child services and so on. And how much of a drain will there be on already strained police and court services?

This money could be much better spent on recreation centres and funding for after school activities for kids, for example.

Mandatory minimum sentences makes the government look like they are doing something substantial to address illegal drug use, but it is not good policy and will create all sorts of unanticipated social problems. Two recent government reports, 2001 and 2005, came to the conclusion that mandatory minimum sentences were not effective deterrence.

Mandatory minimums do nothing to address the issue of why people use drugs in the first place. They neither protect society nor rehabilitate individuals. In fact, with skyrocketing Hepatitis C and HIV rates, mandatory minimum jail sentences cause more social health problems than they solve. An estimated 20 per cent of HIV infections come from jail. It's important to point out that if you want to get 'tough on crime', you should consider putting big organized dealers out of business permanently through legalization, regulation and taxation -- as is the case with legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. A 2002 Senate Report came to these conclusions about marijuana.

We need a homegrown policy, not one made in the United States.

Glenn Blake
Whitby Action Committee of
Concerned Youth (WACCY)

 

 

  
     
     

 
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