Proceedings of the Special Committee on
Illegal Drugs

Issue 1 - Evidence for April 23, 2001

The Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs meets this day at 1:30 p.m. to reassess Canada's anti-drug legislation and policies.

Senator Pierre Claude Nolin (Chair) is in the chair.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Honourable senators, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this first public sitting of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome those who have travelled to be here, in Ottawa, for this sitting as well as those who, thanks to technology, are following on the radio, on television or, through the committee's Internet site.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce the members of the committee. The Honourable Shirley Maheu represents the Province of Quebec, the Honourable Eileen Rossiter represents the Province of Prince Edward Island. Later during the meeting, the Honourable Pierre De Bané will join us.

[English]

Senators Colin Kenny and Tommy Banks are also members of the committee. They are not with us today, however, because they are also members of another committee, and that committee is travelling out West presently.

[Translation]

My name is Pierre Claude Nolin, I represent the Province of Quebec and I am the chair of this committee. Before beginning our work today, I would like to make a few opening remarks to explain how this committee was struck and the work that has been done thus far.

The Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs was struck by the Senate during the last legislature. In fact, almost one year ago, on April 11, 2000, the Senate voted unanimously to created the first committee on illegal drugs. I was named chair.

On October 16, 2000, after a few months of preparation, we held a public hearing here, in this room called the Summit Room. Over the course of these hearings, four expert witnesses helped us plan our work.

We heard from a number of witnesses, including Mr. Eugene Oscapella, Executive Director of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, Mr. Neil Boyd, Professor at the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, Ms Line Beauchesne, Doctor of Political Science, specializing in legal and State philosophy, and Professor at the Department of Criminology of the University of Ottawa and, finally, Mr. Mark Zoccolillo, Doctor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of McGill in Montreal as well as at the Montreal Children's Hospital.

The texts for their respective presentations, as well as the transcription of the proceedings for this hearing are available on the committee's Internet site.

Last October, when the elections were called, the 36th Parliament ended, thereby ending the work of our committee. At the outset of the 37th Parliament, in February 2001, the Senate began considering a motion to reconstitute the committee, and on March 15 last, the Senate unanimously decided to resume the committee's work with a modified mandate.

[English]

The Special Committee on Illegal Drugs has received a mandate to study and to report on the actual Canadian policies concerning cannabis in its context, to study the efficiency of those policies, their approach, and the means as well as the control used to implement them.

The committee must also examine the official policies adopted by other countries. We will also examine Canadian international obligations with regard to the conventions to which Canada is a signatory.

The committee will also study the social and health effects of Canadian drug policies on cannabis and the potential effects of alternative policies.

[Translation]

The committee is to table its final report at the end ofAugust 2002.

In order to fully satisfy the mandate conferred upon the committee, the committee has adopted an action plan. This plan centres around three challenges. The first challenge is that of knowledge. We will be hearing from a wide variety of experts, both from Canada and afar, from academic settings, the police, legal specialists, medical specialists, the government sector and social workers. These hearings will be held for the most part in Ottawa, and occasionally, outside the capital.

The second challenge, surely the most noble challenge, is that of sharing knowledge. The committee hopes that Canadians from coast to coast will be able to learn and share the information that we will have collected. In order to meet this challenge, we will work to distribute this knowledge and make it accessible to all. We would also like to hear the opinions of Canadians on this topic and in order to do so, we will be holding public hearings in the spring of 2002 throughout Canada.

And finally, the third challenge for this committee will be to examine and identify the guiding principles on which Canada's public policy on drugs should be based.

[English]

Before I introduce our distinguished experts, let me tell you that the Senate has ordered that all the proceedings of the committee during the Thirty-sixth Parliament will be included as an integral part of our proceedings.

I also wish to inform you that the committee maintains an up-to-date Web site. This site is accessible through the parliamentary Web site, which can be reached at the following address: www.parl.gc.ca.

[Translation]

In French, the Canadian parliamentary Web site address is the following: www.parl.gc.ca.

[English]

All the proceedings of the committee are posted, including the briefs and documentation of our expert witnesses. We also keep up to date more than 150 links to other related sites.

[Translation]

I would like to say a few words regarding this committee room. This room, called the "Summit Room," was renovated by the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the early 1980s for a G-6 Summit at that time. The heads of State of the most industrialized countries met in this room for their in-camera proceedings.

Now let us move on to today's work. Today we will be hearing from Mr. Bruce Alexander, psychologist, and afterwards from a criminology professor, Marie-Andrée Bertrand. First of all I would like to introduce Mr. Bruce Alexander.

[English]

Mr. Bruce Alexander has been a professor of the Department of Psychology at the University of Simon Fraser for the last 18 years. He is a fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. Mr. Alexander has a Ph.D. in comparative psychology from the University of Wisconsin. He is internationally known for his research on drugs.

Professor Alexander has been interested for the last 30 years in the many aspects of drug consumption and their effects, but has focused his research particularly on drug addiction issues. He has studied and published extensively on drug addiction since the early 1970s.

Professor Alexander, we will hear from you first. Please take all the time you need. The members of the committee will then ask you questions.

I will offer you, as I have to other witnesses who have appeared in front of the committee, that if you want to support argument or points that you make during your presentation with more papers after the meeting you are welcome to do so. We will also take the opportunity to ask questions, to gain more detail from matters that arise from your testimony. We will maintain contact with you through our researcher.

Mr. Alexander, the floor is yours.

Mr. Bruce Alexander, Professor, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University: I wish to thank the committee for the honour of being able to appear before you in a room with such an honourable history. I am very pleased to be here, and I hope to be able to provide some testimony that will be valuable to you.

I should like to talk about the topics of cannabis and addiction. I have five major points to make. I will list my five points and then go through each of them.

My first point, the most important, is that in the past addiction has been accorded far too much importance in determining Canada's cannabis policy. The accumulation of evidence now shows that addiction has little relevance to cannabis policy - although of course addiction is very important in other contexts.

My second point, notwithstanding my first point, is that by any reasonable definition of addiction a few Canadians do become seriously addicted to cannabis. That may seem to contradict my first point; however, I shall endeavour to show that it does not.

My third point is that, although addiction has been given too much weight in determining cannabis policy, cultural issues have been given too little. Cannabis, I shall endeavour to show, is a serious cultural problem in Canada.

Fourth, in my view Canada's cannabis policy should be revised dramatically in the direction of being more independent, more culturally oriented, and more decentralized.

Fifth, again in contrast, Canada's addiction policy should be changed dramatically in the direction of being more centralized.

There are perhaps a few contradictions in what I have said, and I shall endeavour to clear those up immediately.

I shall start by putting my first two points together and talk about addiction to cannabis. Given any reasonable definition of addiction, a few Canadians do become seriously addicted to cannabis. The word "reasonable" is the key word in that statement. A reasonable definition of addiction is that addiction occurs when a person is overwhelmingly involved with something to the degree that even if it produces harmful effects the involvement persists. By this definition, some cannabis users, only a relatively few, I might add, do become addicted to cannabis. In extreme cases, the effects can be extremely harmful. Families break up, jobs are lost, health deteriorates, and, arguably, sometimes people die. That is in the most extreme cases.

I stress this point because it is sometimes contentious. If we make other definitions of addiction, it is quite possible to argue that no one becomes addicted to cannabis. To do that, we must rely on technical definitions.

For example, if we argue that addiction is something that necessarily entails withdrawal symptoms, then arguably no one becomes addicted to cannabis because for years and years it has been very difficult to demonstrate any serious withdrawal symptoms in people who are giving up long-term use of cannabis. It has been even more difficult to demonstrate it in research animals that are subjected to long-term regimens of cannabis injection.

Therefore, if we were to take that as the definition of addiction, then we could say that perhaps people never get addicted to cannabis. If were to take as the definition of addiction that it is something that we can detect because animals will self-inject a drug, then perhaps we would have to say that cannabis is not addicting because over the years it has been almost impossible to demonstrate that animals would self-inject cannabis.

I would suggest that these technical definitions are relatively unimportant, that the reasonable definition must be supreme. These technical definitions, although they have some use in certain contexts, only correlate roughly with addiction and should never been the determining factor. For example, there are a number of heroin addicts who do not have withdrawal symptom - most do, of course, but some do not. We could say that these people are not addicted, but that would be foolish because we are talking about people who spend most of their lives in jail and, in one way or another, are being seriously harmed by heroin addiction.

Likewise, we could say that there are some drugs to which people become addicted that animals do not self-administer. However, we would look foolish because people obviously do get addicted to these things.

There is a reasonable definition of addiction. To my mind, as an anglophone, the reasonable definition comes from the English language. The word "addiction" has meant for centuries exactly what I am calling the reasonable definition, and only that. The word was not a drug-related word, nor did it have any of the other connotations it currently has. It simply meant that people were so involved with something, so tied up with something or so devoted to something that they would harm themselves by it. By that definition, addiction to cannabis does occur but it is quite rare.

Let me return to my first and more important point. Notwithstanding, addiction has been given too much importance in determining Canada's cannabis policy. Cannabis has been treated as if it were a dangerously addictive drug. The issue of addiction simply should not have any bearing on cannabis policy at all. Whereas addiction to cannabis does occur, it is no more prevalent, no more serious and no more dangerous than addicting to gambling, sex, food, computers, et cetera. This list can go on and on. If we apply the reasonable definition, then we must say that cannabis is a drug that is no more addicting than 100 kinds of distractions that people have in their lives and to which they sometimes become dangerously addicted.

I am sure that this does not need much documentation. In fact, I could stack up, if you like, a metre-high stack of books of case studies of people who become seriously addicted to food, sex, computers or whatever. In the extreme cases, they die from that addiction.

The reason that addiction should not be an issue in cannabis policy is that although cannabis can be addicting it is no more addicting than 100 other things. It requires no special policy consideration. Second, cannabis does not induce addiction in those people who become addicted to it; that is to say, some people become addicted to it in the same way that they might become addicted to gambling or sex. It is not because the drug or the gambling or the sex has worked some spell on their brain or a molecular transformation. It is simply that in the life of some individuals cannabis has become the least offensive alternative for acting in an addicted way, to centre their life around cannabis or one of these other things.

This point is somewhat contentious. Here again, there is at least a metre-high stack of books and articles that can be brought to bear on it. However, I would suggest that all of the contention surrounding this topic is unimportant for this reason - that it all relies on the technical, essentially unreasonable, definitions that I have mentioned before. All the arguments that marijuana induces addiction in people who become addicted to it - adduces it in the way that a demon supposedly induces possession in a person who comes in contact with the demon - all those arguments are rested on highly technical definitions of addiction and primarily on research with rats. All the research that makes those arguments is contested in any event; it is all inconsistent. We have, in fact, a mountain of evidence for and against the proposition that, when marijuana addiction occurs, it is induced by the action of drugs on the brain. I suggest that this mountain of evidence is unimportant partly because it is inconsistent and partly because it is all based on these technical, and therefore unimportant, definitions of addiction.

If we look at the reasonable definition of addiction, there is no evidence that marijuana induces addiction in anyone. Some people say that they have become addicted to marijuana because they lost control and it took them over. However, by far the greater number of people that actually do become addicted to marijuana do not say that at all. They just talk about it in a different way - as something that they have chosen because of the role it played in their lives.

I will not try to review any of this technical evidence now, but in response to questions you will see that my written submission is largely about this technical evidence. I am quite open to questions on it, but I do not think it needs to be reviewed at this point.

My third point is that although addiction has been given too much weight in cannabis policy cultural issues have not been given enough weight. I would submit that cannabis is a serious cultural problem in Canada today. I should like to switch roles, in a sense, so that we might discuss that point.

I should like to talk about it as though I were an anthropologist, which I am not. I am, however, closely connected with three subcultures in Canada that differ dramatically in their views of cannabis. My argument is that this cultural antagonism is a serious problem that cannabis policy must centre upon.

I have a family, of course, who, along with my old friends, feel that cannabis has an ugly and disreputable kind of appearance. They regard it with distaste, which is not so much because they believe that it causes addiction or that it causes lung cancer or because they believe any of the other negative stories, because I can show them quite convincingly that these stories are not true. However, they still have this distaste for cannabis. I think this is an important fact.

Many Canadians find cannabis to be a distasteful thing and they want it to be illegal. In fact, I might mention that when my next door neighbour, who is also my friend, heard that I was coming to talk to the Senate subcommittee, he was afraid that I would single-handedly convince the Senate of Canada to repeal the existing drug laws. He was so alarmed by that proposition that he wrote a poem for me. This gentleman is a stockbroker, not a poet, but he wrote a poem in which he expressed his extreme distaste for the idea that cannabis would be legalized, knowing full well about all the health arguments that have been easily refuted. Yet, he still wanted me to understand that distaste. He is not the poet laureate, so I will not read the poem, but it is the motivation he displayed that is important.

The second subculture of which I am a member, I would say, is graduate students, faculty and older students at the university. This is a kind of transient subculture, where cannabis is regarded in a totally different way. To them, cannabis is simply a "take-it-or-leave-it" thing. People use it or they do not use it at parties. Some people use it and some people do not use it. It is not a matter of discussion; rather, it is just there and is a part of life. People in this group hardly talk about it. They are a little discrete about it: if you ask them if they use it, they might not want to tell you right now because it is just not an issue. Whereas the first group wants cannabis to be illegal, the second group is generally indifferent about legalizing cannabis.

The third group that I have close contact with consists of heavy cannabis users. The reason that I have this close contact is that I wrote a book, now 11 years ago, entitled Peaceful Measures: Canada's Way Out of the War on Drugs. It was published by the University of Toronto Press right at the time cannabis in Vancouver was becoming much more popular as a kind of subculture. My book was sold in the various cannabis shops around the city, and I became, to my delight, something of a local hero for a short time.

Everyone wanted me to come to their parties and speak to their groups, in particular people in the heavy-cannabis-users group. These are people for whom cannabis legalization is a matter of religion - they want it to be legalized, and they want the approval of other people. They do not want people to think that they are a bunch of addicts, which they are not. They are simply people for whom cannabis plays a major role in their lives.

One young man summed it up for me quite eloquently when he said that there are three pillars in our subculture: vegetarianism, the use of bicycles instead of cars, and the use of dope, meaning cannabis. That is their culture, which is active and good. You cannot go there comfortably without smoking dope some of the time, but it is still a serious culture.

My point is that there is, in Canada, a real cultural problem. The three groups comprise good, well-meaning people that tend to be unkind to each other. People in the third group tend to believe that the people in the first group need education, as if they were stupid, but they are not. The first group knows perfectly well what the realities are. They may not talk often about those realities, but they can easily be convinced about what the realities are, and they still do not like marijuana.

People in the first group may say about people in the third group that they are addicted, but they are not. A few are, of course, but it is rare. They are not addicted; they are just people for whom cannabis plays a role in their culture. They are hurt when people think of them as addicted in the same way that people in the first group are hurt when people think that they need education; they do not. They simply have a culture that has a distaste for something, and the third group has a culture that has a taste for that same something.

The fourth point is that cannabis policy should be revised dramatically, in my view, in the direction of being more independent, more culturally oriented, and more decentralized, as well as being considered brand new.

By "new," I mean that it should disregard the old myths. For example, there is the myth that cannabis causes a serious addiction problem. If this myth is taken seriously, then of course the drug should be penalized on a national level. If this myth is totally disregarded, then of course the drug should be legalized. I would suggest that both approaches are wrong, that the myth should simply be ignored.

Cannabis policy should be new and independent. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe that Canada has never had an independent policy on marijuana. In my view, the Canadian policy has simply followed the American policy lockstep from the very beginning, to the point of being ridiculous. As you may know, Canada first prohibited cannabis in 1923, at which time there was no known use of cannabis in Canada. The law was totally symbolic, since there was no one to arrest until decades later. After the passage of the Narcotic Control Act in 1961, a few cannabis users were discovered. After that, of course, it became a relatively much more popular drug.

I suggest that Canada must have an independent cannabis policy, which it has never had. We must have one because it is an important cultural issue to us.

Third, I suggest that Canadian cannabis policy should be cultural in its orientation. In other words, the aim of such a policy should be to harmonize the three separate cultures that I have mentioned.

How can a policy harmonize those cultures? First, it would have to be decentralized. The idea that the federal government should either legalize or prohibit cannabis is wrong at the outset. I would suggest that a model for a cannabis policy would be the Canadian Temperance Act of 1878. The federal government simply took no position on legalizing or illegalizing alcohol at that time, simply allowing it to be a matter of local decision.

I believe that the federal government can very well decentralize power to the provincial governments, and the provincial governments, in their wisdom, could decentralize power to municipalities and regions. It is there that the regulations that would be appropriate for each region would come into play.

Vancouver was successful in regulating cannabis for a short time. For that short time, it was possible to have small cannabis shops in areas of Vancouver where it made sense, but it was not possible for those shops to exist in Surrey, North Vancouver, West Vancouver or other areas where the policy would have made no sense.

That kind of zoning regulation was quite successful, until international pressure appeared that made it impossible for that status quo to be maintained. I would suggest that if it is possible for Canada to maintain an independent policy it would have to have that form. I suggest that we need not look to any other country for a model for a cannabis policy because Canada's great skill is precisely in the accommodation of diverse cultures.

Obviously, we have not totally succeeded at this but Canada's challenge has always been the accommodation of diverse cultures. The issue of Canada is really an issue of pluralism. I believe that it is perfectly possible to be pluralistic in the way in which we deal with cannabis, as we are pluralistic about so many other things, if we have an independent policy.

Fifth, I would by contrast suggest that Canada's addiction policy should change dramatically in the direction of being more centralized. Here I will return to the issue of what addiction is. It is the case that a few people get addicted to marijuana. It is also the case that a few people get addicted to sex, gambling, work, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, Prozac and Ritalin. The list goes on and on. If you add all the numbers together, in the end it is not a few people. I think it is correct to say that there is a rising tide of addiction and that it is a problem of national importance, not only in Canada but also in other countries.

I suggest that the reason for this is obvious, although it frequently goes unsaid. It is obvious that we live in a society where the traditional ties of family, ethnicity, village, clan and region that have made people whole are being broken apart by a world that is globalizing, technologizing and changing at great rates in every direction. As a consequence, many people are fragmented and lost, and perhaps all of us to some greater or lesser degree. People who are fragmented and lost seek artificial lives and substitutes. They find substitutes with the men at the bar who get drunk every night, or with the people at the cannabis cafe who get stoned every night, or with the women in the dance group who dance until their knees give out, or with the computer group that goes on the chat lines while their lives go to hell in all kinds of ways. People find substitute lives. This is happening all over. People are finding lives that substitute for lives that we all recognize as being essential.

The answer to the old riddle of whether addiction a medical problem or a criminal problem is that it is neither - it is a political problem, and that is why I am very glad to be here. I think the problem must be addressed politically. A nation must have among its concerns the provision of a framework in which it is possible for people to form healthy families, villages, towns, ethnic groups, et cetera. That is a national concern.

Of course, that is very difficult to achieve. I do not mean to suggest that it is an easily resolved concern, but it is an essential one. It is often said that it is naive to think that we can return to the past, to the good old days of tight communities, and of course it is. However, it is more naive to suppose that we can hurdle forward into the future disregarding the importance of social connections and expecting that things will work out all right. It is time for political intervention along these lines.

I would finally suggest two more points. One is that it is possible that this week the people most productive in doing something about the problem of addiction were those thousands of people in Quebec City who were speaking out against the blind pursuit of modernity, the blind rush into a free trade environment without consideration of the impact that free trade will have psychologically as well as environmentally and socially.

My final point would be a bit of research - I do not even know if I should dignify it with that term - but investigation I have carried out with anthropologist friends in Vancouver and with some native people. We have looked at the history of the native people who live around Burrard Inlet, which is where Vancouver is. There were actually 100 villages around Burrard Inlet, tiny villages that had been there for a very long time and that had a whole traditional culture built up. These villages were not perhaps the most famous or the most notable of the West Coast Indians, but they were successfully living in that spot. They had lots of problems. They had wars and some of them kept slaves. They had to deal with violence and sometimes insanity. They did not have addiction. It was not a problem there, as far as anyone can tell.

Of course, the Europeans arrived and the land was moved into the real estate market. The potlatches, which were a traditional way of distributing food, were replaced with a market in food products. The lives of these natives were put into modernity very fast, at which point the problem of addiction became universal.

I would suggest this situation not as proof of anything but perhaps as a paradigm statement. It is clear, in my mind, that addiction is the consequence of a particular form of civilization. Every form of civilization has its particular unique form of casualty, but addiction is one of ours. I would hope that the Senate committee when looking into the issue of cannabis would make a distinction between a cannabis policy and an addiction policy and not, as has been the case in the past, push those two together as if they were the same issue. Instead, they should be looked at as separated and important issues.

The Chairman: Thank you, Professor Alexander.

Senator Rossiter: Mr. Alexander, there have been many times in history when there was turmoil because of what you called modernity. I think it was the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution who trashed the factories and machines. Eventually, people come to accept or get used to change. I suppose there is fear and lack of knowledge about what is happening, and none of us has any knowledge about the future, as far as that goes.

In terms of addiction to a substance such as a drug, is that not more of a cop-out, a case of not facing reality?

Mr. Alexander: Yes, of course, it is a not facing reality. It is choosing a substitute. It is only when huge numbers of people are choosing a substitute that you have to suspect that the reality is too hard to bear. I think that is the point we have reached. We do not have good statistics on addiction, but we have very good statistics on depression.

Senator Rossiter: Individual depression?

Mr. Alexander: Yes. Depression and addiction are handmaidens. Virtually all addicted people are depressed. If you look at the curves for depression, all through this century they have been shooting up to unprecedented levels. You can say, "Well, people should not get depressed. It is a giving up." In the same way, you can say that people should not get addicted because it is a kind of cop-out. However, when it becomes mass produced, then you have to say that society has simply become unbearable for too many people. In fact, the change that has to take place is social.

I would add one thing. Bear in mind, if you will, that I am a psychologist. I have made my living by treating addicts. I know, both personally and in terms of the outcome research on that kind of work, how impossible treating addicts is. We do not treat addicts successfully. The addicts come in and say what you say. They say, "It is a cop-out. I wish I was not doing it." That does not mean they are going to change. There has to be some kind of environment that is welcoming enough for them so that they can live without those crutches. I fear that that is the dilemma we are in. The pressures have become too great.

Senator Rossiter: You say the line for depression is going up?

Mr. Alexander: It is going up very steeply and dramatically.

Senator Rossiter: Are there any times when the curves level out?

Mr. Alexander: The curves are drawn differently in different countries, but this is all developed countries. Every country where this kind of data can be taken shows this curve. In a country such as Lebanon, there have been periods during civil war when I guess it was too dangerous to be depressed when the curves have levelled out, but by and large that has not happened. That is this century. It is a phenomenon unique to this century, as far as anyone can tell.

Of course, it was impossible to gather such data systematically in other centuries, but this is a century of addiction and depression. The approach that has failed us is to regard it as an individual failure, because there are too many individuals failing. We have to think of addiction now as a social failure.

Senator Rossiter: Perhaps people are not actually failing but are perceiving themselves to be failures.

Mr. Alexander: Yes, they do perceive it as a failure themselves. The social theory I am advancing is not a theory addicts hold. They think of addiction as an individual failure.

Senator Rossiter: Would it be a fact that people who have to work hard for a living do not have time to be depressed or to exhibit the symptoms?

Mr. Alexander: No, it is a fact that in these times the prototypical addicted person is an overworked middle management person who is highly depressed and taking either legal or illegal drugs. It is not the case that people can escape addiction by working hard.

Senator Rossiter: You refer more to an intellectual type of work. I refer to the olden days, not too long ago, when people had to work physically hard to farm or fish to provide a living.

Mr. Alexander: You are asking me if that would prevent this spread of addiction and depression. I cannot give you a valid answer. However, if I may I would point out that addiction is a huge problem in the lumber camps in British Columbia and on the fish boats, primarily alcohol in those cases.

No, I do not think it is the case that you can prevent addiction. You are talking about situations where people work 12 hour days and seven day weeks. Addiction remains a huge problem.

Senator Maheu: I read part of your brief. I must admit that I did not have time to read it all. Several contradictions seem to jump out. First, you talk about smoking cannabis and say that cannabis is not a problem in terms of lung cancer. I am curious about the difference between smoking cigarettes and smoking cannabis. Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer while cannabis does not. I am tempted to say: How can you be half pregnant? Either you are or you are not endangering your health by using things like cigarettes or cannabis.

You claim that out West in the university it is a non-issue. Is it a non-issue because the drug users are ashamed to speak about it? Or is it because those who are using it try to hide it and those who are not are proud that they are not and are a little better than the ones who are using?

There is a series of contradictions in your document, as well as in what you said verbally. I have four sons. I am fortunate that nothing serious ever happened with them, but I know that a couple of them at least tried it. Although they never discussed it I feel quite certain that they started out by having a cigarette. Once the high from cigarettes was capped, the next step was to go to something else. I do not know whether they ever did or did not, but the possibility that they did is in my mind.

Talking about the myth that drugs are not as serious as we think they might be, how do you explain something like that? Is it the thrill that a young person seeks, or is it really that at one point cannabis is no longer giving them the high they anticipated or the high they received at the beginning of usage?

Mr. Alexander: I will respond to you as parent to parent. Using marijuana is dangerous. Using computers is dangerous. Sex is dangerous. I could go on and on.

The issue is whether the dangers of marijuana are greater than the dangers with these other things. I would say flatly that they are not. A great deal of research is aimed at answering that question. The outcome is that the dangers are of the same magnitude. We must be prudent with our children. Speaking as a parent, we must be prudent with our children when it comes to using drugs and automobiles and so forth. We have made the mistake of putting cannabis in a special category, as if its dangers were of a different magnitude. I think we have been misled.

Senator Maheu: I am not sure I was speaking about prudence. I was speaking about young people. Very often, the parent does not know that a son or a daughter is using drugs. How you can say that nothing is addictive when after they have reached that limit of kicks, if you will, or highs, on any drug, they try the next one because the high is a little better? It has nothing to do with parents and nothing to do with being prudent. It is something that young people seem to be going through. How can you say that nothing is addictive or the addiction is not what we have perceived it to be?

In other words, I am asking: Why should Canada change its laws? Why should we be more permissive, which is what I am reading into some of your points?

Mr. Alexander: Yes, I think we should be more permissive, at least on a regional level. I say that with confidence because I have spent a lot of time in groups of young people who continue to use marijuana after their teenage years, right on through their 20s and 30s, with no apparent problem. However, the culture is different. They think a little differently than people who are highly involved with computers or with the racetrack. They do think differently. There is a cultural difference. I can confidently answer your question because I have seen so much unharmful use of cannabis. I have been privileged, because of my book, to be invited to be with people in this culture, and I have taken advantage of that a great deal. I feel confident in that.

The Chairman: It is important, Mr. Alexander, that you explain in depth. Senator Maheu referred to people progressing from tobacco use to marijuana use and further. Your answer is important because many people believe that youth start by using cigarettes. They get a high from the cigarettes. After that, they need more. That is the opinion of Senator Maheu. She is asking you whether people move from cigarettes to marijuana and further.

Mr. Alexander: I apologize. I did not understand the question in that way. We have very good statistics on progression from alcohol and cigarettes to marijuana and stronger drugs. The statistics show that progression at each level is the exception for the huge majority. Some do progress, and then some die face down in the gutter in eastside Vancouver; however, at each level, the larger number does not progress. I do not think that we can attribute the progression, when it occurs, to the drug because the majority of people are not progressing. We have to attribute the progression to something else, and it is that something else that I hope to develop.

The Chairman: Does that address your concern, Senator Maheu?

Senator Maheu: Partially, yes. I am not sure I agree. We have seen and heard so much about drug addiction. I hesitate to call it the myth that you do, having seen documentaries, for example, about young people on cocaine. What did they do before cocaine? They are physically damaging themselves in many instances by using cocaine. I am sure you are correct in saying that the majority, possibly, are not ruining their health or wanting to go beyond the cocaine addiction, but I am not certain that I follow you all the way.

Mr. Alexander: I am on the board of directors of the Portland Hotel in Vancouver, which is the terminal hotel. It is a welfare hotel, the only hotel in Vancouver that never evicts people. It is a downtown eastside hotel, and people pay with their welfare cheques to stay there. Essentially, people go there to die. It is the end of the line. I have had the opportunity to talk at length with people who are dying of cocaine, in extremis, at the point where they have little to lose by talking fully about why they got there. In fact, they often want to talk and want to help piece together how it has come about that way. I am confident in saying that people at that time in their lives do not think of it as a drug trap. They do not think of the cause as drugs. They think of the cause as being sad things that happened long ago, such as child abuse and things of that nature. At that point, that is how they think of the cause. We have not taken them seriously enough.

The Chairman: That is why, Mr. Alexander, it is important to hear from you. I know that there is not one stereotype of an individual caught in addiction, and you have alluded to that a little bit. I want you to explore it a bit more. What causes an ordinary Canadian to become an addicted Canadian?

You referred to terms like "vast majority" and "high majority." Could you more specific about that? When you say the vast majority, is it 95 per cent, 99 per cent? It is important for us to understand that from your vantage point.

Mr. Alexander: Do you mean the vast majority that does not progress?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Alexander: I wish that I could give you a more precise number. I cannot. I can say that, with cocaine, where the statistics are the best, between 5 and 10 per cent of the people who experiment with cocaine become addicted at some time in their life. For most, the addiction lasts for a year or two, and then they stop.

If I were to provide a number for those who become addicted for life, and give their life to cocaine, it would be around 1 per cent. I think that is close to the number of people who wind up dying of that drug. The more usual scenario is that 5 per cent to 10 per cent would at some time become addicted and then cease to be addicted.

Regarding your first question, I could give a case study of a man who died recently, if that would perhaps answer it. He is an interesting person to me. I met him in downtown eastside Vancouver on the street. He was staying at the Portland Hotel, where I participate. He is the son of a Canadian diplomat. He spent much of his life in Europe travelling around. He was well educated, both culturally and intellectually. He was never abused as a child.

He described to me, as he was dying, his immense devotion to his family, and particularly his father, who to him was something of a saint. His father was simply too much for him to measure up to, and his father, in a sense, perhaps unknowingly intimidated him by showing him up constantly as being less of a person - not to say anything bad about the father.

The person I am speaking about, by virtue of his position in life, had high ideals and learned that it was impossible for him to fulfil these ideals. He never found a backup position, so to speak. Other people in that position might find some other kind of life, not on the level of their family but on the level of doing something else that was not quite as magnificent as the father had done.

This man tried a number of other things, and failed, for reasons that I think may have had to do with luck. He went into business, and the law changed. He was in the driver training business. The law changed in such a way that his business went bankrupt. If the law had not changed, probably the story would be different.

If I could use him as a prototypical story of addiction, the story is, in a more abstract sense, that people have terrible problems to overcome, and they have bad luck, and they do not manage to get together a life that works.

Speaking as a parent, the analogy that works for me relates to having watching my own children grow up. Each one had to scale this wall. They almost do it by their fingernails. It is hard to find a real working life. I have three grown up children, who have done fine I am happy to say. However, it is a problem in each case. If something had gone wrong, they would have fallen off the wall. If they had fallen off the wall two times or three times, then they would have lost the ability to climb again. They would have turned to substitutes. I think that that is the story of addiction.

I do not know if I have answered the question or not, but I would suggest that that story has nothing to do with the effect of drugs inducing addiction in anyone. It has to do with a void that people have in their lives for reasons that are partially due to violence and partially due to just bad luck and lack of opportunities. It happens. I am not sure I have answered the question.

The Chairman: I know that there is no specific answer, but many Canadians think that there is a specific pattern or shape of an individual who will almost automatically fall in the trap. Your answer is that there is no such thing.

Mr. Alexander: There are extremes. People who have been badly abused as children have little hope of ever getting over that extreme anxiety and terror that they feel in the presence of other human beings. They are very likely to wind up being addicted or following some other self-destructive lifestyle. There are those cases where people will fall into it.

However, in the larger number of cases that I know personally, there is a bit of luck mixed in there, too. It is very difficult.

The Chairman: In your research, have you been able to compare Canada with our countries?

Mr. Alexander: Yes.

The Chairman: How do we compare to Europeans, and more specifically the Netherlands?

Mr. Alexander: Do you mean in terms of a policy?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Alexander: The entire world has essentially the same policy. The policy, as we all know, is dictated by UN conventions. The policy is enforced somewhat differently in one place than another. The European countries are a little more relaxed now about the enforcement of their drug laws. They are putting a somewhat heavier emphasis on harm reduction than police methods and treatment, as we are here. They are having some success with that.

The Chairman: Is your answer based on your professional field? Are you saying that they are having some success in psychological and more sociological terms?

Mr. Alexander: My answer is based primarily on a number of visits to the Netherlands, where I have watched harm reduction programs in action. I have seen addicts who are far less deteriorated as a group than those in Vancouver. I would suggest that the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is a good counterpart to Vancouver. It is a city of similar size but with quite advanced harm reduction programs. They have solved their marijuana problem by having little shops around the town where people may smoke marijuana if they wish.

I will talk about cannabis and then about harm reduction. Cannabis has disappeared as an issue in Utrecht because of the little shops. They are inconspicuous. They are in the parts of town where some people are inclined to smoke marijuana.

Most Dutch people have nothing to do with marijuana. Dutch people are not interested, generally speaking, in marijuana, but some are. These little shops are inconspicuous and in the areas of town where people are inclined to smoke.

Marijuana has disappeared as a problem. It is not a problem in the Netherlands. No one suggests that it is, to my knowledge.

The Chairman: We should try to be more precise, because we are making comparisons with Canada. In terms of numbers and the percentage of the total population, are you saying that the problem does not exist when you say that it is no longer a problem?

Mr. Alexander: I am saying that the use of marijuana over the years has been somewhat less than in Canada.

The Chairman: Is that the use of marijuana in those areas where the coffee shops are?

Mr. Alexander: The coffee shops are throughout the Netherlands, and I mentioned one city because I have seen it. The marijuana consumption in the Netherlands has been somewhat less than in Canada, even though they have had a form of decriminalization throughout most of the country. Canada has had very little by way of decriminalization and the amount of marijuana addiction - that is to say, people showing up for treatment - is equality low in both countries. I would say, therefore, that that solution has worked in the Netherlands.

Marijuana addiction is not a big problem in either country, although it does occur in both.

Senator Maheu: In your research and your visit to Holland, for example, you studied the effects on youth. We keep saying that if we can control our youth smokers at a young age we will not have as many problems later on. Did you look at youth and the smoking of marijuana in the Netherlands, and have you looked at it in Vancouver? It seems to be a specific problem, or probably larger, in Vancouver, more so than in some other cities.

Mr. Alexander: I believe so, yes. I have not looked specifically at youth. However, I have read the published work on youth - school-aged people. The statistics on school-aged cannabis consumption in the Netherlands is somewhat lower than that for school-aged cannabis consumption in Ontario and British Columbia. The problems arising from it are in both cases.

Let me just talk about the consumption rates. They are slightly lower in the Netherlands, among youth. I have, as you are suggesting, done most of my personal research with people past school age.

The Chairman: We have interrupted you. You were explaining about harm reduction comparisons with Canada.

Mr. Alexander: I have seen harm reduction working quite well in the Netherlands. The form of it that I have seen has been primarily in the provision of methadone and morphine to heroin addicts. Those drugs, of course, are available here. However, they are provided in a much less restrictive way in the Netherlands, so they are easier to get. For example, in British Columbia people are still required to give urine samples in order to get methadone. In the Netherlands, individuals are not required to give urine sample. Individuals are allowed to give urine samples if they want to be checked and have the analysis done, but they do not have to.

I have seen a relatively more relaxed harm reduction atmosphere in the Netherlands, and I have noted that the addicts there are far less, generally speaking, deteriorated than the addicts in Vancouver. For example, addicts who are receiving methadone in the Netherlands often talk about how they will get off the methadone program. They say that they do not like being on methadone and that they want to get off that program. On the other hand, in Vancouver, addicts on methadone virtually always talk about how they can get more methadone because they are not being given enough.

The essence of harm reduction is to lower the restrictions in this case for providing methadone. My personal observations have been that that works well, and we are, in fact, moving in that direction in British Columbia with the new four-pillars approach, which I am certain you are aware of. There is a move in that direction, which has quite broad community support. It is quite impressive.

The Chairman: We will hear from the officials from Vancouver and they will explain it. It is a work in progress.

Mr. Alexander: Yes, it is in progress. It has not officially been implemented, but it is in progress because so many people are behind it.

The Chairman: Mayor Owen is quite involved in the project. He is personally involved in making sure that it will progress properly. We will hear from them.

Mr. Alexander: Yes.

The Chairman: We will write to you and ask you more in-depth questions. Please feel free to provide us with more documentation, to ensure that we understand. Am I right in understanding that use, abuse and addiction break down as follows: 95 per cent use, 4 per cent abuse, and 1 per cent addiction?

Mr. Alexander: Are you talking about cannabis?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Alexander: It is correct to say that it is 1 per cent addiction, or less. The line between use and abuse is totally arbitrary. Your numbers would be as good as any. For myself, there are a number of heavy users who are a bit problematic. They tend to wish that they were not using as much as they are, and they worry about it a little bit. So, I do not know, it is very difficult to draw the line between what is "use" and what is "abuse." I think 1 per cent, 4 per cent and 95 per cent would work fine for me.

The Chairman: If it is not 4 per cent, is it 10 per cent or as high as 15 per cent?

Mr. Alexander: I would say that it is closer to 1 per cent,10 per cent and 89 per cent.

The Chairman: Have you read the new regulation that has been drafted on medical use for marijuana?

Mr. Alexander: No, I have not read it.

The Chairman: Thank you, that is fine.

Senator Rossiter: It is my understanding that the existing evidence is more of a control of distribution than a decriminalization. Is that correct?

Mr. Alexander: Are you referring to marijuana?

Senator Rossiter: Yes. There are very strict rules at these cafes.

Mr. Alexander: Yes, there are strict rules about what can be provided in the cafes.

Senator Rossiter: No one can buy for the purpose of resale and quantities of that nature.

Mr. Alexander: Yes, there are strict rules, and they vary from place to place, based on local concerns. In most places, it is possible to buy cannabis and to take it out - I presume not to resell it because it would be illegal to resell it on the street; however, to buy it and take it home was certainly legal.

Senator Rossiter: It was not legal to use it in public.

Mr. Alexander: That is correct.

Senator Rossiter: If that person got in trouble, it would go right back to the cafe owner.

Mr. Alexander: That is right, and cafes are closed from time to time. I thought the Dutch system made a certain amount of sense. It was not because of an absence of regulation. In my mind, these drugs probably should be regulated in a sensible way, and I think the Dutch have gone a long way towards regulating them in a sensible way. For a short time, we did that in Vancouver as well, and then the situation blew up.

However, it is my submission that we can allow regulation on a local level and expect good results, on the basis of this precedent in Europe, and even in Vancouver.

Senator Rossiter: Yes, but it requires control.

Mr. Alexander: Absolutely, yes it does.

The Chairman: I would remind the members of the committee that on May 28 we will hear more in-depth information about the Netherlands experience.

Professor Alexander, thank you very much. It was a pleasure. We will write to you and ask you more questions. If you have more comments to make, or more information that you wish us to have, please feel free to include it.

Mr. Alexander: Thank you for this opportunity.

(Sitting is adjourned for 10 minutes)

[Translation]

(Upon resuming)

The Chairman: It is our great pleasure to hear this afternoon from Professor Marie-Andrée Bertrand. Dr. Bertrand was, 30 years ago, a member of a commission of inquiry examining anti-drug policies.

Marie-Andrée Bertrand has a Ph.D. from Berkeley University in California, and is professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Montreal. She was a member of the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, known as the LeDain Commission, from 1969 to 1973. She is the author of a number of studies and texts on the issue of drugs. Among her most recent publications, La politique des drogues, is an article that appeared in the November 2000 issue of the journal Psychotropes; anarticle entitled Le droit de la drogue comme instrument de mondialisation, which appeared in Globalization and Legal Cultures, published by Onati Papers, Onati Summer Course, Spain, 1997; Réflexions sur la décriminalisation de l'intervention (auprès des consommateurs de drogues illicites), in Europa; Ta jeunesse t'interpelle, published in Aix-les Bains, in 1997; and La situation (du droit de la drogue) en Amérique du Nord, appearing in Drogues et droits de l'homme, published by Caballero,in Paris, 1992.

Professor Bertrand, thank you for coming to see us. This is not the first time that you have agreed to testify before us. We apologize for the prior times when the meeting was cancelled, the committee was unable to sit for administrative reasons.

Dr. Marie-Andrée Bertrand, Professor Emeritus ofCriminology, Université de Montréal: Mr. Chairman, allow me the opportunity to share that you as well are the author of an article in the special edition of the journal Psychotropes, entitled La politique des drogues, an issue which will most likely be launched during the ACFAS conference on drug policy, May 15.

I cannot congratulate you enough on your work as members of a committee which will re-examine Canada's drug policy. In fact, I envy you, as I believe that the conditions in which you will undertake this mandate are quite favourable.

First, you yourselves are legislators, which was not the case with the LeDain Commission. We were appointed jointly by the Premier's office and the Minister of Health's office at the time, Mr. Monroe. Second, you are un-elected legislators, and in my opinion this gives you a great deal of credibility and the reputation of wisdom among Canadians. Third - and this is an extremely important reason - you will be doing your work at a time when international opinions and international policies will be of great help to you. I will touch on this later when I analyze in depth the situation in nine or ten European and non-European countries currently, with respect to changes in drug policy.

Canadians should be pleased that your committee was re-established with the new government. In Canadian universities, and most certainly among youth and students in Canadian universities, people are very pleased that your committee was established. Canada is not the only country to be reconsidering its drug policies at this time. Very quickly - and I will refer to these in more detail later - two extremely important studies were commissioned by the European Parliament, as France and England, and now many European countries, I am told, have decided to undertake a re-assessment of their knowledge on drugs and cannabis in particular. As I mentioned when I testified to your committee last September, this led to the Roques report on cannabis, in France. This report, entitled Problèmes posés par la dangerosité des "drogues," written by Professor Bernard Roques, Secretary of State for Health, was published in May of 1998.

This Rocques report essentially gives a critical appraisal of each of the prejudices that have been kept alive by Western societies for at least 115 years. Not only does it refute many unfounded opinions regarding cannabis, but it also ventures down another path, one that the Canadian Minister of Health is currently taking, which is the therapeutic uses of cannabis.

The other report is the one by Lord Walton in England, which is nearly completed. It too came about because of this movement within the European community to review the state of knowledge concerning drugs and drug policies.

Since I had the opportunity to be associated for four years with the Canadian Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, I would like to speak to you briefly about this experience and perhaps also remind you - and I hope I am not being too bold - of the distinguished predecessors to your own committee.

As you are aware, it all began 115 years ago with the cannabis committees, including the Hemp Drugs Commission in Great Britain, which was asked to determine the harmful effects of cannabis. Fifty years later, Mayor La Guardia of New York city struck a committee to examine the effects of cannabis on intellectual function. Twenty years later, in 1967, the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice was mandated to study all drugs and their criminogenic effects.In 1968, the British government commissioned a report from the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. Believe it or not, this report recommended that cannabis be removed from the list of opiates, that cannabis possession no longer be punished by imprisonment and that the drug be made available in pharmacies.

That same year, in Holland, an initial committee was chaired by our colleague, Professor Louk Hulsman. Subsequently, the Baan Committee - which had a huge influence on the Dutch government - managed to ensure that the Dutch parliament, with a large majority of votes, recommended decriminalizing soft drugs, and that, in the future, it would be possible to consume soft drugs in designated places. This policy was adopted at a later date.

In the brief I presented last fall, I mentioned that, at the time this legislation was adopted by the Dutch parliament, some ministers, including the Justice minister, believed that limiting decriminalization to soft drugs was a conservative policy.

That same year, a mandate similar to the one of your committee was given to a Presidential Commission, which was to conduct a comprehensive study of marijuana. Some of you who are perhaps my age will recall that this committee's report, entitled Marijuana, A Signal of Missed Understanding, went to the heart of the intergenerational cultural and alienation problems that were of special concern at this time in the United States. In the Commission's view, and I quote:

[English]

...considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marijuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high...

in our national preoccupation.

[Translation]

In 1972, it was the turn of the LeDain Commission, which had been set up in 1969, to release its report on cannabis. This report contained several hundred pages and was praised throughout the world for the thorough, scientific, careful and considered manner in which it had dealt with the issue. In a few minutes I will summarize what the LeDain Commission had to say on this subject.

In 1979, the government of Australia commissioned a study on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in South Australia. The Commission came to two conclusions that were consistent with those of the LeDain Commission: that cannabis should be decriminalized or subject to a "partial prohibition" under which possession and cultivation for personal purposes would cease to be criminal offences, whereas trafficking would remain a criminal offence.

All of these commissions, it is fair to say, reached four conclusions. First, that psychotropic substances be reclassified on the basis of their properties and known effects. Thanks to Ms. Emily Murphy, in 1924-1928 marijuana had been classified with opiates. The intent therefore was to reclassify psychotropic substances according to their properties: hallucinogens together, opiates together and soft drugs together.

Secondly, to abolish the offence of use and possession. In Canada, the LeDain Commission's interim report and its final report wanted to do away with the offence of possession of any illegal drug including cannabis without making an outright statement. However, in the report on cannabis, most commissioners recommended that possession and cultivation for personal use should be decriminalized and that incarceration under any form of known addicts - not to cannabis but to other drugs - should cease. Let me remind you that at that time many heroin addicts were imprisoned.

Third, to rescind the restrictions on the medical use of opiates, and fourth, to give addicts medical treatment instead of criminalizing or incarcerating them.

Now let me make a footnote as suggested by your group regarding the LeDain Commission. this is a brief comment in four points, which is not found in the notes you previously received.

Let me tell you, with all the enthusiasm I still have for this very important issue, about what the use of psychotropic substances means; what does the use of these substances mean for our society and other societies? In my opinion, the LeDain Commission might have, as it were, a few lessons to teach us. These lessons would fall under four points. The first point would be the mandate. I know that your mandate will not be reviewed, but I just heard that it was very similar to the one to which I will refer to explain its importance; secondly, the method used by the Commission to enquire into the opinions of Canadians; third, research, and fourth, the impact.

As you all probably know, the LeDain Commission's mandate was extremely generous and broad. Let me quote it for you in English.

[English]

(a) to marshal from available sources, both in Canada and abroad, data and information comprising the present fund of knowledge concerning the non-medical use of sedative, stimulant, tranquillizing, hallucinogenic and other psycho tropic drugs and substances;

(b) to report on the current state of medical knowledge respecting the effect of the drugs...;

(c) to inquire into and report on the motivation underlying the non-medical use referred to in (a);

(d) to inquire into and report on the social, economic, educational and philosophical factors relating to the use for non-medical purposes...in particular, on the extent of the phenomenon, the social factors that have led to it, the age groups involved, and problems of communications; and

(e) to inquire into and recommend with respect to the ways or means by which the Federal Government can act, alone or in its relation with Government at other levels, in the reduction of the dimensions of the problems involved in such use.

[Translation]

Was the mandate too broad? It certainly was a very broad mandate. Was that a disadvantage? It probably was.

Because the mandate was so broad, commissioners and the Commission's personnel got involved in a vast project which, in my opinion, had a great deal of impact on Canadian society. I am convinced that even though it had no influence at all on criminal legislation, the LeDain Commission brought about a considerable change in the mentalities of Canadians, as it raised, for instance, awareness about the effects of traditional drugs. This is what young people confronted us with during our hearings in Canadian universities. We certainly met half a million Canadians in four years. We travelled across Canada from east to west seven times, and we held public hearings two or three times in every major Canadian city.

These public hearings, like today's hearing, were basically opportunities, not only for experts and citizens to speak out, but opportunities for the public as a whole to put questions and to confront the experts. They would be told things like: "That is your viewpoint but have you, in fact, also thought about another viewpoint?"

Thus, we raised a wide national debate on the factors whereby Canadian society, like other societies, can, frequently resort to psychotropic substances to alleviate some of its suffering. In my opinion, the generosity of the mandate, the method ofconsultation, the style and attitude of the commissioners - and more specifically those of the Commission's chairman - brought about an effervescence of ideas about democracy, about how the State functions, and about the feeling of alienation that many Canadians felt and still feel vis-à-vis their national, provincial or municipal government.

We observed the effect that this effervescence of ideas had when we studied the way the media - dailies, radio, television, movies - changed their way of dealing with the drug issue and showed that they had gained much deeper and more advanced knowledge of it.

This is somewhat similar to the desires you expressed, Mr. Chairman, after having participated in a parliamentary commission on the 1997 act regarding drugs.

Let me come back for a moment to the consultation method. During its public hearings, the Commission, upon its own request or whenever it was proposed by other stakeholders, heard, as you did, representatives from all professional associations, medical, legal, academic and pharmaceutical. The Commission also heard from representatives of distilleries, representatives from breweries and from the big tobacco industry who commented on its mandate and on what should be recommended as a result of this work.

The Commission's arrival in the largest Canadian cities was announced beforehand. Any citizens who desired to do so could come to these public hearings and take part in the open debate. A large number of hearings were held in educational institutions - universities, colleges and high schools - and everyone was invited.

Here, young people took the opportunity to confront adults who reproached them for their way of using substances by telling them: "So, you will go home, where you will quietly drink your scotch or your beer or smoke your cigarettes. We cannot criticize you for what you are doing but you are telling us: `You have no business smoking joints'."

This kind of confrontation went on constantly and, of course, parents were very worried and said that they did not know what young people were taking and that they had adopted habits that they no longer understood.

Other young people, friends of their son, friends of their daughter, came up to the microphone to say to them: "We will tell you what we do when we get together. We smoke a joint, we listen to jazz, we dance to rock music. We are your children and this is no more serious than what you did when you were 16 when you would hide somewhere to drink beer and smoke cigarettes."

Of course, 35 years ago, this method was sometimes dangerous, and, of course, we occasionally had to bring some order back into the debate that arose during the public hearings. When this Commission began its work, very few people used drugs.

Finally, a problem that had been hidden up to now, something clandestine, as Bruce Alexander would say, became a topic of conversation. And thus, because people were talking about it, it could not only be debated, but also thought about and acted upon in new ways.

For the consultation and research mandate, theLeDain Commission, at the height of its mandate,employed 100 persons, 30 of whom were full-time researchers. These researchers basically worked on four targets. First, the effects of the drugs - and especially that of cannabis - and as you know, a book was written about it with nearly a thousand extremely well-documented references.

Secondly, we studied drug use. One group of researchers including sociologists, social workers, psychologists, psycho-sociologists and anthropologists went out to observe young people and those not so young in the places where they used drugs. Researchers were trying to understand how traffic, networks et cetera, were organized. The group also organized surveys that were carried out by private companies.

Third, social workers who were already familiar with treatment problems in the field would visit better-organized places - for instance, San Francisco at the time - and come back with emergency solutions, such as little trailers for patrolling the streets and drop-in centres.

And finally, one of our groups worked on the influence of the media on the phenomenon and the way that the media reflected it. Thus there were 30 full-time researchers working on the four targets.

I would like to come back one last time to the issue of impact. I think that the democratic debate kicked off by the Commission had significant impact on knowledge about drugs. I am sure that your committee will undoubtedly have an impact also, because if I'm not mistaken, it is using the most state-of-the-art electronic broadcasting facilities.

Many people have understood, which is to the merit of the LeDain Commission, that stereotypes of drug users as criminals were just stereotypes. These people have become aware that a small proportion of users are abusers and that drug addicts resort to crime to feed their habit. This is a fact, but it is far from the majority of users who fall into this category. And even in terms of drug addicts themselves, not all of them resort to crime. A large proportion of cocaine users that we know have never resorted to criminal activity to feed their habit.

In terms of awareness of the factors pushing people to take drugs, we have also kicked off a deep debate on that issue. What was true at the time was undoubtedly that there was a lack of communication between the younger and older generation.

The Commission's terms of reference included the theory that a lack of inter-generational communication was probably the basis for many young people turning to drugs. What became apparent very quickly was the feeling of alienation from Canadian politicians and lawmakers and the feeling that ordinary people are not listened to in this country. This feeling was expressed by people from all walks of life at public and private hearings.What did people expect from lawmakers, from the Canadian government, the machinery of government, from the Health and Justice departments and from the Attorney General? People expected them to listen and listen to what ordinary people had to say.

Consequently, we did a lot of listening. We listened for four years, and for hundreds and hundreds of hours. I think that this was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I will hope that you could share that experience, because you can really hear what people are saying. It was also an unprecedented opportunity to look at Canadian society.

I said earlier that you have several factors joining in your favour at the moment, because you are part of political authority, you are non-elected and international pressure is moving towards review of drug policies and legislation. That doesn't mean that we are going to completely re-engineer them, but we have to review them and assess them point by point.

I would now like to give you some examples which have not been mentioned here, if I'm not mistaken. Belgium recently decriminalized use and possession of drugs for personal use. A few days ago, Switzerland authorized the growing of cannabis to address a nation-wide demand. The number of acres given over to cannabis has been defined and farmers, growing less productive crops, have been given the authorization to move into growing cannabis. I won't mention The Netherlands, because I think enough has been said about that.

Both France and the United Kingdom have decided to reassess what they know about the drugs issue. Perhaps a lesser-known fact here, is that Italy voted, in typical italian style, with their feet; a million Italians demanded changes to drug legislation. In Italy, when a million people march to demand change in legislation, their demands are automatically acceded to. Consequently, the use and possession of cannabis was decriminalized. Legislation has also been relaxed in terms of the use of heroin to treat heroin addicts.

Spain has decriminalized the use and possession of drugs for personal purposes. The German constitutional court is now considering the need to assess whether an offence for the possession of cannabis especially is not unconstitutional, in light of the fact that to the appellant, who is proposing that this legislation be reviewed, the offence seems to be out of all proportion to the damage caused by the drug itself.

It would be unacceptable for Canada to remain on the margins of this move, which is undoubtedly having a greater effect in Europe than in the United States, especially in light of the fact that we have a history of policies which are more intelligent and flexible than those of our southern neighbour. I will wrap up my statement in a moment with a few statistics.

I am a criminologist, therefore, one of my areas of specialization is assessing how criminal legislation affects our behaviour and how legislation reacts to our behaviour. Consequently, I have attempted to use these legal and criminal statistics to show you what issues we are referring to when we talk about drugs in Canada.

I will use a couple of slides as a support. The first slide shows us that of all reported crime in Canada, drug-related crimes represented under 4 per cent of overall crime committed in Canada in 1977. Today, this average is a little over 2.5 per cent.

This slide demonstrates one of two things. Either there is indeed a lot less drug-related crime or Canadian society, the police, judges et cetera, now have a mindset, whereby many of these activities are no longer seen as crime. I will give you my take on this a little later.

The Chairman: The second slide only refers to offences under the Criminal Code.

Ms Bertrand: That's right.

The Chairman: Does that include legislation?

Ms Bertrand: Up until 1997, this included the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Food and Drugs Act. In short, all drugs and crimes related to so-called illegal substances.

The second slide indicates the trend in the number of offences committed under the Criminal Code and drug legislation recorded by the police in Canada between 1977 and 1998. In terms of criminal statistics, the first column shows the number of offences recorded, while the second column gives figures for the number of people charged. The third column shows figures for the numbers of men and women convicted, et cetera.

Let's look at the first column showing recorded offences. You will notice that the overall number of offences varies very little, increasing from little over 60,000 to around 70,000 over a twenty-year period. We have noted that in Canada, it is mainly drug-related activities which are a crime. It's not people who are criminals.

I would like to point out that over the same period, Canada's population has increased considerably from 21 million to 30 million. Today, the number of offences remains almost unchanged.

The third slide deals with a particularly important point in terms of the committee. Mr. Dion, a doctoral student who drafted this slide has drawn in the various curbs for cannabis, cocaine, heroine and other drugs to demonstrate the trend in offences over the last 34 years.

From the slide, we can see that cannabis is the drug with the highest offense or criminal behaviour rate. Cannabis alone undoubtedly represents more than the other offences put together. We can see that cocaine is beginning to represent a major part of police work. Criminal statistics mainly deal with work done by the police, the courts and employees of the Attorney General. This slide shows statistics for police work. What have the police done over these 24 years? They have arrested a large number of people who were either in possession or dealing cannabis. That represents around 50,000 arrests.

Over 25 years, it's the same situation. You can see that the major activity deals with cannabis.

Patricia Ericson, who will testify before this committee in the not too distant future, will be in a much better position than I am to talk to you about "cannabis criminals, 30 years after." This graph demonstrates that there was a less severe crackdown on cannabis after 1982. The most cannabis-related arrests were made in Quebec.

On the following table, you see an analysis of the same period, but taking offences into consideration. Which is the dominant one? Trafficking? Importing? Growing of drugs? Of course, it is simple possession. In 80 per cent of cases, police activity targets cannabis, and in 60 per cent of that 80 per cent, they are targeting simple possession. In fact, when our police officers devote time to enforcing drug laws, they are very busy with possession offences and with possession of cannabis.

I felt it was important to summarize this. I conclude with a comment on the east/west distribution, the provincial distribution of this "repressive" activity, with a percentage of users that is quite similar to British Columbia's. Therefore, according to the class of population, more or less 5 to 20 per cent of Canadians use drugs. In Quebec as in British Columbia, from 5 to 20 per cent of residents of both provinces use drugs, and probably many more, but these are the known figures. In this regard, Quebec's repressive activity is four times less than that of British Columbia. Furthermore, Ontario's behaviour is different from British Columbia's as well, there being less significant police activity, but more judicial activity. There is no national or standard enforce ment of drug legislation in Canada.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms Bertrand. I extend the same invitation to you that I extended to your colleague Mr. Alexander earlier. Throughout the deliberations of the committee, we invite you to provide us with further information. In the same vein, we may have further questions, other than those asked this afternoon, and we will take the liberty of sending you those questions in the hopes of obtaining answers.

Ms Bertrand, given the popularity of the LeDain Commission report, how is it possible that the follow-up to your recommendations in Canada has been almost nil, whereas these recommendations seemed more than acceptable to those responsible for public drug policy in other countries?

Ms Bertrand: You, members of the Senate, are in a position to recognize the political considerations that brought this about. When the LeDain Commission tabled its final report, the Liberal government called an election and the report stayed on the shelf. However, your question is relevant because this was not the case when the cannabis report was tabled. That report and its recommendations were reasonable, that is the decriminalization of simple possession and the decriminalization of growing a plant for personal purposes. It is true that it was 1972, but the recommendations were reasonable and they had an impact in 11 American states, by whom they were adopted. And as you have heard from several witnesses, I am sure, these recommendations had a very real effect on Dutch policy. I do not know why the federal government of the time did not act on the cannabis recommendation.

The Chairman: It is part of our mandate to assess the way in which our country is meeting its international obligations as concerns the control of substances. Does Canada go beyond its obligations or do we do less? How does this compare with other jurisdictions?

Ms Bertrand: Canada was one of the very first countries to sign the 1961 International Convention, right on the heels of the United States, which had been the driving force of this convention. It is obvious that Mr. LeDain insisted that we not sign the Convention on Psychotropic Substances and in fact, we signed it later on. The country ratified it later on. However, we ratified the last convention, the 1988 one, which is far more repressive and which goes the furthest, concerning police powers that the Supreme Court of Canada had tried to limit. For example, it was the Supreme Court of Canada that declared search rights and searches without warrants to be invalid and unconstitutional, and that obliged police officers, as of 1985, to obtain proper warrants in order to enter residences and seize narcotics, wherever they may be. It was also the Supreme Court that invalidated the offence, given the unconstitutionality of the reversal of the burden of proof that existed in the offence referred to as "possession for the purposes of trafficking". In these cases, in Canada up until 1986, the burden of proof could be reversed, that is that the accused had to prove that he did not possess a substance for the purposes of trafficking, which is contrary to the spirit of common law and the absolute opposite of the presumption of innocence. The Supreme Court said that this provision of the Narcotics Act was unconstitutional and that it should be dealt with by Parliament. It took a certain period of time for the legislator to give in.

Despite the decisions made by the Supreme Court, the Parliament of Canada has been slow to make the Narcotic Control Act, in particular, completely compliant with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is the issue here. There has been a resistance on the part of Parliament - and I think I can say that publicly - but there has also been and still is considerable resistance from bureaucrats, particularly regarding health and drugs. In the case of the LeDain Commission, there was a resistance on the part of bureaucrats to show the evidence they had about the harmfulness of cannabis, for example. As we were conducting our own research on human subjects on people's ability to drive a car after smoking cannabis, the Department of Health discussed our research without having seen it and challenged it, hiding many things from us.

For example, it hid the fact that it already had some fairly significant cannabis fields that we could have used for our research. I must say quite frankly that I still do not understand all the reasons for this resistance. I happened to speak about this with the Chair of the LeDain Commission, and we spoke about it among former members of the Commission. We met three years ago, on the 25th anniversary of the LeDain Commission, and we reviewed this experience together. If any of the commissioners want to come to see you, they could tell you themselves what they think about this entire experience. Perhaps they may have some explanations for you in answer to your question.

The Chairman: The European countries you mentioned have signed the same treaties as us.

Ms Bertrand: I forgot to answer that part of the question. Spain left, saying that under its Constitution, it could not accede to a single convention that required the country to arrest and penalize individuals for mere possession of soft drugs and for using soft drugs. And what is happening at this time? If you look at the single Convention, you will see the name of the signatories that have demanded certain conditions in order to ratify the Convention. You will see that 20 or 22 countries have demanded either not to sign now or to sign now but not to accept all the provisions, and so on. So Spain was the exception. If we did the same thing at the time of the 1995 referendum, saying that the Convention was unconstitutional, the Netherlands, as you may know, were very slow to sign the 1961 Convention. When they did sign, they brought their own legislation to the table, and said that they would not deal with soft drugs such as opiates, and so on. Their legislation did not include soft drugs in the Narcotic Control Act or the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. In addition, if I understand correctly, and if my information is accurate, Switzerland never ratified the Single Convention.

Senator De Bané: What are the arguments of those who advocate maintaining the criminalization of soft drugs, Doctor Bertrand?

Ms Bertrand: I think that what the previous questions allowed us to deal with the hypothesis of people who progressed to harder drugs. This has been broadly refuted, and Dr. Bruce Alexander refuted it earlier using statistics. The vast majority of users do not move from a so-called soft drug to drugs that are more addictive. A second point, which is the main argument put forward by the police around the world, is that we must be able to repress possession and possession of any drug, in order to dismantle the drug and drug trafficking networks.

Senator De Bané: Since there appear to be no rational reasons for maintaining the criminalization of these drugs, is it true that the Netherlands have decided to take a tougher stand against drugs, including soft drugs such as marijuana?

Ms Bertrand: That is not the information I have. I was in the Netherlands two years ago, and I know that the scientific secretary of this commission was there more recently than me. The information I have and the very recent articles I have read say that on the contrary, according to their findings violence drops when the use of soft drugs can be tolerated and even organized. So they therefore have a beneficial effect in the country. According to my information, the Netherlands is not introducing harsher policies. Perhaps Mr. Sansfaçon has some additional information on this.

Senator De Bané: We were told that the prison population in the Netherlands had increased and one of the reasons for this was that it had been decided that users of drugs, including soft drugs, would be dealt with much more harshly. Perhaps we will have to check into this further.

Ms Bertrand: You are referring to prison statistics for recent years.

Senator De Bané: So your conclusion, after studying this issue for more than 25 years, is that laws that do not reflect customs and practices, and that do not have a rational basis should be corrected to take into account contemporary realities, rather than making non-compliance with these laws a routine matter. Is that correct?

Ms Bertrand: Definitely, but I would also say that maintaining laws in which most Canadians - and I am thinking of open line programs I have heard or in which I participated - say they no longer believe and for which they see no basis, leads to distrust by citizens of their government, which is putting forward policies that are not in keeping with their culture. This becomes laughable in a number of circles. This may also sometimes become dramatic, because it sometimes happens, because Canadian legislation permits it, that people are imprisoned for mere possessionof cannabis. We imprison quite a few people! I counted that 1,400 people that had been imprisoned between October and January of this year, just for possessing cannabis in Canada. These are newcomers to prison. These are not insignificant figures, because prison is expensive. Moreover, a criminal record is also costly to individuals in their attempt to function in society.

The Chairman: We are talking about simple possession?

Ms Bertrand: Yes.

The Chairman: Was that the only offence? The argument often put forward by the police when they are told this is that the offence for cannabis possession occurred at the same time as a bank robbery, but that the accused had cocaine or cannabis in his or her pockets.

Ms Bertrand: I am very pleased to be able to tell you that this answer is very wrong and very inaccurate, and that you must definitely refute it during your study. In Canada, in criminal law, only the most serious offence is considered. That is the one with which the person is charged and the reason he or she is in prison. In fact, Serge Ménard was able to say on the radio the other day that he could not say how many inmates have drug problems or have committed drug offences, because very often the offence of which they were found guilty was much more serious. So the reality is somewhat the opposite of what you described. Since possession of cannabis is now a minor affair under the 1997 act, particularly at the trial level, cannabis possession cannot cover more serious crimes. It is the most serious offence that is the reason for imprisonment.

The Chairman: So it is not a lesser, included offence, as we were told.

Ms Bertrand: No. Of course, the individual may have robbed a convenience store of $25 and it was felt that cannabis possession was more serious because this was the second such offence, and so on and so on. But it is not possible that the figures I have given you are hiding very serious crimes that would have warranted imprisonment. They really refer to possession of cannabis.

The Chairman: Doctor Bertrand, what distinction do you make between depenalization and decriminalization?

Ms Bertrand: In fact, depenalization in the strictest sense involves reducing the severity of the penalty and the charges, as the Canadian Parliament did in 1997. Rather than proceeding by indictment, we proceed summarily; rather than taking people into custody, we impose a fine. It is a lesser punishment, or a very small punishment.

The Chairman: Less severely.

Ms Bertrand: To decriminalize would be to remove the offence from the Criminal Code, as was done with abortion, without necessarily legalizing it. Decriminalization is removal from the Criminal Code.

The Chairman: Are you for or against the legalization of drugs in general?

Ms Bertrand: Twenty five years ago, this is what I said in a minority report, which was no doubt a thorn in the side of the Commission's chairman since he had hoped we would be unanimous. I still believe this, but with a subtle difference. I still believe, rationally, that if we don't take care of all substances - and I do not pretend that my position is politically correct - and if for example we remove cannabis from the Criminal Code, by hypothesis, through decriminalization, it is clear that organized crime, illicit traffic, illegal trafficking will have a firmer hold on the most dangerous substances. That is to say that organized crime will no longer be very interested in cannabis, and will concentrate more on substances that are apt to make people addicts.

The Chairman: Do you make a distinction between making something legal and not making it criminal?

Ms Bertrand: My recommendation was that drugs be regulated as alcohol is in Canada.

The Chairman: You would not advocate free sale?

Ms Bertrand: No, controlled by State regulations.

The Chairman: A regulatory program such as we have for milk, water and food.

Ms Bertrand: With price and quality controls, and taking into consideration the age of the person buying.

The Chairman: You wrote an article recently for the newspaper Le Devoir concerning federal government regulations for the medical use of cannabis. What is your opinion on this subject?

Ms Bertrand: With all due respect for the Department of Health, it seems to me that this is some kind of diversionary tactic. A country must show itself to be compassionate, but it must not devote a lot of time and energy to a few hundred people who could benefit from a drug. It is all well and good if this drug is useful for them. Even better if this substance is useful to them. However, the issue here is the few people for whom cannabis could provide some relief. Some four or five million Canadians use cannabis. It seems to me that policy should target the population in general and make it possible for the laws of a country - legislation which definitely affects 20 per cent of one age group and 10 per cent of another - to recognize reality, which is not a situation causing national problems. We are not faced with a national security problem of cannabis use and if we are, it is because we are preventing farmers from growing what they want to grow and we are perhaps contributing to organized crime's interest in cannabis. I recognize that organized crime is interested in cannabis. I sometimes testify at major trials involving tons of cannabis arriving in the country.

It is a significant issue. It is not possible that the Canadian government would only examine compassionate use of medical cannabis at a time when your senatorial committee has had the courage to give itself a mandate to study the question overall.

The Chairman: Ms Bertrand, we must recognize that the Canadian government had no choice but to act. The Ontario Court of Appeal forced it to act. My question was much more aimed at regulations than at legislative amendment.

Ms Bertrand: I am sorry, I do not have an opinion on the subject.

The Chairman: What should be the basic principles for a national illegal drug policy? Is morality one of these principles? Should it be founded on public health? What about public opinion? I know that you have been studying this matter for 30 years and I am sure you have a lot to say about it.

Ms Bertrand: It seems to me that it is not possible, legitimate nor moral for us, in the year 2001, with our present state of knowledge that contradicts a great many of the lies that we have long accepted about drugs and their effects, to retain our present legislation. Work done by several of my students as well as many other researchers shows that the police themselves are no longer able to apply the present laws. They do not wish to do so nor is it within their capability. If you are interested, I can you provide with the work done by several sociologists who have accompa nied the police on the street, both in their cars and outside, and have observed that the police are powerless. They are not convinced that they should be acting in such matters. So it is no longer legitimate or even moral to impose upon a population, with a different culture on such matters, their requirements to comply with laws that no longer have any meaning.

Is it legitimate to make use of criminal law to repress behaviour relating to individual consumer choices if such choices do not constitute a real harm for the community or, according to the opinion one may have on the matter, a harm for the person himself? This brings us to the great debate of John Stuart Mill in his treatise on freedom. His view was that we have 20 years to teach our children the responsibilities of a citizen. Once this time is over, we may talk and attempt to convince them but we no longer have the power to compel them. In matters of choice and lifestyle we have done what we could and anything further will be turned against us.

Resorting to repression in an area where there are no longer the consensual values for the support of the legislative apparatus results in a series of perverse effects that we have already discussed. I gather that you are asking whether criminal law could, in the year 2001, be based on morality, a certain concept of the good life, of decent living. Certainly, but it seems to me that our Canadian values have evolved a great deal and have become secular. Qualities relating to citizenship, for example, or social responsibility have become far more prominent. Once again, I envy you this opportunity to undertake your study at such a time when you will be able to hear the views of Canadians on this subject.

Senator De Bané: Your last comments lead me to think that you must be in agreement with this paraphrase of something that was already said, namely that the State has no business in people's private lives. Insofar as an individual's private life has no harmful effect on the rest of the society, we have no right to impose our morality on others.

Ms Bertrand: That is in keeping with the thesis of John Stuart Mill as referred to by Mr. LeDain in an admirable passage from the report on cannabis. He discusses this point of view in contrast to another very conservative one, namely Allan's view, and says that on reflection, he thinks that John Stuart Mill is quite right and that even if one wished to do so, it would not be possible to compel another person to act in matters of individual choice relating to one's person and one's health.

Senator De Bané: For centuries, certain types of intimate behaviour practiced by people in private were criminalized. Such acts were listed in the Criminal Code until the 1960s. This was an attempt to impose a morality that had nothing to do with life in society.

Ms Bertrand: At the time, a strong Catholic or Protestant religious culture supported such values. In some ways it was possible to give expression to such values in criminal law which were the reflection of religious and moral values.

The Chairman: I did not raise the matter of religion but your colleague, Professor Beauchesne, did so in October. She made a comparison between North American and European Protestantism. In Europe, it is far more pragmatic whereas here it carries a much stronger moral connotation. This parallel was to explain the difference that is still to be found in our societies.

Ms Bertrand: It is very paradoxical because in fact, our legal system, the common law, gives us great leeway to individualize or particularize our application of criminal law whereas in European law of the Roman and German tradition, doctrine is of supreme importance and constitutes a fairly rigid framework. These countries are now in the process of getting rid of several elements of the Single Convention. Several of these countries have already signed it. They are making concessions - in Italy, for example - because that is what the masses are calling for.

The Chairman: Since January there has been a significant change in Belgium, which is proceeding with decriminalization.

Ms Bertrand: In Canada there is a kind of de facto decriminalization. When the most recent surveys show that there are apparently between three and four million regular users of cannabis and several other drugs, only 60,000 people appear before the courts. That is a very small proportion of the consumers, the actual delinquents.

This means that there is de facto decriminalization. The police do not want to and would be unable to deal with this and in any case, what would we do if the courts were faced with three million Canadians tomorrow?

That also takes away from the legislator's credibility, this discrepancy between the actual situation and the law. The law is important. The criminal standard is supposed to be a mirror reflecting our most cherished values. These are the values that must not be offended because they are the dominant values of the group.

The Chairman: Thank you. It was fascinating to have this discussion with you and we take good note of your recommendations.

The committee is adjourned.