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OfflineAlan RockefellerM
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Drug Policy Reformers teach the UN a lesson
    #7997227 - 02/08/08 05:33 PM (15 years, 11 months ago)

Feature: Vancouver Conference Sends a Message to the UN
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/vancouver_forum_UN_vienna_ngo_committee

Vancouver, British Columbia, was the scene this week of an
international conference on drug policy, affiliated with the
United Nations, that didn't turn out the way the UN imagined it.
Organized as part of the UN's Beyond 2008 global forum to review
the accomplishments and failures of the UN General Assembly
Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs, the Vancouver conference sent
the UN a strong message: end drug prohibition.

Attended by harm reductionists, treatment providers, prevention
specialists, anti-prohibitionists and others from the US and
Canada, the Vancouver forum differed greatly in tone and content
from the other regional forums held so far as part of a process
overseen by the Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs
(http://www.vngoc.org/detail.php?id_top=12), which works with
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Commission on Narcotic
Drugs to incorporate the views of non-governmental organizations
and civil society into the crafting of the next UNGASS drug
strategy. In other regional forums, drug treatment and
prevention forces dominated the conversation, as in the North
American forum held last month in St. Petersburg, Florida, where
groups like the Drug Free America Foundation held sway.

But in Vancouver, pioneer of the four-pillars policy
(prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement),
home of the continent's only safe injection site, and ground
zero for Canada's cannabis culture, it was a different story.
Organizers there made sure it wasn't just another prohibitionist
gathering.

"We wanted to make sure that we included absolutely everybody,"
said Gillian Maxwell of Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug
Use (http://kdo.carbc.net), a Vancouver-based community
coalition that cosponsored the forum. "In St. Petersburg, it was
clear that drug reform and harm reduction people were not
invited, which is a little odd. If you think about it, what do
the UN treaties have to do with people involved in rolling out
12-step abstinence programs?"

Former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen, architect of the
four-pillars strategy, set the tone for the event early on. The
"old-school prohibition" crowd had its say, said Owen, but now
it's time for a new approach. "There are still those, in the US
and in our federal government, who say drug users are criminals
and should get a job, pay taxes and salute the flag," he said.
But mayors, who see the problems first-hand, are calling for
change, he said, pointing to the US Conference of Mayors
declaration last June, where they "agreed unanimously the war on
drugs is not working. Mayors are close to the issue so they
actually see the drug users as people who are ill and need
treatment, and they have to deal with related crime, yet it's
our federal government that controls narcotics," Owen said.

"Drug-policy reform won the day because most rational people on
the front lines realize that the war on drugs has been a
miserable failure," Owen added. "The war on drugs is coming to
an end, hopefully in my lifetime," he concluded.

Jack Cole, head of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
(http://www.leap.cc), told the nearly 100 delegates that drug
addiction should be treated as a health problem, not a law
enforcement one. "We have to at least get legalization and
regulation of drugs on the agenda," he said, with one eye on
Vienna, where the Commission on Narcotic Drugs will meet next
month to review the past decade's progress in meeting the 1998
UNGASS goals.

It was clear that the forum had reached a general opinion, if
not a complete consensus, said Maxwell. "It seems the majority
of the people in the room think it's impossible to prevent drug
use, and, therefore, you get the war on drugs, which is a war on
people," Maxwell said.

In addition to LEAP's Cole, the US contingent included
representatives of reform groups including Students for Sensible
Drug Policy, Common Sense for Drug Policy, and Dale Gieringer,
head of California NORML (http://www.canorml.org), who presented
the national NORML statement to the forum. In that statement,
NORML said that the UN's goal of "eliminating or substantially
reducing" the global supply of marijuana had failed and that
"the only practicable way to realize the UN's goal of
eliminating the problems illicit cannabis supply and demand is
to eliminate its illicit status."

If ending the drug war was the majority position, not everyone
was won over. At least two participants complained to the
Georgia Strait
(http://www.straight.com/article-131100/united-nations-backed-drug-conference-criticized-by-participants-for-focus-on-harm-reduction)
that the conference was unbalanced.

Alcohol-Drug Education Service's Judi Lalonde told the Straight
there was too much harm reduction and not enough prevention at
the conference. "Representation from the groups for legalization
are probably about 95%, to possibly 5% in the area of
prevention," Lalonde claimed. "I'm quite disappointed with the
whole process of the last few days." She preferred the St.
Petersburg forum, which "allowed for a real dialogue from a
balanced perspective," while Vancouver's "became a forum for
lobbyists and activists."

Brian Whiteford, the delegate for DARE BC at the conference,
also complained of "disproportionate representation" of
pro-legalization advocates. But Whiteford also added that the
forum did a "good job" of bringing people together to exchange
perspectives.

The criticisms about balance aren't fair, Maxwell protested. "We
invited people from all sides of the spectrum," she said. "They
just didn't all come. We invited many Canadian national groups,
but many didn't even reply. Yes, we had a larger proportion of
reformers and harm reductionists, but that's because they
weren't even invited to the other North American forum in St.
Petersburg."

Maxwell pronounced the forum a success. "It was very
interesting, and I was so impressed by everybody -- they were
all so articulate and respectful," she summarized. "I was so
impressed by the intellect and the caring that people brought to
this. This was a good moment for democracy and a good moment for
civil society."

At least one local newspaper disagreed. The conference provoked
an angry editorial from the Province
(http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=c7bdb7eb-b739-44a1-a07a-b508aa3ca8af),
a Vancouver tabloid daily. "Drug legalization is not the
solution it's cracked up to be," the Province warned. "The
pro-drug lobby masquerades as a champion of individual
liberties. But behind that disguise lurks the ugly face of
societal decay."

As Mahatma Gandhi once famously noted: First they ignore you,
then they attack you, then they laugh at you, then they fight
you, then you win. The path to ending global drug prohibition is
long and twisting, but events like the one in Vancouver this
week are laying the groundwork -- and nobody is laughing about
it now.


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