In case you missed it, Stephen Harper has imposed mandatory jail sentences for drug dealers. We’re all quite familiar with the many ways in which drugs tear at the fabric of decent society, so much so that our government not only criminalizes the distribution of said substances but will also punish those who ingest them in their own bodies.
According to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson:
“Drug producers and dealers threaten the safety of our communities, they must face tougher penalties.”
This latest law is one of the Federal government’s mandate to crack down on crime, namely by filling our jails with drug dealers, kids, and identity thieves.
I’m assuming federal policy wonks aren’t stupid, and are at least casually familiar with the efficacy of jailing drug dealers. One need look no further than south of the Canadian border to see how good a War of Drugs work.
The United States spends $600 per second on the drug war. So far, in 2007, 1,414,723 people have been arrested for drug offenses, half for cannabis violations. Yet, drug use remains constant, and has done so since 2000.
Ethan Nadelmann, founder and director of Drug Policy Alliance says:
“The United States ranks first in the world in per-capita incarceration, with roughly five per cent of the earth’s population but 25 per cent of the total incarcerated population. Russia and China simply can’t keep up. Among the 2.2 million people behind bars today in the United States, roughly half a million are locked up for drug-law violations, and hundreds of thousands more for other “drug- related” offences. The U.S. “war on drugs” costs at least $40 billion U.S. a year in direct costs, and tens of billions more in indirect costs.”
To determine why the U.S. is so determined to persist with a preposterous policy, it would be helpful to look at the origin of illegal drugs compared to legal ones, and who is most likely to face incarceration under this rouse.
To answer the first: cocaine comes from Columbia (and therefore crack), heroin from Afghanistan whereas tobacco can be readily found in the U.S. while alcohol can be easily distilled anywhere. When you factor in the revenue these poor countries stand to gain from a legal drug trade, it’s not hard to see why the U.S. is so opposed to it. As to who strict drug laws penalize the most are minorities and the poor. Drug use among the higher educated – such as college students – is relatively equal to drug use among minorities, yet more police resources are allocated to low income neighbourhoods.
Everybody’s favourite anarchist Noam Chomsky describes strict drug laws as follows:
“US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn’t about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control. The economic policies of the last 20 years are a rich man’s version of structural adjustment. You create a superfluous population, which in the US context is largely poor, black, and Hispanic, and a much wider population that is economically dissatisfied.”
I have a feeling, while we Canadians operate under the Conservatives led by George Bush Lite, we are seeing the beginning of a policy shift toward the United States’ vaguely racist, criminal model. Most won’t care. Some will even applaud the Conservative’s “tough stance”. After all, your average voter does not do drugs therefore we’ll see a positive response.
Tags: courts, drugs, law, prison, stephen harper
