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U.N. CRITICIZES CANADA OVER ITS DRUG POLICIES

Last June, Health Canada provided $1.5 million over four years for a pilot project for a government-supervised drug injection site in Vancouver. The purpose of this site, the first in North America, was to determine whether a supervised injection site would reduce harm to addicts and improve their health prospects. It was argued that the drug injection site would result in drug users being less likely to overdose, share needles, spread disease or commit petty crimes.

However, we already know the result of this experiment. Experience with drug injection sites in Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland tell us that such sites increase drug use and create havoc in the surrounding areas.

The truth about these drug injection sites is that they do not solve problems but create many more of them. Drug injection sites merely allow the addict, under government supervision, to become even more deeply addicted, and permanently lost to society, to his/her family and him/herself. These sites also become "honey pots" for drug dealers since the areas are not policed, and, as a result, trafficking, prostitution and crime increase.

For example, the Rotterdam Municipal Council in the Netherlands reports that the percentage of its 15 to 19-year olds hooked on either heroin or cocaine has nearly doubled to about 4% since the late 1980s, when it began its free-drug, safe-haven programme. Since 1991, when safe-injection sites became common in the Netherlands, the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Service has reported a 25% increase in drug-related gun murders, and a sharp rise in robberies in neighbourhoods housing one of the 50 official methadone clinics or injection houses.

Zurich closed its infamous needle park in 1992 after the police and citizenry became fed up with public urination and defecation, prostitution, open sex, panhandling, drug peddling, loud fights and violent crimes. The addicts were moved to a converted train station, which was closed in 1995 when the problems from the park reproduced themselves there.

So far, more than two dozen major European cities have signed the 1994 European Cities Against Drugs declaration opposing safe-injection sites and free distribution of drugs. Officials from Berlin, Stockholm, London, Paris, Moscow, and Oslo have embraced the principle that the answer does not lie in making harmful drugs more accessible, cheaper, and socially acceptable.

Canada's Drug Policies Criticized

In early March, the UN International Drug Control programme based in Vienna, called the International Narcotics Control Board, and expressed deep concern about Canada opening up the drug injection site in Vancouver that is contrary to international treaties on drug control. Canada ratified these conventions that call for prevention and treatment, not government-sponsored drug sites.

The Narcotics Drug Control Board also criticized Canada for its proposed lenient legislation on marijuana use, which, it stated, "could contribute to the mistaken perception that marijuana was a harmless substance." That's for certain!

REAL Women has long expressed concern about Canada's hypocrisy in selectively choosing which UN treaties it will uphold, and which it will ignore. This double standard is blatantly obvious in regard to the treaties on drug control.

Please write to Minister of Health, Pierre Pettigrew, to object to the Vancouver Drug Injection Site, and to the Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, objecting to the proposed legislation to decriminalize marijuana.

The Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew, PC, MP
Minister of Health
Health Canada
0916A Brooke Claxton Building
16 Floor Tunney's Pasture
Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9
Fax: (613) 952-1154
E-mail: Pettigrew.P@parl.gc.ca

The Hon. Irwin Cotler, PC, MP
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
Justice Canada
East Memorial Building,
4th Floor, 284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8
Fax: (613) 992-4621
E-mail: Cotler.I@parl.gc.ca

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