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Proceedings of the Special Committee on
Illegal Drugs

Issue 10 - Evidence for November 7, 2001 (afternoon session)

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VANCOUVER, Wednesday, November 7, 2001

The Special Senate Committee on Illicit Drugs met this day at 1:30 pm to reassess Canada's anti-drug legislation and policies.

Senator Pierre Claude Nolin (Chairman) in the chair.

[Translation]

The Chairman: I will now call to order this meeting of the Special Committee on Illegal Drugs.

[English]

Our first witness this after is Mr. Heed. Welcome, and thank you very much for accepting our invitation. We will start with your presentation and follow with a question and answer period.

Mr. Kash Heed, Vice Drugs Section, Vancouver Police Service: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I must for not having a written brief to provide to the committee. Unfortunately, I was only advised late last week that I would present on behalf of the Chief Constable at this public hearing.

Although the City of Vancouver has an array of illicit drug problems, I will focus on the cannabis issue. Nevertheless, if there are questions concerning other drug issues, I will attempt to answer them for the committee.

I know you have heard from individuals representing other law enforcement agencies or associations and experts in other fields who have considerable knowledge on this subject. I will try not to repeat what they have told you. I will, however, give you a perspective that may or may not be supported by these people. I am aware that analyzing a topic that is the subject of heated, social debate may have its hazards. Many law enforcement professionals are reluctant to openly discuss the cannabis issue and several police leaders are concerned about the prospect of losing the power to arrest people for possession. Nevertheless, it is clear that law enforcement officials view the illegal drug trade as a serious challenge and frequently point out the threatening nature of the drug trade and its impact on society.

Various groups participating in the cannabis debates strongly support their own views and openly disapprove of the views of the opposition. For example, groups that oppose legalization, decriminalization or other liberal approaches to cannabis advocate that the costs of any changes will be enormous. They advocate that changes will increase drug use and abuse substantially and the costs of health care, prevention, productivity loss, and enforcement will increase proportionately.

Opposing advocates claim there are minimal negative health risks when cannabis is used in moderation and detail the legal and social consequences of continuing to criminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis. Still, others are on record as saying they support the decriminalization of possessing small amounts of cannabis if their endorsement is conditional on new government initiatives for drug prevention, education, and treatment.

I will not review or analyze every conceivable view on the cannabis debate. Instead, I will discuss what I believe are the major alternatives to existing policy.

First, I would like to discuss our current operating practices in the Vancouver Police Department. Small-scale possession is virtually unenforced by the police department and the government no longer effectively prosecutes the use of cannabis. The number of prosecutions in B.C. for cannabis possession is quite small in comparison to other provinces. Regardless, there are still police, Crown, and court services dedicated to prosecuting these offences. In the end, the penalty tends to be quite low, often being an absolute discharge. Some centres have decreased significantly the number of people referred for charge; while in other areas, charges are quite common. The decision to refer someone for charges is left up to the discretion of the police. The decision to prosecute is based on two factors: likelihood of conviction and public interest.

It is important to be aware that the police construct the number of arrests based on enforcement priorities. The Vancouver Police Department's policies focus drug enforcement resources on people who are making a profit from the sale of drugs. Generally, simple possession charges are not pursued regardless of the type of drug unless there are extenuating circumstances.

We recognize that many of the people who use or are addicted to drugs must be dealt with outside of the law enforcement system. We are vigilant and somewhat tolerant of clubs that provide cannabis for medicinal claims. Under the auspices of the Medical Marijuana Access regulations, several more ventures that are similar to these clubs are in the works for Vancouver. In practical terms, we have de facto decriminalization or de facto legalization based on the wide margin of discretion afforded to the police.

Many have argued the legal alternatives I will present for your consideration. These are: complete prohibition; prohibition of commodity; limited prohibition with civil penalties; and controlling guidelines. I must emphasize that choosing among the four alternatives requires consideration of the social surroundings, cultural values, and reality of implementation. These social conditions are important because both the use of cannabis and the laws prohibiting the use of cannabis have symbolic importance, representing a clash of values between the prevailing society that opposes cannabis use and the large minority that condones its use.

The probable effects of the alternatives include changes in the use patterns, enforcement costs and related social concerns. The social concerns include the marketing of other drugs and common respect for the law.

Prohibition has come under increasing criticism in recent years. Legal and health experts have suggested that existing laws prohibiting cannabis use should be repealed. The suggestions have been encouraged by the failure of current policies to deter users, the criminalization of a large number of people, and the high cost of law enforcement.

I am not alone when I go on record in support of the removal of criminal penalties for small, private possession of cannabis as a means of reducing the economic costs of law enforcement and the social costs of arrests of people who are otherwise not criminally involved.

However, the actual savings in law enforcement costs attributable to changing prohibition of possession are hard to estimate. The difficulty occurs in part because cannabis arrests have decreased in recent years in Vancouver reflecting the overall tendency to relax enforcement for simple possession. Nevertheless, reduced law enforcement activities would have substantial savings if the law was repealed or changed.

Total prohibition has resulted in costly enforcement, alienation of groups of people, discriminatory enforcement, little deterrence in supply, and minimal deterrence of use. As well, prohibition of commodity would only support the official policy of discouraging use, but, at the same time, would recognize the practical difficulties of attempting to eliminate use.

Often laws aimed exclusively at suppressing sales are more cost-effective in reducing possession than are laws that attempt to suppress possession directly. The reason is there are fewer sellers than buyers. This permits a concentration of law enforcement effort where they are somewhat more effective: focussing on sales. An important fact about prohibition of commodity is that where it has been adopted, it apparently has not led to considerably higher levels of cannabis use than would have existed if the use was prohibited.

Nationally, there are fewer arrests for production of cannabis than for arrests related to use. However, the cost of enforcement for production is far more costly per arrest.

Law enforcement costs are by no means the only costs of prohibiting the commodity. There are large amounts of money being made in cannabis. As well, violence is a cost of attempting to prohibit cannabis. Criminals in Vancouver have shown a willingness to use violent means to settle disputes, thus contributing to the growing number of marijuana-related homicides in the region. Also, there have been reports of home invasions, kidnappings, assaults, and burglaries where rival producers or entrepreneurs have ripped off producers.

Despite the effort by law enforcement to prohibit the commodity, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of marijuana grow operations in Vancouver. Conservative estimates in 1999 indicated that approximately 7,000 to 8,000 marijuana grow operations were in the Lower Mainland - 2,700 of those in the City of Vancouver. Today, estimates exceed 15,000 grow operations in the Lower Mainland yielding a $4.2 billion value of marijuana production. Provincially, the annual wholesale value is approximately $6 billion. Intelligence reports indicate that Vietnamese crime groups and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs control 85 per cent of marijuana production and distribution in British Columbia.

As of October 2001, the Vancouver Police Department has investigated 501 marijuana grow operations in the city compared with 281 in the year 2000. The average number of plants found in a grow operation is 244, and the average crop value assessment is $257,000. The year-to-date value of seized marijuana and equipment is $137 million compared to $57 million in 2000. Profits from grow operations - primarily controlled by organized crime - are funnelled into numerous sectors of the legitimate economy. This laundered money exposes business people to criminal groups and erodes a competitive nature of legitimate business.

The limited prohibition with civil penalties alternative is similar to the scope used under complete prohibition and is favoured by many law enforcement officials. One of the motivating factors behind this alternative is the effect it will have on police resources, which, in Vancouver are at the threshold. The hypothesis is that this alternative will allow law enforcement officials the opportunity to apply resources normally spent in this area on more pressing issues. However, it is very difficult to say what impact this alternative would have given that several law enforcement agencies have de facto decriminalization and have already re-applied the resources. This option is deemed not to create a criminal record. In practice, it means cannabis users will unlikely face consequences if they are caught with small amounts. Under this alternative, police officers will still be expected to confiscate cannabis and expend considerable resources to pursue supply offenders.

Regardless, several questions need to be raised: What quantity determines the fine? Would this only apply to first-time offenders? What options would there be if someone failed to pay the fine? Would this send a message that cannabis is harmless?

The argument for a controlled, legal supply of cannabis is largely based on social costs and the ineffectiveness of prohibition, and prohibition of commodity, and on the belief that controlling rather than limiting the commodity would lead to an unacceptably large increase of use. Under a controlling policy, the cultivation, importation, manufacture, distribution, and use of cannabis would no longer be illegal as such.

Several policy options range from this broad category including the removal of cannabis from the criminal justice system to a carefully controlled system of licensing or government monopoly of retail sale and production. Controls may also include legal fixed pricing and the application of taxes.

The advantages of controlling guidelines include the departure of most illegal markets; the savings in social and law enforcement costs that could better be spent on dangerous drugs, such as heroin and cocaine; better controls over the quality of product; and increased awareness about the risks associated with use.

Primary disadvantages include the consequences of increased cannabis use: that being, but not limited to, increases in harm to health, development, and behaviour. Greater use of cannabis under controlling guidelines is regarded as the most significant cost of this alternative. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that under present laws the frequency of cannabis use has not decreased.

The effectiveness of the present policy for prohibiting the use of cannabis falls far from its goal of preventing use. It can no longer be argued that the use of cannabis would be much more widespread and challenging effects greater today if prohibition did not exist.

Cannabis supply is already widely available regardless of the prohibition. Despite the best efforts of law enforcement under any expected set of conditions, cannabis will continue to be widely available. Though controlling guidelines would increase the availability of cannabis, estimates of the size of the increase and associated increase in harm must be weighed against estimates of the cost and weaknesses of continuing with our current laws. In essence, the question is whether more harm would be done. Many questions remain to be answered. Before an informed choice can be made, there are many things that will not be known unless we try a different approach.

In conclusion, I believe that current policies directed at prohibiting the use of cannabis and controlling the supply of cannabis should be reconsidered. The confirmed ineffectiveness of control of use through prohibiting the supply and the high cost of implementing such a policy make it very unlikely that any kind of prohibition policy will be effective in reducing cannabis use significantly below present levels.

Furthermore, it seems likely that the removal of criminal sanctions should be given serious consideration by the federal government in the near future. For this reason, a variety of legal alternatives should be considered. It is possible, after empirical study, that the alternatives may identify an abundance of disadvantages that would not hold up to public scrutiny.

The Chairman: Thank you, Inspector Heed, for your bold presentation.

Do you speak for yourself or for your department?

Mr. Heed: I am speaking for the Vancouver Police Department.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Senator St. Germain: Inspector, I have a couple of quick questions. Under the present structure of enforcement where for small amounts there is essentially no prosecution in the Vancouver area, how does that play off against rural areas where there is more aggressive enforcement? Does it not create a horrific imbalance in the application of law within the province?

Mr. Heed: In British Columbia, centres outside of Vancouver have a higher prosecution for possession of cannabis than does the City of Vancouver. We have to look at the economical division of labour here in the City of Vancouver and the caseload before our courts currently. That applies not only to the court system, but also to the Vancouver Police Department. We have limited resources; we apply them as we deem appropriate for the current circumstances.

Senator St. Germain: Then you have, basically, two standards. There is a real lack of consistency of application. I am not being critical of what you are doing. I am just stating a fact. Do you concur with that?

Mr. Heed: I concur. I believe that the inconsistency is not only in British Columbia; I believe it is across Canada.

Senator St. Germain: There is the issue of impairment. As you know, I used to be on the force. We always had the problem of dealing with the heroin addicts who were driving and so forth. If you were to legalize this, is there proper technology available today to test people for impairment in the use of cannabis? If so, is it being utilized as such at the present time and how aggressively?

Mr. Heed: There is technology available and some officers are trained in detecting drugs and drug impairment. We equate that to how we detect alcohol and impairment of alcohol. This relates mainly to being under the influence of either drugs or alcohol while driving.

Senator St. Germain: Is the testing as sophisticated as the testing for alcohol impairment become? Can you check tests for a series of drugs for impairment?

Mr. Heed: I am sorry. I am unable to answer that. I just know there is technology and there is training available for police officers in this area. To the extent of what that training is, what technology is actually applied, I could not answer that.

Senator St. Germain: Are you enforcing the tobacco smoking bylaws as such? I bring this up for Senator Kenny because, you know, it seems sort of ridiculous: We are banning cigarette smoking and they want you to prosecute for smoking a cigarette, which is an addictive substance. However, how do we rationalize legalizing something that could be as carcinogenic and harmful? Are you responsible in Vancouver for the anti-smoking bylaw?

Mr. Heed: No, I am not. The bylaw is enforced by other city staff. It is not enforced by the Vancouver Police Departments.

Senator St. Germain: But do they have the right to arrest these people?

Mr. Heed: I do not believe they do.

Senator Kenny: Inspector Heed, your testimony sounded reasonable. I would like to paraphrase it back to you to see if I have got it right. You are saying that this phenomenon is going on in any event. Folks are using marijuana throughout Vancouver and elsewhere. However, in your case throughout Vancouver, and the allocation of police resources to this problem is not cost-effective.

Mr. Heed: No.

Senator Kenny: I did not get it right?

Mr. Heed: You were correct. It is not cost-effective for us to allocate the resources at this time.

Senator Kenny: You also said, if I heard you correctly, that society has determined a norm. It has determined how it is going to behave and you, as an agent of the government, are being sent out to cause society to behave differently than it chooses to behave.

Mr. Heed: Correct.

Senator Kenny: What you are saying to this committee is that you would like us to bring the laws in line with how society is behaving.

Mr. Heed: Correct.

Senator Kenny: I am comfortable with what I am hearing you say. I would like to ask you a couple of specific questions and then just comment briefly on cigarettes.

Ms Black from the B.C. Compassion Club appeared before us this morning and she indicated in her testimony that her organization had what appeared to be the fairly active support of the police department here. Can you corroborate that?

Mr. Heed: We have looked at the Compassion Club and we have determined that that is not a priority for any enforcement currently with the Vancouver Police Department. We recognize that many of the people that attend the Compassion Club are ill. Our resources are better spent dealing on what we feel are the more harmful effects of drug use in the City of Vancouver.

Senator Kenny: My next question is a difficult one. At least I would say it is difficult because it comes to me sometimes from relatives who have young kids. They say - I am paraphrasing here - "Kenny, what are you doing studying marijuana? I am having enough trouble dealing with little Johnny and we are nervous about this. We are uncomfortable with this exercise and you are going off with this senate committee and you are stirring up the pot, and you are making life difficult for us bringing up Johnny the way we think he should be brought up." Do you get that at all and how do you deal with it?

Mr. Heed: Yes. This morning I attended a meeting where we discussed drug education. We discussed drug education in the school system, that being the DARE program. That question does come up. The important thing is to continue with the delivery of the educational component to get our children away from drugs, not to try drugs, whether it is through the school system or another institution in society. We must take the lead role in this. Yes, we still encourage our children not to use drugs, but we want to educate them on some of the reasons not to. Certainly we have to ensure that we give them the best education in this area as possible, that we teach them about the effects of cannabis use and of heroin use. We clearly tell them about this new phenomenon in Vancouver - the amphetamine type stimulant problems. We want to educate our kids so that they can make informed decisions. As well, adults can make informed decisions on what they would like for their children.

Senator Kenny: This touches on an issue I related with the mayor this morning and that had to do with both DARE and with the program that is going on in the classrooms. It is a question of who is delivering the message. The message is not necessarily wrong, however, sometimes who delivers it has a significant impact on the recipient. Whether it is a senator or a police officer or a teacher, kids see us in a certain light and we may not be the right people to deliver it. Do you have views on that?

Mr. Heed: The research that I have read on the DARE program - and it is American, not Canadian research - indicates that the effectiveness of the program is dependent on it being delivered by a police officer, a person in authoritative possession.

I have a have a different opinion. We are throwing out a number of views for discussion within our department, with the school board. We are asking whether the program should be part of the curriculum in the Vancouver school district or whether they should have our educators within that institution delivering this program. The U.S. research indicates that it should be a police officer.

Currently, with the problems we have in our inner city schools, I have only three DARE officers in the City of Vancouver who can deliver that educational component to our school children.

Senator Kenny: There is empirical evidence indicating that in Florida and Minnesota, there was an increase in use among kids when the message was delivered by authority figures. When kids, in fact, are delivering the message, there are better results than adults.

My comment on cigarette smoking is simply that there is a much higher fatality rate as a result of cigarette smoking than there is in relation to marijuana. I think there is a significant difference in the health risk between the two drugs and I will leave it at that. Thank you, inspector, I found your testimony interesting.

Senator Jaffer: This morning the mayor spoke about users and pushers. I believe that you said the majority of users who go to the Compassion Club are sick. I am interested in your views on users and pushers - because it is a fine line between users and pushers - how does your department assess that?

Mr. Heed: The resources that I deploy from the drug section will focus on anyone who is making a profit from the sale of drugs - whether they are traffickers or people who are cultivating and producing their own cannabis.

With respect to dangerous drugs, we recognize that the people who are addicted to heroin, crack, rock, cocaine derivatives and some of the amphetamine stimulants, should be looked at and treated outside of the law enforcement system. These people need help; they should be directed to agencies that have expertise to deliver the health care and so on. We should not be pushing these people through the system.

I focus my resources on the person making a profit, not on the addicted user. We would like to have other systems in our society look after them.

Senator Jaffer: I understand - and you can correct me if I am wrong - that a the majority of the funds are spent on enforcement and then there is some money that is spent on prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. Does any of the Vancouver Police force's budget get spent on any of the latter three?

Mr. Heed: From an educational and prevention point of view, some of our law enforcement dollars are directed in that area, but not a large percentage. You are correct in saying that the majority of my budget is allocated to the enforcement part of our drug laws in Canada.

I have to come from the point of view of where I am most experienced, and that is the law enforcement pillar. I recognize that we have to take a major role in that particular pillar and somewhat of a minor role in the other three pillars. We do not expect someone else to take that major role in the law enforcement pillar. We expect them to be with us in a minor role.

Senator Carney: Inspector, I just want to add a supplementary to Senator Kenny's summary of your testimony because I missed the first part of it. When he asked you, "Are you asking us to bring the laws in line with how society is behaving?" You said, "Yes." Where do you draw the line?

A lot of kids do not drink. To use an analogy, there are some 12-year-old and 13-year-old kids who drink beer, but there are a whole lot of kids who do not drink because they have to be of a certain age. Likewise with drunk driving, there are a lot of people who drive when they are drunk, but there are whole lot of people who do not because of the laws. When I hear a police officer say that we have to bring the laws in line with how society is behaving, I am asking you where do we draw the line?

Mr. Heed: It is difficult to determine where we, as a police department, will draw the line. We are governed by the courts in Canada. Parliament makes the laws and we abide and reinforce them. Therefore, it is difficult, from an enforcement perspective, to say where the line should be drawn.

I have laid out four alternatives and talked about the positive and negative of each alternative. You may want to consider that I am drawing my lines there, but it is difficult for me to comment on where the lines should be drawn even though we have a wide margin of discretion on how we enforce our laws.

Senator Carney: Our dilemma is that, in many cases, we have the Supreme Court interpreting the laws in a different way than we intended, and then we have, for obviously good reasons, people implementing the laws in a way that, in effect, weaken some. We are elected to parliament to legislate and we have a problem ourselves in trying to bring in laws that are respected by society. I would be very careful about what behaviour you would deem as unenforceable.

Mr. Heed: I will leave it to you to draw the line.

The Chairman: Inspector Heed, I have one question that you do not have to answer this afternoon because it requires a type of chart. We want to know how your division is organized in the Vancouver police - how is it structured administratively to deal with the drug problem. Would you provide us with that information?

My next, more specific question, is what is your relationship with the RCMP here?

Mr. Heed: The City of Vancouver per se, as you are aware, is policed by the Vancouver Police Department. We do have joint forces operating here in the City of Vancouver where our primary partner is the RCMP and sometime there are other municipal agencies that work with us. The RCMP has federal drug officers that are assigned to my section. They work on a higher level, that being what I call the mid-level enforcement and above.

The Chairman: That would be trafficking?

Mr. Heed: Yes, but we take it from the street level to that higher level, and that is what they focus their efforts on. Within the Vancouver Police Department, we have re-focussed our efforts back on the open air drug market here in the City of Vancouver, so we can deal with some of the problems in the open air drug market from a street-level perspective and then move it up to whatever level we feel we can take it.

The Chairman: What is the relationship you have with the Crown attorneys with respect to your earlier comment about not enforcing any possession of any drug in small quantity.

Mr. Heed: It depends on the circumstances, but, generally speaking, we do not enforce simple possession charges regardless of what the drug is unless there is extenuating circumstances attached to that.

Senator St. Germain: Is that heroin, as well as any drug?

Mr. Heed: Yes.

The Chairman: I would like to talk about raves. What is the attitude of your division? Do they need a permit to organize a rave?

Mr. Heed: A legal rave in the City of Vancouver, yes, they need city licensing to agree and give them a permit.

The Chairman: What are the conditions attached to such permit?

Mr. Heed: I cannot not provide them. We do have police officers that sit on that committee that discusses whether or not the individual will be allocated a licence to operate a rave within the City of Vancouver. Depending on the size of the rave, we also have police officers assigned to monitor the crowd.

The Chairman: Are those officers familiar with the drug? By "familiar," I mean not only the criminal aspect, but also the more scientific aspect.

Mr. Heed: These are general patrol officers. They do not specialize in the drug area. Their experience is drawn from their patrol or operational duties or any past experiences they have in this area. They are not specifically trained on what you classify as the scientific area of drugs.

The Chairman: They are not trained to counsel?

Mr. Heed: No.

The Chairman: Talk to us about police enforcement in schools.

Mr. Heed: The majority of high schools in the City of Vancouver have school liaison officers - police officers working out of that school and all the feeder schools into that particular high school. We also have two additional officers assigned exclusively to deal with the inner city elementary schools, for a total of 15 officers assigned to work within the school system.

They have an array of duties, everything from physical presence to enforcement of whatever law, or just the fact that they are there. The duties encompass everything to do with the educational component of it delivered by the police department. As I mentioned, the three DARE officers we have trained, they are school liaison officers.

The Chairman: What is the level of trafficking within the high schools in Vancouver?

Mr. Heed: We have reports of trafficking. I cannot give you a measurement right now, simply because I do not know how little or to what grade extent it is. We do have information regarding trafficking taking place in our schools, but it is certainly not to the extent of the trafficking that is taking place in the open air drug markets here in the City of Vancouver. The primary open-air drug market we have is what is classified as the Downtown Eastside.

Senator St. Germain: Inspector, as you well know we have a neighbour to the south of us. If legalization were to take effect, what effect do you think this would have if our American neighbours maintain the status quo?

The Chairman: He is probably not the right witness to answer that. Maybe he can tell us about the relationship he has with his colleagues south of the border.

Senator St. Germain: Well, I think that he is fairly experienced and intelligent. I used to be on the force with these guys, so I know how smart they are. We worked quite closely with the Americans. I will ask the question as to what impact legalization would have on the relationship.

Mr. Heed: Drug tourism is always a problem, whether it is across an international boundary or across a provincial boundary. It is something we will have to look at and we will have to address. In my discussions with police officers from the south, they are very adamant: No, no. I am caught in the middle. Their focus is on reducing the supply. My focus is on reducing the demand and reducing the supply.

Senator St. Germain: How much time have you spent on the street?

Mr. Heed: How much - prior to?

Senator St. Germain: Prior to becoming inspector.

Mr. Heed: Twenty-one years.

Senator St. Germain: Twenty-one years. Well, you know, I was on the street, I worked 100 block, Grant MacDonald, Spencer and so on. When we were down there, young kids come down on soft drugs, a lot of cases ended up on heroin and other hard drugs. Has society changed to the degree that we can look at societal behaviour? I know that society has changed and everything changes. What scares me is that we might be making a decision driven by a scale of economies versus the health risks and the dangers that it would pose. That is scary.

I have been away from the street since 1966. I do not know how much has changed, but I know at that time, there were several cases of kids aged 15 or 16 coming down and the next thing you knew, they were shooting heroin with the rest of them. I would like your comment on that, please.

Mr. Heed: I do not think that is a common practice. We have heard the argument that this is a gateway to dangerous drugs. In my experience I have not seen that. Clearly, when you go around the City of Vancouver, there are areas where these people purchase and smoke their marijuana and there are not many problems. You go a few blocks down the road and there are people that smoke rock cocaine, crack cocaine; inject heroin; you can see the social order problems that are caused as a result of that.

Now, when you look at whether marijuana is a gateway to taking dangerous drugs, we have to remember that in the underground world, many of the people that are trafficking, producing or cultivating marijuana, are also involved in other criminal activities where they will do anything to make a profit - whether it is using some of the proceeds to purchase cocaine or heroin and bring it into our communities.

We do not have our 85 per cent criminal organization dealing in the marijuana industry, exclusively dealing in the marijuana industry. They are dealing in whatever they can make a profit at, so if the marijuana user is exposed to that level of society continually, there is a chance that he or she may be exposed to a dangerous drug, simply because that is what that entrepreneur would be dealing with at that time.

Senator St. Germain: I hear what you are saying. You are telling us that there is a group in society that smoke marijuana and they stay with their marijuana; then you speak of the other group.

Now, let us go to the children who attend these rave parties. Do you not feel that there is a risk that marijuana use will weaken their resistance and allow them to get into other drugs such as amphetamines and ecstasy?

We are dealing with various groups in society. There are people who smoke pot and sit at home and never bother anybody; they are just happy pot smokers. Then there is the segment downtown on the east side of the 100 block and on Granville. Then there are our children in the schools. They are out testing alcohol, marijuana and this, that and the other thing. Your inhibitions and resistance are tested when under the influence. Can you respond to that or am I putting you in an uncomfortable spot?

Mr. Heed: You are not putting me in an uncomfortable spot. We have to remember that regardless, yes, these people are going to try it. I am sure there are people in this room who tried marijuana when they were younger. I have never tried marijuana and I have no intention of doing so, but when I was underage, I drank. I wanted to see what it was like, and I still drink now. My intention is to have the odd drink here and there and continue with that.

It all depends on the choices that you make as an individual. Sometimes inhibitions are a bit lower or sometimes more aggressive when you have had a few drinks. I cannot attribute that to the fact that if you smoke marijuana or take some other drug that you may go in this direction regardless. I hope I am leaning towards answering your question.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Inspector Heed, for your testimony, and we will keep in touch. You will send us the documentation that we have asked?

Mr. Heed: Yes.

Ms Nichola Hall, Chairperson, From Grief to Action: I am the chair of From Grief to Action, which is an association of friends and families of drug users. I have two sons, who are now 24 and 21 - one of them is in the hall here - who have been addicted to heroin and cocaine since they were in their teens. They are both currently on a methadone program, struggling, but trying to improve matters for themselves.

I am part of a group of parents and families who have children who are struggling with addiction to hard drugs, heroin and cocaine. I think we represent the tip of an iceberg in Vancouver and probably right across Canada - parents, families, and friends of people who are using illegal drugs, but who come from good, loving, and comfortable homes. Most families in this situation feel so ashamed and so guilty that they do not talk it. It is difficult for them to express their anxiety, their grief and their helplessness.

However, when a group of us first got together as a support group at a local church to talk about our feelings, we moved on to deciding that we should take some action. We held a public meeting on very short notice and expected maybe 50 people; 150 came. Since then, we have had hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, and letters from people who say they are in the same situation as we are.

I am sure you know all about the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver - the tragic area of our city, where so many drug users end up. What you may not realize is how widespread the problem of hard, illegal drugs is in this city. It is totally appalling how easily accessible and how cheap heroin and cocaine and crack are in this city and throughout the suburbs outside every high school.

We want to change the stereotype that people have that all addicts are abused and rejected by their families. We want people to realize that becoming addicted to drugs can happen to anyone.

As parents, and families, and friends of drug users, we are on the front line. We are very pleased that you have invited us to speak to this committee. We are hoping that you will be looking at the whole spectrum of all illegal drugs. As a group, we are not so concerned about marijuana. The hard drugs - the heroin and cocaine - are the focus of our concern.

Having said that, many of our children did start the route to hard drug use by using marijuana. They have also used alcohol and tobacco, whether it is legal or not does not seem to make any difference.

The answer to the problem, in our opinion, is not to label drug users of any persuasion as criminals. We feel that no one should face the prospect of penal consequences for the possession of drugs for personal use. Criminal sanctions have failed in the past and continue to fail to deter youth from experimenting with drugs. Such sanctions are meaningless when children too young even for the Young Offenders Act are being introduced to drugs.

Much more could and should be done in the way of effective prevention and treatment programs. Whatever changes are made to the current legal regime must be accompanied by a commitment to fund prevention education. And I think Art Steinmann will be talking to you about that. The other thing that we feel is so incredibly important is treatment. There is an appalling lack of treatment.

We recognize youth are in a special category. Whether adult possession of marijuana or other drugs is decriminalized or legalized, there will still have to be attempts to restrict the access of youth to drugs. Consumption of alcohol by minors is an offence and should remain so, but it is not a crime and nor should the possession of marijuana be.

The dealer, particularly the non-addicted trafficker who preys upon vulnerable children, should bear the full weight of the criminal justice system. We wonder why any dealer should receive any less than a four-year minimum mandated for persons who commit offences with firearms when drugs are just as deadly.

I have a position statement from our group and I would like to quickly touch the headlines. Then my son has something he would like to say to you and then we could answer some questions.

The primary purpose of our organization is to promote the recognition of drug use as a health issue. We feel that drug use is primarily a health issue and that it should not be treated as a criminal issue, and that includes all drug use from marijuana through to crack cocaine.

We want to raise public awareness of the needs and concerns of drug users and their families and work towards overcoming stereotyping and marginalization. We believe that it is not just drug use that is the problem; it is how we deal with the drug user that continues to breed a climate of discrimination.

As a group we provide and promote support for families and friends of drug users. We find that quite often that aspect of the situation is left out, that there is concentration on the drug users themselves and not on the whole family structure, which is also affected.

We support effective educational programs that are designed to prevent drug abuse and uphold abstinence as an ideal, but we think just saying no is not effective at all. We promote activities that provide a wide range of age-appropriate programs that recognize and deal with the issue of drugs in realistic non-judgmental and effective manner.

We work towards the establishment. Our group advocates for the establishment of a comprehensive continuum of care for drug users that meets their needs for harm reduction, detoxification, treatment, and rehabilitation so that they may achieve and maintain healthy productive lives.

We deplore the terrible lack of detoxification and treatment facilities in this province. Vancouver has one of the worst drug problems in Canada and we have one of the worst records for treatment and detoxification here.

The number of overdose deaths in the Downtown Eastside is appalling. We support all measures for harm reduction. We do not want our children dying in a dark alley somewhere, so we support everything from needle exchanges to safe injection sites. We support the European models that have proven successful in Switzerland and Holland.

We advocate for changes in laws and policies to improve the lives of drug users and their families and to bring an end to the criminal prosecution of drug users for possession of drugs for personal use. Traditional criminal sanctions fail to deter drug use. They do not help cure addiction and by further marginalizing drug users, may undermine their attempts at rehabilitation.

We are in Vancouver, and I am sure you will know about the four pillars approach and the Vancouver Agreement. We also recognize that there is a need for these issues to be addressed right through the province. We urge all three levels of government to put up the resources required into moving ahead as soon as possible with the commitments to be made in those agreements.

I do not know whether you would like to ask me questions first or whether you would like to hear from my son.

The Chairman: We would like to hear from your son.

Mr. Ross Hall: I would just like to go over a bit of my personal experience. I started marijuana when I was 16 and I was introduced to heroin when I was 19. I went through a few treatment centres, but eventually ended up going on the methadone program. I have been on the methadone program for a year and a half. I am still currently struggling with cocaine use.

I would like to echo some of what my mom said in terms of prevention and also rehabilitation and treatment of addicts. I think that we need to look at how to bring more education into schools, to talk to the children about the dangers of drug use and there needs to be more communication between teachers and parents.

With regard to the legalization of marijuana, it would help enforcement to concentrate their efforts on the hard drug trafficking, rather than on the marijuana. It would also remove the stigma of marijuana use by treating marijuana as a legal drug; users would be less isolated and ostracized.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Senator St. Germain: You said, Ms Hall, children must be protected, and Ross just said he went through the process of starting with marijuana at 16.

Were you here when I was questioning Inspector Heed?

Ms Hall: Yes, I was.

Senator St. Germain: I have lived on the street down on the 100 block as a police officer - partly undercover and partly in uniform. I can understand the problems that the police are having, the economies and the inability to enforce. However, my concern is how we protect our children. How do we protect those children if we allow the legalization of something that appears to be a stepping-stone?

Ms Hall: Are you a parent as well?

Senator St. Germain: I am. I have not gone through what you have gone through possibly, but I have gone through a lot.

Ms Hall: Then you know, as a parent, how difficult it is to stop teenagers from doing something that they want to do. You know, if a teenager decides to indulge in some illegal activity, short of tying him or her to a bedpost, there is not a heck of a lot you can do about it. The answer lies much further back in the upbringing, but I would say that my husband and I and most of the members of our group believe that we gave our children as good an upbringing as we possibly could. We tried to give them values, we tried to give them coping mechanisms, and none of that worked.

I think the children of every parent who has experienced this started on tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. Tobacco and alcohol are not illegal. They are illegal underage, but that does not stop the children from getting access. I do not think that making marijuana illegal makes the slightest bit of difference as to whether the children get it. I think my son will probably tell you that it was easier to get marijuana when he was underage than it was to get alcohol because alcohol is regulated and controlled whereas marijuana is being pushed on every street corner by the dealers.

I heard the police officer before me mention that of course organized crime that is dealing in marijuana. The same organized crime is dealing in heroin and cocaine. We see that there is a distinct connection between the pushing of those drugs. If you leave marijuana in the illegal area where it is being sold illegally by the underground, then there is this direct connection with the same people that are dealing in hard drugs.

Senator St. Germain: Ross, have you any comments on this? I have never smoked marijuana and I don't consider myself any greater than anybody else, but I have just never. I drank and I do still take a drink and, as the inspector said, your inhibitions are affected. Do you not feel that if you had never gone to marijuana, you would have maybe never gone to heroin?

Mr. Hall: Yes, I do. I think marijuana lowered my mental defence, helped me break down some of those psychological barriers towards heroin. Marijuana also caused apathy and de-motivation. I was not able to look rationally at the dangers and consequences of heroin use, so there was a direct connection there. It is far easier for children to get marijuana than to wait outside a liquor store for somebody to come and buy it for you. Marijuana is prevalent in all schools.

I know of a dealer that sells marijuana and heroin and cocaine. I do not know whether all dealers are doing this, they probably are not, but there are a few that would start with marijuana and then once the user got tired of the drug, would then offer them heroin.

Senator St. Germain: Mrs. Hall, you have raised a courageous son. For him to come here and say this takes a lot of courage.

Ms Hall: I think so, too.

Senator St. Germain: There is nothing you have done as a mother and as a parent that you can be faulted.

Ms Hall: Thank you.

Senator St. Germain: I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for coming.

Ms Hall: It is very kind of you to say that. Thank you. I am very proud of him too.

Senator Lawson: He is speaking for all of us.

Senator Kenny: Yes, he is. I was a bit taken aback to watch you come up because you could be my son. I have a 21-year-old, who has blond hair, who looks like he plays football. Do you play any sports?

Mr. Hall: I have not been for a while. I used to play soccer and floor hockey. I skied.

Senator Kenny: How long ago did you stop?

Mr. Hall: I still ski, but I stopped playing soccer about three years ago. I stopped playing floor hockey, now about two and one-half years ago.

Senator Kenny: Can you tell us what it was like? Can you tell us how it worked, what first interested you, who persuaded you or what got you interested?

Mr. Hall: Yes. I felt isolated at school, kind of like a reject. Marijuana became my friend. I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, so I was already having problems learning and problems with memory. I think I medicated with marijuana and it gave me a release. It chemically altered my mood so that I felt better and I could forget about the ostracism of my classmates.

All drugs stop working after a while. They ceased being a solution and usually you are already biochemically altered. Your mind is already altered. Subconsciously, you already believe that substances can bring you relief and so heroin and cocaine become the next step. The more I used chemicals, the more I developed a subconscious complex of the sort of the images of the ritual of the using, the thoughts, the feelings, the lies that I tell myself around that. They would come up in the forefront of my head and they would just overrule my logic telling me that this was insane.

Senator Kenny: When you said you felt ostracized, when you started using drugs, did you find you had new friends?

Mr. Hall: No, actually, I used alone a lot. I had one friend who used with me sometimes. I recognize that kids can fall into peer groups where they are using and they feel a part of that subculture.

Senator Kenny: Were you searching out other drugs after marijuana or were people encouraging you to try other drugs?

Mr. Hall: My older brother introduced me to heroin. I think I am an addict today because I was in that environment. Once you have altered your mood with substances and it is so available it is very easy to try harder drugs.

Senator Kenny: What would your message be to other kids right now?

Mr. Hall: My message would be you are not invincible. You cannot just experiment with these drugs and believe that they will not take your life as they have for me. I would tell them to use some common sense, more than anything and to try and realize their own ambitions and believe that they are worth more.

Senator Kenny: You are working to get off drugs?

Mr. Hall: Yes.

Senator Kenny: Tell us a little bit about the challenges that you face in this effort.

Mr. Hall: Well, every day - I have only two weeks from cocaine. Every day, I feel like I am tightened to the point of breaking strain. My mind just constantly gives me images of the drugs and I get the taste of the cocaine in my mouth, I start to sweat. You know, it is telling me that I will feel good, that I will relieve myself if I go and use. So it is only through sheer determination and by writing out what it is telling me on paper and having an argument with it and talking it completely through to then and coming to a ration decision, can I stay abstinent. As long as it remains in my head it is more powerful than my own mind and my rational process. It has the ability to just deceive me and sometimes it can be triggered by walking into a washroom. Because I was an intravenous drug user, I see a belt or anything like that and it just brings the intense memories of doing it.

Every day is a battle, but I will tell you that I feel good. I feel good because I realize that I am taking back my own life; that I am not going to let substances devastate me. I have got a lot of potential, I have talent, and I know that I am going to make it. Every day, I go to self-help meetings, but I believe that the government needs to put more programs in place - not just an AA, but also incentive programs. We need programs where recovering teen-agers and children can go and fulfil their time and be active because boredom is also a big trigger.

Senator Lawson: I am sure I do not need to tell you this, but if you look to your left you will see that your mother loves you a lot and she is very proud of you. I think the committee is very impressed that you came here today.

Mr. Hall: Thank you.

Ms Hall: I would like to add that he is saying very positive things right now, but this battle has been going on for four or five years. Even though he is on methadone, he is still doing cocaine and he desperately wants to get off it. I don't think anybody can possibly understand how dreadfully difficult it is, however rational and intelligent and sane you might sound sometimes, and then that addiction takes over and it just breaks up everything.

Senator St. Germain: Is your son at home at the present time?

Ms Hall: He is living at home at the moment.

Senator St. Germain: Is there a proper facility here in B.C. that you could put him in for a period of time as he goes through this exasperating experience and this challenge that he is facing right now?

Ms Hall: The answer to that is no. There are two government-run treatment centres in the whole of British Columbia and they have a one-month program designed for people who are alcoholics. The program is absolutely useless for people who are addicted to heroin and cocaine.

Anybody who is addicted to heroin or cocaine needs a year basically in a treatment centre and then rehabilitation treatment follow-up afterwards. There is one private treatment centre called Edgewood, which is very expensive. That program is only six weeks and they essentially take only those who are going to be successful. They know that when they come in. They kick people out halfway through if they do not appear to be doing very well because it is not very good for their statistics.

Senator Carney: Until you talked, Ross, about your experience in going from pot to harder drugs, I must say I was more or less inclined to think that maybe decriminalizing pot would be the way to go. I thought we should separate the two. However, your testimony is so clear that - and I have heard it elsewhere - the one drug does lead someone with an addiction to a higher level of drug. Is that a contradiction of the position that you and your mother raised that it would not matter if you decriminalized marijuana?

Let me ask it very simply to Ross. Based on your experience, would you decriminalize marijuana?

Mr. Hall: Yes, I would.

Senator Carney: Why?

Mr. Hall: I know it seems like a contradiction. Although, I think that if marijuana was legalized, it could be regulated much easier. Because it is illegal right now, it is actually far easier for children to get and keep secret from their parents and that can lead to harder drugs. It did, in my personal experience. I think I was probably predisposed to heroin and cocaine addiction from the beginning.

Some people can use marijuana and for cancer and other ailments and it does not lead them to harder drugs. I think, though, when you are a child, though, your brain is still developing and it is very easy for you to latch into substance abuse.

I still believe in marijuana decriminalization because I think that it would help not only focus the enforcement efforts on the hard drug traffickers and cut out the supply, but it would also bring it out into the open, and ensure that only the people who need marijuana for medicinal purposes would be using it.

Senator Carney: So you are making a clear distinction about just having wide open access to marijuana and having a restrictive access legally to marijuana. You would have restrictions on the legal use of marijuana?

Mr. Hall: Yes, I think there would be an age limit.

Senator Carney: Yes.

Mr. Hall: I have not actually thought about this, but, yes, it would be good to have some restrictions in that matter.

Senator Carney: Okay.

Mr. Hall: Legalized, but also restricted.

Senator Carney: Yes.

Ms Hall, I am interested in this subject because alcohol is, of course, restricted, but teen-agers get it. I have a personal interest in this because I had a grandson who drank underage as a kid. He started drinking about age 12 or 13 and he died at age 17 in an incredibly stupid alcohol-related accident. One of those accidents, with which you would be familiar, would not have happened if he had not been drinking around a bonfire with his peers. I do not think that restrictions are going to prevent teen-agers from access to either alcohol or pot, but I am interested in Ross's argument. Based on your experience, can you "drug proof" a child?

Ms Hall: I would say my experience is obviously you cannot. I do not think it is possible to do that. There are things I would do differently. I made it very clear to my children that I thought doing drugs was a dreadful thing to do. In a way I probably made it worse by having a very hard line on drugs; that was one of the things that I would simply not tolerate. What happened was that then when my sons, both of them, started using drugs, they couldn't tell me.

Senator Carney: Yes.

Ms Hall: They could not talk to me about it because they knew how upset I would be.

Senator Carney: That is hard, yes. Okay. Let us move to the next question on the detoxification centres. I would like to have Ross's view on that because when we knew my grandson had a problem, there were no detox centres. I think there was one in Alberta, but there was no place we could send him that would have saved his life.

Ms Hall: That is right.

Senator Carney: So, Ross, would a detox centre have helped you if that had been available to you?

Mr. Hall: Yes.

Senator Carney: I mean if you treat it as a health problem?

Mr. Hall: Yes, I think that if I had intervention right at the root of the matter, it could have very well stopped me from continuing to use. However, because of my secrecy and unavailability of detox centres when I did want to get in - I had to wait two months or a month and a half - by that time I had almost decided that I did not want to go in.

As a drug use, you can hit various bottoms and go through periods of time where you are really determined to quit. There are other times when you are hopeless and you have no determination at all. I think that the right time to go into a detox centre is when you feel you are ready to put everything you have got into it.

Senator Carney: Okay. As parliamentarians and lawmakers, we have to make recommendations on the law as it is. Your points about decriminalizing marijuana with restrictions and treating drug use as a health issue and creating treatment centres have been helpful to us.

I have one last question. I do not want to prolong this for you. You have come and you have done your job, you have helped us. I feel that we should be dealing with the laws, not so much personal experiences because I think it is hard on the witnesses. My final question is, when you beat this - I think we all think that you will - what would you like to do with your life?

Mr. Hall: Well, I play the piano, so I think the first thing that I will be doing, is starting a semester at CDIS, which is the Centre for Digital Imaging and Sound. I would like to produce electronic music and possibly become a DJ. I am very interested in urban planning - the design of road networks and highways - and I might look at taking an engineering degree or something to that extent.

Senator Carney: Good, I am a regional planner myself, so I think your career choice is excellent. Thank you very much and we support you in your efforts. Thank you Ms Hall, for coming and pointing out that it is a tip of the iceberg because I think any one of us in Vancouver can quote families circumstances similar to yours.

Mr. Hall: Thank you.

Senator Lawson: Yes. Thank you both, you did a very impressive presentation. If you try to drive in and out of Vancouver, we can use a transportation planner very soon.

Ms Hall, in your presentation, you say:

In the long term, we believe substantial changes in our laws and policies are needed in order to take the control and distribution of drugs away from the black market dominated by organized crime.

Do you have any proposals or suggestions as to how we might do that?

This morning we heard presentations about using. We heard the mayor's presentation on heroin-assisted treatment. From our discussion, it appears that they are making heroin available to heroin addicts - not primarily to take them off of heroin, but to maintain them with a quality of product that is not going to do them more damage or more health problems. This program appears to have had considerable success. Other witnesses have told us that in other jurisdictions and countries, they have had a lot of success, not only dealing with this, but people getting off the drugs as a by-product of this.

The more we hear, the more I think we are losing the war on drugs. Drug abuse is everywhere; we are told it is now taking place on every corner of the province and the country and so on. This morning I asked Dr. Tyndall if, in view of the fact that we seem to be losing the war on drugs, would it make more sense to have programs distributing clean, quality drugs. At least one person told us this morning that we have the highest death rate from overdose in North America - that is not a statistic of which we want to feel very proud.

Would it make sense to tie it to a government agency - like the Liquor Control Board - where you would have the product available and where you would have control of the quality? You would limit the death rate from people buying on the street from those who care only about selling their product and nothing about how many people they kill in the process.

Would it make sense to regulate it? This would apply to marijuana as well, although from all we have heard today, I am convinced that should be separated. We could tax it and dedicate the tax revenues to treatment centres, and rehabilitation centres, health care.

Ms Hall: There are people who definitely argue that. Our association has a position and I have to speak to that more than my own personal opinion. However, my own personal opinion is the war on drugs is a complete and utter failure and that exactly the same arguments about prohibition of alcohol apply to any of the illegal substances. The logic is exactly the same.

As an association, our opposition is that millions of dollars are being wasted in pursuing people who have small amounts of drugs in their possession - people who are addicts. It would be much, more effective to stop criminalizing people who are addicts and take those resources and put them into treatment and into stopping the supply. As you know, the police have themselves admitted that they just simply cannot stop the supply. You will find that even the Fraser Institute - a very right wing think tank - agrees with what you just expressed as the failure of the war on drugs.

That brings us back to the point that we could be much more effective in dealing with substances - whether they be marijuana or heroin or cocaine - if they were legal and could be controlled and regulated. As long as they are illegal, as long as they are criminal, we are much, much less effective at controlling the problems.

Senator Lawson: The only reference I make to liquor stores is that all they are a government agency selling drugs.

Ms Hall: That is right.

Senator Lawson: I mentioned the liquor control boards, but perhaps it should be private clinics. We are talking about reviewing the medicare and our medical system and so on and people are resisting private clinics. Perhaps we should have private clinics that deal on the supervised, clinically, medically approved basis of drugs.

Perhaps that would be the answer. I agree, as long as it is in hands of the drug lords or the mob or whoever is handling the sale of drugs there is a black market. I cannot recall anyone coming and saying, "oh, I have not paid my taxes this year on the $7 billion we made handling this. We would like to make a contribution to the government treasury." I do not think anyone will come forward and do that. At least we would have some control over the resources that are presently being wasted. Then we could use the money for a purpose, such as the ones your son mentioned - having treatment and care facilities and so on.

Ms Hall: That is right. The resources are currently misdirected, in my opinion. Huge amounts of money being thrown in the wrong directions.

Senator Lawson: Thank you. Thank you both for being here.

Mr. Hall: I would just like to add one thing to that. When I was using heroin, I spent most of my day looking for ways to make money to get the heroin. If heroin was provided to addicts, they would not have to spend their time looking for the money and they could spend their time trying to better their lives and be more productive. That is probably one reason why they subsequently get off it.

Senator Lawson: We could probably lower our crime rate in the process.

Ms Hall: That is exactly right.

The Chairman: Ross, first, thank you very much for - you showed a lot of courage.

Mr. Hall: Thank you.

The Chairman: I commend you for that. And rest assured that we will reflect on what you told us a lot before writing our report.

Madam Hall, thank you very much.

Ms Hall: Thank you very much for hearing us. We appreciate it very much.

Mr. Art Steinmann, Executive Director, Alcohol-Drug Education Service: Thank you to all of you for the opportunity to be here today. It is great to follow after Ross and Nichola. I certainly appreciate their endorsement of the need for education and prevention. I know they feel strongly about that and the efficacy of more prevention and education efforts.

We believe that Canada needs evidence-based leadership on drug policy and we commend the Senate for your research into these matters.

The points that I am going to make today are based on my 20-plus years working and conducting prevention strategies; the last 17 of which I served as executive director at Alcohol - Drug Education Service, here in Vancouver. We have programs around the province. Our Grade 6 and 7 Making Decisions program is in about 1,070 classrooms and we have other materials for quite a range of groups and people.

I have read extensively the addictions literature and have served on many groups and organizations related to this issue. Recently I was appointed to the Provincial Addiction Task Group. I am an honorary member of B.C. Medical Association's Addiction Medicine Committee, and the mayor's Coalition for Crime Prevention and Drug Treatment.

I am trained as a high school teacher, but I have devoted my career to researching, developing and implementing and evaluating prevention strategies and programs. I also speak as a parent and as an active community person who lives and works in the east side of Vancouver.

We have put together a small package of resources and materials relevant to these discussions and I encourage you to look at them.

I would like to comment on just a few points. Comprehensive prevention, we feel, is urgently needed - especially as we introduce new initiatives, some of which are more controversial. Clearly, we desperately need more treatment across a range of needs and it needs to include thoughtfully implemented low threshold approaches. As we have just heard in the previous discussion, we will always need some level of regulation, control, enforcement laws of some degree. However, even with the most extensive treatment and control program imaginable, if we continue to ignore prevention, we cannot realistically expect to see a reduction in the incidents and prevalence of drug use. Prevention is designed expressly to reduce the spread and incidents of drug abuse.

Comprehensive prevention is multi-faceted. It targets the drug, the person and the setting. It uses education and influence, competence development or skill development, controls, and broad environmental activities that seek to provide alternatives to drug use and address determinants of health.

Prevention addresses root causes and, therefore has the best potential to reduce problem substance use by impacting the factors that tend to lead to drug use in the first place.

Kids, parents, and teachers are really quite uninformed. Imagine if the kids and parents and teachers of B.C. knew all that you knew - that you now know as a result of your hearings. That is the goal, is to get much broader awareness and understanding.

Prevention is not "one size fits all." Broad population approaches are needed, but so too are narrow focussed activities that target a specific risk group. Of course, prevention is proactive. It promotes personal responsibility. It is highly cost effective: For the cost of one treatment centre, you can fund prevention initiatives that reach hundreds and, indeed, thousands of kids.

Prevention today is not judgmental; it is positive. It is not coercive; it is persuasive. It needs to be implemented at various ages and stages of life.

Does prevention work? In the packages, you will see more information on that, but the short answer is, yes. There is plenty of evidence today that prevention can work.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was support for community-based ongoing prevention efforts. However, in the 1990s, the federal and provincial governments cut a lot of the funding and there has been commensurate rise in drug use. During that same period, multi-faceted prevention efforts such as those directed at tobacco, seat-belts, fire safety, fitness, and dental health, to name a few, made major inroads.

The level of public knowledge and informed decision-making in these areas is encouraging. Kids today know more about sugar content in their diet and how to floss their teeth than they do about the basic facts about ecstasy, marijuana, alcohol and other drugs. Yet, if kids do not live to be 20 years of age, chances are greatest it will be a result of suicide or accident, both of which are highly alcohol and drug related.

Best practice prevention today is highly interactive. It promotes dialogue and discussion. It is skill-based and seeks to develop capable, informed, confident children and young people who have a sense of meaning and purpose in life and who feel that they truly have choices and options. This type of education, done repeatedly over years, can delay early onset of use and assist many kids to avoid regular drug use. I could relate many incidents of kids that have been through our Making Decisions programs who report, even years later, that those programs have helped them.

I have a quick aside about police-led drug education. We, personally, have some concerns with police officers teaching many hours of drug education in the classroom. We do not think it is sustainable financially to have paid police officers in at every grade level teaching hours and hours of drug education. Teachers - classroom teachers - are trained to be educators and that includes how to build self-esteem, how to make kids feel more capable. In addition, we know there are good, well-intentioned police officers, but our concern is that some of them do not, in our view, have sufficient training to do the type of education that is required.

I am also concerned that the DARE program in the United States is now starting a whole new initiative. They do not have the funds to look at whether it should be led by a police officer. While they may come up with some pretty good lesson materials, they still are not addressing a very fundamental question, which is, "who is the best person to deliver these?"

We have heard concerns from students and teachers that police-led drug education can be more authoritarian and that it can come across not so much as helping kids to make their own carefully thought out choices, but more to lead them into one specific choice.

Prevention must start early and be sustained. A lot of people have felt that if we can just talk to teenagers about drinking and drugs that will solve the problem. We know now that the first 12 years of life is when the attitudes and values and impressions form a foundation that the kids draw upon when they are in Grade 7 or 8 or 9 and they have some of those first opportunities to begin drinking or smoking pot or using tobacco.

One of our main concerns is the impact marijuana has on young adolescents. And marijuana use, of course, has gone up in B.C. as it has in other Canadian jurisdictions. Marijuana can seriously impair developmental processes so that emotional, social, physical and even academic development can be slowed or arrested. This often shows up when they are in their 20s and 30s in treatment centres, desperately trying to learn the skills and knowledge that they did not develop in their teen years.

While we see some changes, too often parents, teachers, and others still think that drug education should begin at older years. We are saying it is needed at every age level.

At the teen years, we need to see an emphasis on how to get help, how to cut back on drug use if one chooses to, and how to help a friend who may be using drugs. As well, there needs to be a continued emphasis to outline the benefits of non-use for those who are continuing to delay any use. We must not assume that all kids are using drugs or want to or will.

There is another tremendous opportunity for prevention at mid-life. Many people in mid-life develop an alcohol or drug problem, even though they have never had a problem prior. There are very specific things that could be done in a systematic way just prior to people hitting mid-life that would help alleviate that. Likewise with seniors. I do not have time to go into it, but pre-retirement classes could add some components around health education and around preventing drug abuse. Therefore as their tolerance to alcohol changes and they go through all the other changes at that period, they have a big "heads up" learn that they are going to have to adjust their drug use.

I have already mentioned that we say more treatment is needed. By that, we mean the full range of treatment from outreach and crisis intervention, to long-term counselling and day treatment to aftercare, post-treatment, and even workforce integration programs.

There is a particular lack of treatment services relevant to youth. Surely, this is where the best potential lies to reduce the harm. As we have just heard, we need to act quickly when someone is motivated to seek help and wait lists do not facilitate that.

I share the concerns of others. I am appalled at this state of treatment in B.C. and in Canada. I am also appalled at the state of prevention. I think both of these strategies have tremendous potential that is not being realized. The strategies need to work together. Prevention and treatment, including harm reduction approaches and control measures, must interrelate and collaborate.

I will read you one quote from the "Weaving Threads Together: report: Prevention strategies cannot replace treat ment and criminal justice interventions, but they can, over the long term, reduce the demand for interventions. Prevention is the most cost-effective system intervention.

Our organization believes that more must be done to facilitate communication and cooperation among the various levels of service providers, treatment and prevention, harm reduction, and enforcement.

Most important, every part of the system needs to convey a consistent message and we believe that message should be that drug use is potentially damaging, that even modest use can pose serious health and social risks, especially for youths, and that the life of a problem user or addict is an unhealthy and unattractive life that one would do well to avoid vigorously. We need to expose the lie that drugs somehow will meet the un-met needs that drive so much of substance use. Ross has just explained to us that is the allure, but in the end it does not work, and we need to help kids to understand that.

What about harm reduction? We believe that if it is not done right, harm reduction has the potential to increase drug use. If it is done properly, it can help addicts get the services they desperately need. We do not think harm reduction should be a single focus. Harm reduction has been in place for many years. We support strategies that seek to help, stabilize their health, offer treatment to those who cannot quit before they get help, and that continue to explore new ways of treating addiction.

The end goal should focus on supporting users to stabilize and gain health and to attract them to cut back or even quit. The goal should not simply be maintenance of drug use endlessly.

We all must take real care as to how we speak of harm reduction. Working with youth and prevention, it is critical that we do all we can to save lives and give addicts the services they need.

We must also make sure that pre-drug-use youth do not inadvertently get the message that they can just grow up and become a drug addict, that there is lots of treatment available and there will even be needles and drugs available and they will all be looked after. Nobody is seriously suggesting that, but we feel that sometimes the communication on this gets blurred and kids get the wrong message.

We also believe that every dollar that goes into harm reduction and treatment should be matched with a dollar into prevention. The prevention response today is not nearly in proportion to the size and scope of the problem.

Is it beneficial to legalize marijuana or other drugs? Many people believe today we would solve a host of problems if drugs were made legal. Based on our knowledge and experience, this is an oversimplification. There are many risks to dramatic changes in the laws. Moreover, we believe the proposed benefits may not be realized.

Drugs today are already so inexpensive that legalizing drugs may not reduce crime by reducing the price. If we legalize certain drugs today, those who stand to make money on illegal drugs will likely continue to manufacture "new drugs with new names." Thus the problem of the allure of illegal drugs will continue.

Unfortunately, we do not have shining examples of legal drugs. Alcohol and tobacco account for more than 50,000 deaths in Canada each year and thousands of injuries, many of which are permanent. Black markets for both of these still persist to a degree. Other legal drugs - namely prescription and over-the-counter drugs - are regularly misused and also account for high levels of death and illness. Add to this, the difficult problem of how to relax laws on drugs without simultaneously conveying the message to youth especially, that marijuana is somehow less harmful than we thought.

Changing drug laws would undoubtedly lead Canadians to think that regular use of marijuana poses no serious health or social problems. In fact, as the data grows, the opposite picture is emerging.

For these reasons, we say before any major change is made to drug laws, let us first put in place a comprehensive prevention and treatment approach offering many new evidence-based sustained prevention initiatives and treatment options. Let us get this up and running to prepare people and educate the public, if the time does come to change the laws.

Based on what we know today of marijuana and the gross shortage of prevention and treatment initiatives, we feel it is misplaced to lead the needed revolution by relaxing drug laws and focussing only on harm reduction.

We do not favour criminal records for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana, but we do support reasonable laws that reflect societal norms. It is our experience that even the most ardent legalization advocate does not seek legalized drugs for youth. This, of all times, is not a time to send youth one more message that would almost certainly be perceived as saying drug use is okay.

Cocaine and heroin are smoked increasingly. It is a small step from smoking marijuana to smoking cocaine and heroin. That is not to say that there is a simple causal relationship between marijuana use and hard drug use. However, it is clear that people engaged in cocaine and heroin use, in many, many instances, started with alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. We are concerned about the perception of society. Clearly, we need to exercise caution in changing the laws.

We feel that the federal government would have done well to do what they are doing now years ago. If there is some question that marijuana has some medical benefits, it should be rigorously pursued, investigated and addressed in the appropriate ways. What concerns us is the way it is being handled now: There is a lot of confusion and, again, the possibility of real mixed messages to kids.

Finally, in our years of work and prevention we have come to understand that the real problem is not so much a drug problem as a people problem. That is, all people - especially kids who have suffered abuse, neglect, trauma, and addiction in the home - seek ways to deal with their feelings of anger, despair, hopelessness or powerlessness. Some may have feelings of boredom, curiosity or a desire to belong. Marijuana and other drugs can seem to solve or at least soothe these emotions. The drugs seem to do so effortlessly, painlessly, and quickly. However, the highest risk drug use is the drug use that is seeking to address underlying issues such as these.

Alternatively, there is great potential through prevention to foster informed, confident, capable young people, who from the earliest ages learn sound mental health practices that are drug-free ways to manage these pressing and understandable human feelings.

A drug policy that simplistically puts its entire efforts on one focus and pushes only legalization before minimal prevention and education strategies have been in place for a time is an approach that will add to our problems. We need to curb the casual attitudes to drug use that have emerged in large part because of a void of health education. We need to get back to addressing the root causes of drug use; we need to pilot new harm reduction strategies with care for unintended results and only in concert with expanded prevention and treatment. We need a renewed determination that every child, family, and community will have the sustained and intense prevention and treatment services can reduce the problems of drug use and addiction.

I look forward to any questions.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Steinmann. I will limit the questions to two and I will write to you my question, for the sake of all the witnesses that are here after you.

Senator St. Germain: You made some comments about the DARE program. I do not think you were critical of it, but you questioned as to whether or not police officers should be presenting it to children. Here in Canada, have we ever developed anything to the level of what DARE has at least attempted to accomplish?

Mr. Steinmann: Well, our organization has a program called "Making Decisions," which is a series of interactive lessons, very similar to DARE in some aspects. We train teachers to deliver these programs, which, as I mentioned, are in over a thousand classrooms in B.C. Now, we are working actively on materials for grade 4 and grades 8 and 9. The answer to your question is we do have programs that are very similar in that they are comprehensive and that they are designed to be used in the classroom at those grade levels.

The philosophy and the approach are a little different and classroom teachers deliver the content, although we do encourage that a police officer attend as a resource person for one lesson.

I do not think DARE is a sustainable model financially either. A representative from Health Canada told us that she would like to see our program used right across the country. The reason it even exists is because of a little non-profit agency that went to a long list of foundations to raise the money to do this.

Senator St. Germain: How are you funded, sir?

Mr. Steinmann: Our funding comes through fund-raising, through sale of programs, through fee-for-service, and the odd government contract and project. We have developed programs. You know, we received a grant from Health Canada to develop the program for women and alcohol on campuses, and there are more than 70 post-secondary institutions that have purchased this and are using it across Canada.

We have developed materials in conjunction with the ethnic communities and they have been prepared in Punjabi, Chinese and Spanish. We developed a pregnancy calendar for high-risk low literacy pregnant women to try and reduce Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. We have developed materials for high-risk youth for use in alternative schools and so on.

Each one of these programs is not being sustained. All of those programs were evaluated. They were well received and the consumers want more, but we do not have the means to do it. I have been pleading with the government. The national drug strategy I have been hearing about for two years now is going to be coming down, there should be some more money. I heard last week that, after September 11, something will come down eventually but it will be reduced. Meanwhile generation after generation goes by and we are missing tremendous opportunities.

Senator St. Germain: Well, you said it is a "people problem." The dynamic change that is taking place in the family unit of both parents having to work has to have an impact on the challenge that youth face.

Mr. Steinmann: May I just comment quickly? Parents are by far the single, most powerful influence a kid will ever know around alcohol and drugs, and that is through role modelling attitudes, you know. Kids, preschool-aged children have already formed impressions and attitudes about alcohol and drugs, so you are right, parents are huge.

We have a program for parents. We developed what we call the "Tupperware model" of parent education that was delivered in homes by parents with parents, a video and some resources, but, again, we do not have the means to keep these things going and keep them sustained.

Senator Carney: You have made a very thorough presentation on the important aspect of prevention. We have not heard as much about this topic as we should have. Are you able to give us copies of all of the material that you have referred to?

Mr. Steinmann: Absolutely, sure.

Senator Carney: If you give it to the clerk, Adam?

Mr. Steinmann: I would be happy.

Senator Carney: I think it would be useful.

You have raised the very important issue of seniors. You spent a lot of time today talking about youth and, of course, the Downtown Eastside, but when I was the MP for this area, including the West End, I was shocked to find out that alcoholism and drug abuse was the most serious seniors' problem in all those seniors towers. At that point it is a little late for prevention. Do you have a specific strategy for the seniors' issue that we should be aware of, and, if so, could you make sure we get it because we have focussed a lot on youth and not on the seniors' issue.

Mr. Steinmann: Yes. The short answer is we have looked at pre-retirement classes and delivering some drug education sessions in conjunction with those, but there are other things that can be done. Pharmacare actually does a reasonable job of educating seniors about medications. However, where we are missing the boat - agree with you Senator Carney - is the alcohol education and other drug education that could happen.

Senator Carney: Yes. Because that is a hole, that is a missing link.

Mr. Steinmann: Yes.

Senator Lawson: We hear about a lot of failures and everything that is wrong with the system. We are not having a lot of success and we seem to be going back instead of forward. I am surprised and somewhat disappointed that you wind up talking about maintaining the status quo.

Mr. Steinmann: I do not think that is what I am saying. I am saying that we should get on with doing the prevention and treatment that the evidence is quite clear will have an impact. I had my dream, we would never have made any drugs illegal, but we have and that is the context in which we are today. I am very concerned about dramatic changes to that in the present culture.

I am arguing that we take five or ten years and make the concerted improvements and efforts in treatment and prevention so that we can build a base of understanding. Then, as we start to relax laws, it is done in a context that would, in my view, ensure a more understanding and fewer problems.

I am not suggesting status quo is going to answer it - quite the contrary. I have worked very hard on new initiatives in the last few years, but I see the kids, I work with the kids and I see the signals that they are always picking up on and what they are looking for. It would be counterproductive for us to send the message that marijuana is harmless or other drug use is no longer as dangerous as we once thought.

The Chairman: Mr. Steinmann, I have been looking at your financial statement and I have a few questions. They are more technical so I will send them to you in writing.

Mr. Steinmann: Okay.

The Chairman: Thank you very much for accepting our invitation.

Mr. Steinmann: Thank you.

The Chairman: So we are going to start with Mr. Mason Loh and Mr. Lillian To. The rule is five minutes and I am going to be strict. There is only one exception that is already agreed with Senator Carney, who brought with her one witness from Saturna, and it is going to be the fourth one, so but for now - so five minutes and no questions.

Ms Lillian To, Chief Executive Officer, SUCCESS: We are honoured to be here today. I am the chief executive officer of SUCCESS, a non-profit community service organization.

I would like to introduce Mason Loh, Queen's Counsel and a prominent leader in the Chinese community. Mason was past-chairman of SUCCESS and he has led and served this organization, as well as the community, for more than 20 years.

SUCCESS is one of the largest immigrant service organizations in Canada. Last year, we served over 316,000 clients through 12 branches in the Lower Mainland with 250 staff and 8,000 volunteers. We provide a range of services in health, social services, as well as education training programs. Drug addiction is a health concern, and we are pleased to be here today.

Mr. Loh will provide further details of concerns in the Chinese community.

Mr. Mason Loh: We are honoured to contribute to your important work. We understand you have divided your work into two phases and you are currently in your first phase assessing cannabis, but you will be looking at illegal drugs in general in the second phase. The Chinese Canadian community has very strong opinions on cannabis and illegal drugs. Therefore, within the short time allotted, I will try to give you a flavour of our opinions on cannabis and Lillian will brief you on illegal drugs in general.

According to the 1996 census, there were more than 310,000 ethnic Chinese in British Columbia. It should be around 360,000 now. This population makes up about one-third of the population of the City of Vancouver alone, but the community is not homogenous. We have immigrants from different regions and we have local born, and second- or third-generation Canadians, but they share a common heritage.

The last century and a half of that heritage had a lot to do with an illegal drug called opium. The drug corrupted Chinese society, weakened the foundation of a proud empire, caused the war that resulted in the colonization of Hong Kong, ended the last dynasty, incited over 30 years of civil war, encouraged invasion of China by foreign power, forced mass migration of population to countries including Canada. As such, the community is understandably supportive of the current Canadian government policy to reduce demand for and cut the supply of illegal drugs.

We agree with prevention and education measures aimed at young people and treatment measures for persons with drug dependence problems. We also agree with efforts to halt drug trafficking. We believe in the ideal of a drug-free society. Difficulty in achieving it should not stop us from trying. We definitely should not just give up and embrace drug use as simply an alternative choice of life style.

While there is still a debate about the long-term health effects of cannabis, we know that cannabis causes adverse physical and mental effects such as psychomotor and cognitive impairment, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory ailments, memory loss, acute withdrawal symptoms, et cetera. We are not opposed to the medical use of cannabis to relieve the pain of palliative patients, but we are dead set against the recreational use of the drug.

Drug use is most attractive to the emotionally and socially vulnerable among us, such as youth. Decriminalization will increase the acceptability and availability of harmful substance, which in turn will encourage consumption and send the wrong message to our future generations.

I have three sons. They are six, eight, and eleven years old. I have always taught them the evils of cigarette smoking. Government and Canadian Cancer Society public service announcements on TV and new reports of related lawsuits assist in my educational efforts to the extent that my sons believe smokers are inconsiderate towards their own health and that of others. However, we were watching together a James Bond movie from the 1960s the other night. When the screen showed a suave and glamorous Mr. Bond smoking a cigarette, my sons who idolize the super spymaster asked me why he smoked. I couldn't quite answer the question to their satisfaction. Guess what? Since the show, I have caught my sons play-acting as the spymaster smoking a cigarette.

The Chairman: Mr. Loh, we have a strict rule, five minutes.

Mr. Loh: Okay.

The Chairman: I understand you too have something to add, Ms To?

Ms To: Just a little, yes.

The Chairman: Here is what you are going to do, you are going to write the length you want, but you are going to e-mail that to my office in Ottawa. I will give you my e-mail address. It will be much more effective this way. I will ensure that all members of the committee receive your brief.

I am strict because there are 13 of you who want to address the committee. If we do not apply a strict rule, we are going to be here tomorrow morning.

Mr. Loh: Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Loh: I am sorry; it was my mistake in going over my time allotment. Would you mind allotting maybe 30 seconds to Ms Lo to make her point?

The Chairman: We must be strict. If you write to me I will be glad to receive all of the documentation that you provide and ensure that it is circulated to the rest of the committee.

Senator Carney: I just want to add, I think you made your point, Mason.

Mr. Loh: Thank you, senator.

Ms To: Thank you.

Mr. Ted Smith: Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for change. The time has come for Canada to end the war on drugs - the longest, most expensive, deadliest, and inhumane international conflict ever fought in known history. This savage battle has turned child against parent; parent against kid; while neighbours and employees spy on each other; addicts overdose and die forgotten, sick with AIDS and Hepatitis C, while their dealers kill each other in the streets. Countless millions stare into space numbed by prescription drugs or alcohol while sick and dying people are denied access to an easily grown herb. Young men waste their lives in jail for taking a chance working in a field that provides more money than other options paying minimum wage while retired generals and bankers trade weapons for drugs with desperate people all over the planet.

A good beginning to healing would be for Canada to pull its signature from the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. As the U.S. is reconsidering its commitment to old international treaties, we should lead the world in regard to the issue of the non-medicinal use of drugs starting by denouncing the war on drugs as a failure and withdrawing Canada from this irrational agreement.

We are not the only country reconsidering these draconian laws; Jamaica, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and recently even Britain have all legalized or decriminalized cannabis for the general public, while Australia and even some American states have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes. Harm reduction programs in the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada are proving to save lives, cut medical costs, decrease crime, and help people quit or control their addictions in humane ways.

Being the neighbour of the U.S. - and we all know full well that corporate America is the driving force behind the war on drugs - Canada has a certain advantage over other places in the world in regard to international discussions on these issues. We should allow the world to take advantage of Canada's influence over the United States and arrange to host an international convention examining the wide range of social and economic issues in the process of the production and consumption of non-medicinal mind-altering substances.

From the beginning, it should be noted that while we consider the war on drugs to be a failure, this does not necessarily mean we consider the use of all substances currently illegal to be good. We need to create an individual system of regulation and licensing and the production and consumption of each product. These regulations should respect an individual's right to self-medicate with the doctor's assistance while setting out practical guidelines for the production, distribution, and taxation of those substances that are sold for non-medicinal reasons.

Each substance currently prohibited by the war on drugs has a unique effect upon the consciousness and body, so each should be considered individually as we withdraw from the current model. At all times the health of the general population should be of primary concern.

While it is not the role of the government to produce and distribute these products, it is the government's responsibility to licence and regulate the production, sale, and distribution of commodities. If the acquisition of these substances is for recreational purposes, then the product should be taxed. If it is being used legitimately as medicine, then no taxes should be applied.

Health Canada should form a department that considers the non-medicinal use of mind-altering substances including alcohol and other currently legal products. The expert physicians who help individuals in these areas of personal consumption should go through rigorous training where the experience of many of these substances is a requirement.

Some products, such as cannabis and magic mushrooms, could be taxed at a sizable profit to the government while other drugs, like heroin and cocaine, should be given out under supervision of clinics. These systems and regulations would allow us to control the quality of the drugs being used while helping everyone who has a substantial abuse issue.

There are two reasons we need to withdraw from the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. We cannot ignore the fact that the non-medicinal use of drugs is an international issue while the supply of illegal substances is generally from a few countries. The demand for mind-altering substances is global - especially in the U.S. where vast quantities of these drugs are being consumed despite over 30 years of the war on drugs.

The second reason we need to make such a clear statement to the world is so that Canadians can see that the government acknowledges the wishes of its citizens. Opinion polls clearly show a majority in favour of decriminalizing the simple possession of cannabis with growing support for full legalization of the plant and other methods of harm reduction. The courts in Canada are recognizing that the drug laws violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The demand for cannabis has created huge markets in areas like B.C. where the estimated $6 million per year industry fuels the economy more than any other commodity. The war on drugs has failed and it is time to wake up to smell the coffee.

In the meantime, many of us refuse to sit writing letters to politicians hoping for change to come from the source of the problem. We have resorted to continual passive resistance, putting up our lives, property and reputations at risk to both authorities and criminals, who are making a living under the current model.

Personally, I dedicated my life to fight prohibition over six years ago when I moved to Victoria in September 1995 to begin holding Hempology 101 meetings. I realized that the farming community in which I grew up in had been hoodwinked by U.S. industries with plenty of lawyers who claimed that reefer madness was destroying lives and the environment.

I wanted my family to grow hemp; my attitude has caused me to get me arrested twice in the last year. The first arrest occurred exactly one year ago today, in fact, at the University of Victoria, where I was charged with trafficking for passing joints around.

The Chairman: Mr. Smith, why don't you write to me?

Mr. Smith: My comment to you here, my textbook is all up on the Internet at Hempology.yi.org.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. Smith: I can assure you, sir, that myself and many other people are unfortunately in a position where we are fighting for our lives against the government and we are not going to stop until this war is stopped.

The Chairman: Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. David Malmo-Levine: My speech is on the top page. I think I have 15 copies with me. I will skip the introduction because I thought I had 10 minutes and it turns out I only have five, but I will say that I am going to the Supreme Court of Canada, one of the three applicants there. If I win, everyone will get to deal cannabis in Canada. I will be arguing that while not all cannabis use is harmless, all proper use is harmless and, therefore, it is protected under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Explicitly and implicitly, it protects harmless people in harmless groups.

Cannabis is not a narcotic. It is not a hallucinogen except in very high doses. It cannot be properly called an intoxicant, as there is no known fatal level of ingestion. You will fall asleep before you overdose. Cannabis is a stimulant, a relaxant, a euphoriant, and a time-slow drug. The time-slow effect is well documented, familiar to all jazz musicians, as Senator Banks is well aware, and may be responsible for the aphrodisiacal and meditative and performance-enhancing reputation cannabis has acquired over the years.

I have provided sources for everything I am saying here. It is interesting to note that western medicine is the only medicine tradition on the planet that does not recognize the anti-depressive, anti-stress and stimulant effects of cannabis as medicinal. Rather, it is lumped into a separate category, called "non-medicinal" and exposed to all sorts of stigma.

Two days ago, The Edmonton Sun ran an article that perpetuated some of the many modern myths about cannabis that give our representatives excuses to keep it illegal. It was stated that: (a) there would be more auto accidents after legalization; (b) Americans would be flocking to Canada to buy pot; (c) pot has more cancer-causing agents than cigarettes; and (d) people found with dope should simply be ticketed instead of incarcerated.

Briefly, it is not true that there are more accidents, highway accidents caused by cannabis use. I have provided you with an information package. It turns out cannabis users are more cautious and they do not contribute to vehicular mayhem in all of the studies.

The second part, that we might be inundated with "soft drug tourists" from America, that might be true, but that is not a bad thing. A lot of us would like to get off welfare, make futures for our families, and make a lot of money as the Dutch currently do with their booming soft drug tourist industry that has not caused any sort of increase in problems in that country.

The third thing, that it has more cancer-causing agents than cigarettes, the information, again, has been provided for you in your info packets. The real culprit in tobacco and cannabis is the chemical fertilizers that are radioactive. Scientists have been unable to take their other carcinogens airborne and cause them to cause cancer in rats so far, and you will notice that the cancer rates only started coming up when we used chemical fertilizers. We have been using tobacco for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and smoking cancer has only developed, not from the introduction of tobacco, but the introduction of chemical fertilizers. There is no proof anywhere on earth that organic, high potency cannabis causes any sort of lung problems, aside from bronchitis from excessive smoking, which I can handle.

As for replacing the criminal sanction with a ticket - that is ridiculous. You do not need to ticket people for coffee or for their religious preference or their sexual preference. Why should we be stigmatized?

I notice you are serving coffee out there and yet all these people are coming and talking abstinence, drug abstinence. It is hypocritical when caffeine is far more toxic, more addictive, and more dangerous than cannabis in every category save one, which is the impairment level of novice users. You could deal with that through a simple education and regulation form.

What we are talking about here is the decisions that you people make will result in either the world moving to a China- or a U.S.-style system, where we have a prison state and people are not autonomous and they do not know anything about drugs and dealers, like myself, are lined up against the wall and shot and have their organs removed and sold on the black market to alcohol and tobacco addicts. Or, we can choose a decent path, as Holland has, promoting tolerance, teaching people about drugs, all drugs, empowering to use them all properly.

I have done my job. The information is in front of you. If you cared to end this drug war and put something better in its place, you have the information in front of you and you have contacts for me, if you want to know more.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Rick Tipple: I am not sure I can speak that fast.

The Chairman: Mr. Tipple, because you are coming with Senator Carney, you have 15 minutes, that includes questions from Senator Carney.

Mr. Tipple: I was asked by Senator Carney, who is a Saturna resident, to make this intergenerational presentation on behalf of Jesse Guy, a wise, young lady who graduated from our local high school just last year, and myself.

For different reasons, both Jesse and I are nonusers of marijuana and, therefore, have no personal axes to grind. Jesse would be here to make her own presentation were she not in Cuba at the moment where she is probably having a bit of body blowing experience.

I have owned land on Saturna, a small island, about 55 kilometres due south of this hotel, since the early 1970s and have resided there for about five years. Despite its physical proximity to Vancouver, Saturna is typical of a much more isolated, rural community. Portal to portal, the trip here and the subsequent trip home will take well over four hours, the shortest possible journey to an urban centre is to Sidney on Vancouver Island, a seven hour round trip. Few British Columbia communities are three to four hours from travel time from the nearest dentist, pharmacy, clothing or hardware store. In that sense, at least, I think we represented rural British Columbia.

The southern gulf islands, including Saturna, are major producers of marijuana, purportedly B.C.'s largest industry. As stated in Jesse's presentation, Islanders are quite tolerant of the nine users and growers. Liberalizing the drug laws will have little or no effect upon the day-to-day lives of most Gulf Islanders.

I propose to read Jesse's presentation first and then my own.

October 16th, 2001.

Dear Senate: I appreciate the time you are taking to hear the views from a wide range of people. I will start by saying that I do not feel I have all the right answers and can only offer my observations and interpretation of the world around me. I have grown up on the Gulf Islands watching people be moderately vocal in their views and feelings on how marijuana is treated by our Canadian government and in the broader world. Please bear in mind, as I make these next points that I may be young, but I have travelled a lot and I try to be thoughtful and open-minded to all information as I form my views and suggestions.

1) The conservative view of marijuana and their answer to society's problems has been the "war on drugs." This has cost a lot of taxpayers' money and created an underworld crime market that is supported largely by the selling of drugs. So with experience, this method has proved to be ineffective and costly. The time-honoured truth that if there are buyers, there will be sellers has been proven hold in this case. I understand that marijuana is not the only drug sold on the black market but it is a fair percentage of it. So if the money and law enforcement time could be better spent combating "harder" drugs that have much stronger negative effects on society that would be a large improvement. The underworld would lose vast profits by making marijuana legally available, as the price and market would drop dramatically.

2) The fact that marijuana is at this point illegal draws young people to it. Instead of parents and children having open, factual conversation, scare tactics are used and a wall is built between parents and teens. Because fear has been a part of the tactic of the war on drugs, information that is more liberal has gone unrecognized. The Gulf Islands are liberal in the sense that we grow up here with teachers and family friends, many of them well educated and holding honourable positions, themselves users of marijuana in moderate quantities.

3) The message that needs to be taught to the younger generations is to use common sense and to realize that most things are acceptable in moderation. I have grown up with real people using marijuana and I have been able to make my own decision about it, and see that it can be abused like anything else from alcohol to food. Marijuana is viewed with the same level of respect that alcohol deserves and many young people in the Gulf Islands make the point that they would rather be around the mellower and less argumentative "pot smoker" than a drinker.

4) As I have talked to many locals about this letter, the general consensus has been that it is being sold and it would be better for the government to make money through taxes on it than to waste money fighting a generally acceptable "crime." I believe that it should be a regulated product like alcohol. It should be heavily taxed due to the increased health costs. Other forms of ingestion could also be regulated.

5) There also needs to be recognized the difference between a person growing for their own consumption and a person who grows for illegal sale. There is a large difference between a few plants in a field - just as it is legal to make your own wine and beer for consumption and illegal to sell it. Here in the Gulf Islands, people accept this distinction and are generally comfortable with people who grow their own, but dealing is looked down upon, especially if it is sold to children for profit.

6) There is also the problem of the quality control and the known THC level. This, hopefully, would be regulated by the government so that people who do buy, especially younger people, who would not usually grow their own know that they are getting a pure product. This decreases the risk for people in urban areas. This is not usually a problem in the Gulf Islands where most of this stuff is grown in excess and shipped off.

There is much more I can say, and in answer to the problem of drug abuse, I do not think that forbidding it has ever been the cure. People are naturally curious and that is a healthy evolutionary characteristic that we wish to encour age. I think the answer lies in making young people aware of the dangers and benefits so they can make their own decisions and hopefully have the awareness and self-confi dence to make healthy ones. The drugs will always be there and you will not always be there to protect the children you are entrusted for a short time to raise, so the best thing you can give them is the gift of self-confidence and thoughtful ness. And from removing some of the underworld profit, you can make the world a safer place to explore and live in. Thank you for caring about this problem and realizing that the way the world is going about dealing with it is not effective in many ways. In general we do forget what a wonderful country we live in and how much is done right here.

This letter it is signed Jesse Guy.

I intend to explain how, in my opinion, the war on drugs has first, increased the use of illegal street drugs - especially the more addictive and more dangerous varieties; second, created a niche for organized crime; third, severely hampered both law enforcement and the judicial system; and, finally, introduced the potential to erode the government's ability to govern.

Most discussions about illicit drugs are mired in an irrelevant, quasi-moral argument, the right of individuals to ingest a substance of their choice versus the state's obligation to protect its citizens from harm. The state, for variety of reasons that have also been rendered irrelevant, has chosen legal prohibition as the protective vehicle. As most teenagers and many preteens could tell us legal prohibition has proved a dismal failure. Any moral arguments suggesting that legalizing or decriminalizing street drugs would lead to their increased use defies all economic theory.

The vast majority of drugs - legal or otherwise - can be grown or manufactured for just pennies a dose. In its wisdom, the federal government has used an extended patent protection to artificially boost the price of many legal prescription drugs in the belief that vastly inflated prices will be an incentive for drug manufacturers to develop tests and distribute new products. In much the same fashion, the federal government has used legal prohibition to artificially boost the price of illicit street drugs and with very similar results.

Elementary economics tells me that decreasing this supply of a desired commodity inflates the demand and, therefore, the price. The prohibition of street drugs has served to inflate the price to the point where the drug trade has become immensely profitable. Drug busts have further limited the supply with similar predictable consequences. Soaring profits have attracted organized crime, organized being the operative word. The lure of massive future profits has led to well-organized vendors creating demand through somewhat unorthodox marketing approaches. Since the more addictive the product, the more secure the demand, there has been an incentive to shift the demand from the less addictive soft drugs to the more addictive hard ones.

The desire for soft drugs coupled with a need for hard varieties - both at inflated prices - has led to yet another consequence of the war on drugs: the theft of personal property as a source of income. Illicit drugs are hocked in public places, like candyfloss at village fairs. All the overburdened police force is able to do is warn the public of badly cut or, ironically, uncut drugs hitting the streets. The police in the judiciary, already stretched beyond the point of being able to significantly reduce the sale of street drugs, cannot begin to cope with an ever-increasing number of break and entries. The police state openly that they lack the resources to investigate minor crimes such as property theft unless they are associated with physical assault. "Sign the complaint at the station and call your insurance company" is their standard response.

A cute slogan of the day is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." A much wiser slogan might be, "If it is broken, don't expect that doing more of the same will eventually work." Our drug laws are being broken in our faces for the strategy of legal prohibition has never worked and, in my opinion, never will work.

The Surgeon General of the United States suggested publicly that banning tobacco products would make the mob scene of the speakeasy era seem like a church tea in comparison. Can we not apply that same logic to prohibition of all similar product? Is it too late?

Have organized crime and the drug barons become so wealthy and so powerful that they cannot be stopped? A recent CBC television documentary showed the hundred or so Hell's Angels in Quebec making estimated profits in excess of $5 million a week as public prosecutors wrung their hands in despair. While legalizing or decriminalizing street drugs might be a great benefit to Canadians in general, it would put organized crime out of the profit picture. Would they allow this to happen or have they already bought the necessary favours? If it is not too late, how much longer do we have? The issue here is much greater than the strategy to successfully deal with potentially dangerous drugs. It is about creating an environment or an illegal quasi-government's flourish.

Senator Carney: I wanted my colleagues to be aware that there are views on this issue outside Downtown Eastside and outside of urban centres such as Vancouver. If you are here in B.C., you have to take into account some of the views that are outside the highly urban area, and so I am very grateful to Mr. Tipple and his wife for making an 18 hour trip from Saturna, to present a non-urban view - particularly since I happen to know you are allergic to pot and cannot use it anyway.

I just have two questions. Jesse Guy in particular represented a community view in Saturna where the prevailing attitude supports moderation, decriminalization, and common sense. Since many of our neighbours grow it and a lot of our neighbours use it, do you think that that is a community view?

Mr. Tipple: I think Saturna and all the Gulf Islands are very tolerant communities and although there are people who might be opposed to it, they are extremely tolerant of those who are not - if that does not seem like a contradiction.

Senator Carney: As a high school teacher was this a problem for you in your school? You taught in North Vancouver?

Mr. Tipple: Yes. No, I taught in North Delta.

Senator Carney: Which is south of here.

Mr. Tipple: Yes. For a long time I had a very, very good administration who dealt with problems like this. That often caused us problems in return; we became known for a short while as the "druggy" school because we were the only one that seemed to be taking students out of class and doing something about it. It is a problem in all of the schools, certainly.

Senator Carney: I do not know if anyone wants to ask. Do we have any time left?

The Chairman: No. You are begging for a question?

Senator Lawson: I was going to ask the witness one quick question about the islanders who grow it and use is. Do they just grow it for their own consumption or do they sell it amongst the islanders? Or do they bring it to the mainland?

Mr. Tipple: I don't know.

Senator Lawson: Okay.

Mr. Tipple: Nobody seems to make a lot of money.

Senator Lawson: It is not an organized crime.

Mr. Tipple: It is not organized at all.

Senator Carney: Three people lost their jobs after the last police bust. That is fairly generally known on the Island.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Tipple.

Senator Carney: Thank you.

Mr. James Leslie: I am going to make the best use of this short time that I have. I am a 26-year-old concerned citizen who first became concerned about drug policy reform in Canada upon completing my bachelor degree in criminal justice and criminology.

I would like to hammer home a few quick points. First, there is nothing inherently wrong with drug use in general. It is a human predisposition. It has been occurring ever since humans first evolved on the planet earth. Cultures all over the world through time have been involved.

In the last century that we decided to criminalize this for reasons that aren't very apparent - nor do they make much sense. The laws tend to come from racial biases and the like in the early part of the century.

For thousands of years, cultures have found ways to use drugs safely. We need to keep that in mind. We have to give ourselves credit. Adults in Canada are very capable of making informed decisions regarding what substances to use and they should be able to purchase them from a regulated distribution centre such as a liquor store. That is the only common sense way to go.

If we do not do that, if we ignore it, we give more power to groups like the Hell's Angels motorcycle club whose long, tattooed arm has unfortunately stretched the span of the country with new additions in Ontario, new chapters opening. As a B.C. resident, I see their powers have been growing here for quite sometime, mostly unchecked. It is a scary thing to see.

The prohibition system is another area of concern. As it is now, it is empowering organized crime, giving them the budgets to transport drugs and budgets for lawyers to fight prosecution. Our government and our police departments do not have the money to fight organized crime currently. We need to take the carpet out from under their feet, so to speak, and rob them of the money they are making. We need to make them vulnerable and take them out. They are a threat to our society and to the well being of everyone.

Another area of concern is foreign states' law enforcement encroaching upon our national sovereignty. The recent opening of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office, DEA, in Vancouver, is not a direction in which we want to go. I find that ironic that they would choose Vancouver as a place to open up because of our booming marijuana industry, when, in fact, they already have a booming industry at home themselves. In a 1988, even their own Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young, stated that marijuana is possibly "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." The DEA has a strange stance, considering what one of their top judges had admitted at that time.

With regard to law enforcement, cops do not belong in the classrooms. They should not be conveyors of information about drugs - that is solely for health professionals, nurses, public health nurses and doctors. Police officers are not doctors. They do not have any knowledge about the true biological effects of drugs, and they often exaggerate, lie, and give rise to myths about the negative effects of drugs. This is quite a concern. As was the Canadian Police Association's recent public claim that marijuana is still a dangerous, addictive substance and should be kept away from people.

Finally, if drugs were regulated, they would be less accessible to children and youth. The facts state right now that liquor is far harder to get than marijuana, simply because it is regulated by government and there is an age restriction. Although some youth do get access to alcohol, it is a far smaller percentage than if alcohol was illegal. You can see the tie-in to marijuana prohibition.

We need a new radical shift in policy. We need to see legalization. Decriminalization is only a baby step in the right direction. We need to jump right into legalization, attack organized crime and direct the big budgets allocated to law enforcement to other areas such as murder, rape, violent crimes, and so forth.

For other drugs - such as heroin - we need to look to countries in Europe such as Switzerland. In particular, in the late 1990s the City of Zurich had a very successful experiment that was sanctioned by the United Nations in which heroin addicts were given heroin maintenance.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Leslie.

Ms Cynthia Low: I am with the Asian Society for the Intervention of AIDS, but I come not as an employee of an organization but as an individual as a community member. I would like to say that Mr. Loh and Ms To do not represent my views - or those of my community - on cannabis use. I am an immigrant. My friends are first-, second- and third-generation Asians, Chinese and Japanese, from very diverse backgrounds. I remind the senate that they do not represent Chinese-Canadian views on the issue of regulation of cannabis use. I ask the senate to consider a tolerant and thoughtful approach to the regulation of cannabis use.

As a person who works with people who are affected by HIV, I know that the medical use of cannabis has helped our clients incredibly. I would ask that the senate consider cannabis use for medicinal therapy and for recreational use for the many people who are facing life-threatening diseases.

Cannabis is probably no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco, if not less so. In terms of the image problem that cannabis has, perhaps it is due to the criminalization of the substance rather than the actual scientific effects of the substance.

There are people, like me, who support careful government regulation of use of cannabis. The increase in law enforcement around illegal drugs has been used primarily to target marginalized people. It has been a huge money pit in terms of the whole criminal justice system, as well as the law enforcement system. More money for policing, for incarcerations for the criminal justice system - and so forth.

In terms of arguments that regulating cannabis use will increase drug abuse, in the organization in which I work, we deal with people with drug addictions every day. It is not because the drugs are available or legal, it is a business and like a good business, prohibition would merely make the product more valuable and increase profits to the businessmen. I think the government should think very carefully about that part of it, the business part of it.

On the other hand, youth - particularly youth of colour - get recruited in the sales and the use of banned substances and its issues of racism, of marginalization, of exclusion from active participation in our social environment. As a young immigrant growing up, it was very difficult to be accepted in mainstream culture because I did not speak English, I did not have any friends, and being part of the selling of drugs was an option for me. It was the only option for me to build some kind of image for myself. I think that happens a lot within my community where young people get recruited into the sale of drugs because of issues of settlement, of racism, of the way we might be seen in society.

In sort of closing, I would ask that you to have a wide viewpoint of different communities of a multicultural and pluralistic perspective on the regulation of cannabis.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Perry Bulwer: I appreciate this chance to address this committee. There are so many comments things on which I would like to comment from what I have heard in all the presentations today - obviously that is not possible.

The Chairman: You can always write to me, e-mail, it is open.

Mr. Bulwer: All right. I will mention one thing briefly. There was discussion about the gateway theory. That is, a couple of senators have expressed, I think, a belief in that theory that marijuana is a gateway to the use of harder drugs.

I will not get into the issues; I would just caution that you might wish to investigate that a bit more thoroughly. I do not know that the causes of addictions are necessarily completely understood. There is some controversy around what exactly causes an addiction. Ross Hall, himself, alluded to the fact that he may have been predisposed to hard drug use. Inspector Heed, I think, also said that he did not believe, after years on the street, that marijuana was a gateway drug. I would just ask you to investigate that a bit further if you tend to believe that that theory is true.

I am a third-year law student at UBC. I am on the board of directors of the B.C. Compassion Club. Hilary Black spoke well to all the issues around the club and our perspective. I thought that my use here might be best in just explaining my personal story and perhaps that would help maybe dispel some of the myths and stereotypes that some of you may have around marijuana use.

From 1969 to 1992, I smoked marijuana off and on, sometimes on a daily basis, sometimes just on weekends. For long periods of time, I was out of the country and in some foreign countries such as mainland China where I taught English. It would have been foolhardy for me to play around with any kind of illegal substance.

The Chairman: You would not be here.

Mr. Bulwer: Right. So I had a sort of off and on relationship with marijuana for that period. In 1992, I enrolled in the University of Victoria as a mature student. Around that time, I also began to experience severe migraines almost on a weekly basis, and so I went to a series of doctors and each one prescribed a different pharmaceutical drug to help deal with the migraines and none of them really worked - some made the situation worse than the migraine itself, causing nausea and that sort of thing. I saw perhaps four different doctors. I felt I was being a guinea pig and that they did not know how to deal with it.

Despite that battle with migraines, I managed to maintain an A average over that first year. I did smoke marijuana during that year on the weekends, and so eventually after that year, I just gave up on the pharmaceuticals. I tried some herbal remedies, such as St. John's wort and few others in desperate attempts to find something. I spent a lot of time dealing with the migraines, trying to identify the causes.

I discovered that stress actually was one of the triggers for me. Knowing that it is pretty much impossible to be stressed out when you are smoking pot, I decided that I would start smoking pot regularly, daily, that is, even though I was studying hard in university. I should mention here when I say daily, I do not mean all day long. I would not smoke pot when I was taking classes or doing homework or doing my part-time job. It would be at the end of the day as a way to unwind.

I will e-mail this to you because there are some other important things here for you to hear.

The Chairman: The clerk will give you my address.

Mr. Dana Larsen: I am the editor of Cannabis Culture magazine. I have two copies here. I think we are one of Canada's most successful magazines, especially considering that we are also banned in Canada under the Criminal Code. I will be giving all of you copies later, which is actually an illegal act on my part, but, hopefully, you will accept them anyways.

I am also leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, which ran in the last provincial elections and took about three and one-half per cent of the vote totalling 53,000 people who believe that marijuana was more important than any other issue in British Columbia at this time.

I want to talk a bit about what it is like to be here having appeared before a senate committee on illegal drugs about five years ago in reference to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. I read all the testimony on that bill when it came before Parliament and before the Senate. It seemed to be much like what I am hearing here, a lot of enlightened testimony, numerous groups saying how we should decriminalize, how our current situation is wrong, and how we need things to change.

I was very heartened when I spoke before the senate committee, and I felt like they were being very responsive and asking very intelligent questions - as I have seen here. Yet, that bill was passed without any major changes by the Senate or by Parliament and most of the testimony, in my opinion, was entirely ignored. Here we are five years later, with pretty much all the things you predicted about that bill having come true and some things are a lot worse off than they ever were before.

Since that bill was passed, we have had thousands of overdose deaths in Canada. We have had tens of thousands of people being charged with simple possession of marijuana. We have had waste of uncountable dollars and tax dollars. Many other crimes, I believe, have gone unsolved because police have being focussing their energies on this futile war on drugs and marijuana.

The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act has continued to encroach upon our liberties in this country. There are a few things in that bill that have come true, one being that it allowed police officers with a single warrant to search anyone at a given location.

There was a case in Halifax last year in which the police came to a "rave" with an anonymous tip that there were drugs in the building. They searched the building, could not find any, so they strip-searched every single person in that building.

Considering the number of marijuana advocates we have in this room, it would not be surprising for there to be an anonymous tip that someone here possesses marijuana, but I wonder how the senators would react to all of us being strip-searched individually by police who believe that one of us here might have a joint in his or her pocket. This is something that did not happen before this bill was passed five years ago.

Similarly, we have seen an increased number of marijuana possession arrests in Canada over the last five years. Even though when this bill was brought before Parliament, parliamentarians said over and over again how they were easing up on possession of marijuana, how you would not get a criminal record - all this stuff -none of that has happened. The statistics show that the RCMP has made more marijuana arrests every single year for the last five years.

Finally, we are seeing seizure of homes in Canada. You can commit many crimes in your home and your house will not be seized from you. If you grow marijuana plants in your basement, there is a good chance your house will be seized.

I read all of the testimony that was brought before Parliament, I read all of the committee hearings; not once was it mentioned that houses would be seized in the context of growing marijuana. They talked about four to five drug houses where cocaine flaps are sent to the mailboxes and whatnot. There have been about 20 houses seized in the last five years. They were all marijuana grow houses. You can put dead bodies in your basement and they will not take away your home. If you grow plants in your home, they will take your home away - not because of proceeds of crime. We are talking about buying your home with drug money; we are talking about using your home to commit this crime to grow marijuana. There is no other crime like that in Canada.

It is difficult for me to be here and listen to this testimony. I am excited to think that these senators are going to do something; they are going to make Parliament make some changes. However, it is also hard not to be cynical because five years have gone by, all of this has been heard before. In fact, all this came out in the 1970s with the Le Dain Commission. There have been countless studies in this country and around the world, and they all say essentially the same thing: Marijuana is either harmless or it is not harmful enough for us to make the big deal about it that we are and that the rest of our drug policies are flawed.

I do not know if, when this committee writes its reports in the fall, there will actually be changes, or whether we will see another five-year delay, another election, another endless series of changes while people go to jail, have their lives destroyed and die in the streets from problems with their drug use.

Finally, I have heard here over and over again about addiction, about people using marijuana for medical use. People have a lot of problems in their lives, and yet most of the marijuana smokers that I know use marijuana to celebrate. We use it as a positive experience. I do not have any medical reason to use marijuana, other than perhaps to help me relax or maybe make me feel happy. People use marijuana as a celebration, to enjoy their lives, to enhance their lives.

There is an excellent essay, which I would recommend all to you, by a fellow named Carl Sagan, who is one of the most influential and well-read scientists of our time. He was a chronic marijuana user. He did not talk about it in public because he did not want people to know or to hurt his reputation, but he wrote an excellent essay under the name Mr. X in the book Marihuana Reconsidered by Dr. Lester Grinspoon. Carl Sagan talked about how using marijuana helped him gain valid scientific insights, that the papers that he wrote were based upon ideas that he got while he was baked and that these papers got solid recommendation and were presented to classes.

Obviously, not everyone who smokes pot will become a genius scientist by any means, but people who use marijuana often use it to enhance their own abilities, to help them write music, write poetry, create songs, do scientific research. I think it is important to consider that marijuana is used as a positive enhancing aspect to people's lives. It is not always something that helps them overcome a disease or helps them deal with a problem - this goes for other drugs as well. People use these things because they enjoy them, because they like them, because they are positive experiences for them.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Larsen. By the way, when the Senate, and there is a committee like this one, this locale becomes part of the parliamentary precinct, so nobody is going to invade the - rush to the door and search anybody.

Mr. Malmo-Levine: It would be nice if everyone were as protected as you are.

The Chairman: Oh, you are.

Mr. Malmo-Levine: When we step out of these doors.

The Chairman: I am still chairing this meeting. Whoever comes as a witness is protected, so do not worry about that.

Ms Thia Walter: I admire your stamina. It has been a long day. I am a mother. I live in the Downtown Eastside. I have two beautiful sons who are both adults. One worked very hard to put himself through school and got two degrees; the other son worked very hard and ended up addicted to heroin at the age of 25.

I will not go into a long story about what I have seen over the years. I will tell you, however, I am an expert. I know drug addiction and I know the horrors of the untreated drug addiction. I have a little office in the Downtown Eastside, right beside all the hard-to-house people in the Sunrise Hotel.

On October 17th, my son, Steve, the one who is addicted, was brought in from the remand centre in Port Coquitlam to face a trial in Vancouver. Port Coquitlam, for those of you who do not know, is quite a ways out and it is a brand new facility called the North Unit, which cost $40 million to build, and it is a lovely place. They brought him in. He went to trial. He was found not guilty on a break and enter. He was guilty on mischief. The judge - who meant well - wanted to find some way to try and stop the cycle of crime and drug taking that Steve was locked into. She made special orders that Steve was to live where his MPA worker, court worker, and the probation officer directed. She made special emphasis that he was to go to whatever treatment they directed.

Steven was released at seven o'clock at night still wearing his prison uniform, lightweight cotton trousers and short-sleeve shirt in bright red, which the street people call the "scarlets," with B.C. Correction stamped across it. Even though the court registry had my phone number and directions to contact his lawyer and myself when he was to be released, so we could bring clothing for him, they never did.

Instead, this fellow who had been straight for two months while he was in jail had to go across to the needle exchange place to make a phone call to me, so that I could meet him. I had to arrange for an emergency bed for him because the MPA worker goes home at 4:00 and because the probation officer will not see him until Monday. I gave him money for bus fare. I gave him cigarettes. The fellow who was released with him - also wearing prison scarlets - was not quite that lucky. I bought him supper, but I did not have much money left and he wandered off down towards Main and Hastings hoping he would find his girlfriend so he could get changed into something else.

I could go on. I will tell you that Steve has had contact since October 17 to this day with more than 20 different government agencies, representatives, community services, and health caregivers because of a massive infection in his hand. He has spent at least half of the time out on the street because he had either run over the amount of time you are allowed in shelters or he could not get into one of the other shelters because he did not have enough I.D. He was unable to return to the remand centre to get his I.D. because the round bus trip costs $6.

I am extremely angry at this point because I have worked 60-hour weeks for five years to promote harm reduction, to promote an increase in the quality of life for users, for their families, and for our communities. I have now been told that while my son is worse off than he was five years ago - and he is still, by the way, dirty, hungry, homeless, sick, and re-wired to heroin - of all the money that is being thrown into the whole drug harm reduction industry, not one penny of it is going to help him get off the streets. He will end up back in jail and he will be happy to be there. They have allocated $5 million to start drug courts when we don't even have treatment centres. They are going to contract for special treatment centres. Another $4 million was given to Dr. Schechter at the B.C. Centre for Excellence for HIV and AIDS. That was not enough for Dr. Schechter; he is holding it ransom so he can get another $4 million. For what?

It was almost a dream come true. There were two things I have fought very hard for: One was safe injection sites - which may happen and will save lives and hopefully keep them alive long enough for them to get proper treatment; the other was the possibility that maybe this long-term hard-core drug addict, who is what they call a "self-medicator," would actually receive heroin maintenance. That is not going to happen.

Even if the research - it is not heroin maintenance, by the way. It is only research. Blind test research duplicated already several times in other parts of the world.

Health Canada received a packet with very detailed pilot project for heroin maintenance. That would have been excellent. Instead, the money has gone into more research.

My son is still on the street. He is going to die within a year. He has not got a hope. Thousands others, like him, are going to die. The money is still going to be thrown into useless programs.

I say stop, revoke the approval for this research, and look at a pilot project for heroin assessment. I ask also that you reassess and ask why there is no data coming out of the Toronto drug courts on follow-up, and why they are still putting forward $5 million for drug courts when we cannot even get people off the streets that are not on drugs anymore.

I also want all of you to check into the evaluation process for the number of services that are receiving funding down here presumably for drug-related services. Forty-four new outreach workers divvy up the $3 million. My kid still cannot get a cup of coffee in Carnegie because they throw him out if he dares to fall asleep on a chair, if he is allowed to even sneak past the security guards, that is, when he is straight.

I could go on at length, but I am extremely angry and I feel like a mother who has come to a decision about a terminally ill child. I am saying, "pull the plug." If my kid is worse off after all the time and effort that so many of us have put in, then something is seriously wrong. Instead of throwing more money at it, take a look at what we are doing. The answers were there; they are still there. Instead we are rewarding people and saying "Here, buddy, make a name for yourself. We do not care how many people die, just so long as we look good."

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. David MacFarnam: You cannot keep this, but you can pass it around and show and tell and look. This is my cannabis tincture and an article, a scientific article on treatment.

The Chairman: Do not speak when you are not in front of a microphone. Nobody is going to remember all of this. What is this?

Mr. MacFarnam: That is cannabis tincture, which is produced by the Compassion Club. I do not smoke. I think that smoking is not a good idea, so I take cannabis tincture because I have a brain tumour.

I am here just in a capacity as an individual but I am also a member of the Compassion Club. My occupation is trying to cure my brain tumour, and I was a law student. I did first year law and then I took a break.

I am here because I have something you need to offer on the medical side. I am trying to treat what is cancer with alternative means including cannabis tincture. I also have some unique views on the drug policy issue that I do not share with a lot of people in the room and on both sides.

I address you in your recommendation capacity to write reports, not in your legislative powers, since you are not elected and, therefore, I guess your existence makes Canada a nominal dictatorship, formally and technically. If you do ever exercise your powers, it would actually make Canada an actual dictatorship, so that is my position with regard to yourselves.

The first issue is self-medication. I am treating myself for a brain tumour with alternative means. They told me that they wanted to do surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy but they did not tell me really how to look after my health. I just picked up on that and did my own research. Two years later, I have arrested the tumour. The tumour has not grown. It is a whole package of alternative means that I have been taking. If you ever want to know about that, I can tell you, but one of them is cannabis.

I came across the Compassion Club, I heard about it, I did some research, I went into the library, and I pulled out all the scientific articles that I could. Now, you can find some of those on the Compassion Club website, how to treat cancer. You will not find that one because they do not support animal testing, but in that particular one, they induced deadly brain tumours in rats and hooked them up to cannabis. In a number of the rats the tumour actually dissolved, so I am packing that around along with the tincture.

I fully support Hilary Black's views, as a member, as a medical user, as a citizen, and potentially as someone who could be subject to state repression and probably maybe even fight you guys in court. You can take your regulations and stuff them because I am not going to carry on with conventional treatment just to prove that it does not work, so that I can pass your test. Nor will I look for doctors who do not have any education in herbology, who are only schooled in pharmaceutical and dispensing pharmaceuticals.

If you arrest me for not filling out the application form, having cannabis and not complying with your regulations - basically my position is not like the Morgenthaler case. The state is blocking my access to a botanical, which is, I guess, a human right to have access to plants. My position is it is a human right to have access to raw plant material in the medicinal form. It is your burden to prove that this material is harmful to society more than the benefit that I can gain which potentially is life saving as you can see by the scientific data.

There was a recent case where the argument was that the criminalization is a threat to the person because they are possessing something that is not harmful. This is more than that. It is the government blocking my access to that. I do not fit into your regulations. You have some categories there and cancer, treating cancer and treating brain tumours is not one of them.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. MacFarnam. If you have more material you want us to read, you can e-mail me that.

Mr. John P. Gordon: I have made the intelligent choice to self-medicate with marijuana. I found out I was HIV positive in 1986 or 1987, and I think it is a miracle that I am doing so well now. About three years ago, I got involved with the B.C. Compassion Club and Hilary Black. One of the reasons I went there was because, before that, I had to score my marijuana on the street, which meant that I was being offered crack and everything else. When you cannot find any marijuana on the street, that sort of stuff starts looking good, and it is pretty scary to have to go to crack dealers to get marijuana. The club has offered me safe, usually organic marijuana, and I can choose between indica or sativa, depending on whether I need to release stress or have some creative energy or pep or whatever. It helps me with my appetite and keeping down my antiviral medications. I take a cocktail of medications that cause me a great deal of nausea and make it difficult to eat, but the catch-22 is, like Hilary said, it costs money to eat and it costs money to buy marijuana, and even at $7 to $10 a gram at the Compassion Club for the better marijuana, it is still costing me money and cutting into my budget. It would be great if I could get it on my medical card, but I do not. I approached my doctor. The reason I say I self-medicate with marijuana is because I do not have my doctor's full approval. My doctor has paid lip service to it and said that he can see that the marijuana helps me; he has no doubt about it. He is quite a famous HIV doctor, but he says he is not going to get political, so he is not going to sign the papers for the Compassion Club. As far as the regulations are concerned, I am better off going to the Compassion Club without them.

Senator Lawson talked about how nice it would be if you could go to a liquor store. I do not want to go to a liquor store to get my marijuana. I would like to be able to go the Compassion Club or to an herb store, because I think that is where it belongs, along with St. John's wort and echinacea and things like that.

I could ask to grow my own under the regulations. I think poor people especially should have the right to grow their own medicine. I know the way things are done now is through corporations and monopolies, but I think that poor people need to be able to grow their own medicine. I would like to be able to grow, but I live in a government facility run by the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, so there is no way that I can. For one thing, I would be jeopardizing the safety of the other people in the house, because prohibition has made the prices so high that people are going to want to break in and steal from me.

I ran for the B.C. Marijuana Party and I had my house broken into and my bongs and stuff stolen, so it can be scary. I think that the best thing would be if everybody could grow their own marijuana, just like people grow their own tomatoes. The thing is, it is not easy to grow - anybody can grow a tomato, but it is difficult to grow really good tomatoes. Even if I were allowed by government regulation to grow my own marijuana, I am not sure that I could do as good a job as the B.C. Compassion Club or places like that. I would like to be able to go to an herb store to get my marijuana, and I do not see it being in a liquor store. I see it as a cottage industry, where people could help each other by bartering amongst themselves and things like that. They can have a better standard of living just by growing their own medicine. I do not think we should have to go to a doctor or a pharmaceutical company to get what comes from the earth and is good for us.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Chris Bennett: Well, first off, I would just like to say I am a little disappointed that Senator St. Germain is not here, as he seemed to be one of the people opposed to the end of prohibition. He should be here getting all this information. We are paying him a good dollar to do that. I would appreciate it if he would return.

I have been a cannabis activist for 12 years. I ran Patriotic Canadians for Hemp from 1989 to 1994. I had the first industrial hemp seed food product in North America. I have written for Cannabis Culture magazine for about eight years. I currently manage pot-tv.net, a video repertoire on the Internet for cannabis-related subject matter. I have written two books on the history of cannabis culture and religion, so I feel I know the subject matter very well. I was born in B.C. and I have been smoking marijuana for 27 years, so I am, as Senator St. Germain so eloquently put it, the proverbial "happy" pot smoker.

Smoking pot is as old as the hills it grows on. Likely, when early humans were searching around for food and nutrition, they came across the cannabis plant, because the hemp seed is the most digestible source of protein known to man. In their search for food, their fingers became sticky with the resins from the plant, they threw that in the fire and the sweet-smelling smoke of cannabis arose. It is not surprising to find that cannabis is a sacrament for many of the world's oldest religions. Indeed, Carl Sagan speculated that cannabis may indeed have been mankind's first cultivated plant. As an example, the pygmies of Africa began planting cannabis as their first crop after using it ceremonially and not being able to count on finding it in the wild.

The notion of cannabis as the first agricultural crop is based upon archaeological evidence, and the first woven fabrics, the first medicines, all these references, can be tied back to it. Culture itself grew out of agriculture. Not surprisingly, cannabis as a medicine and a euphoric is recorded in the Syrian religion, the Chinese religion, the Pharmacopoeia, the Indian, the Muslim religion medical texts. Again and again, cannabis was used for the same ailments that it is used for today, so we do not need to do further testing. We can go back in history and take a look at the history books and the history of medicine itself. As a spiritual sacrament, it is being used to this day by the cult of Shiva in India, the oldest worship deity on earth. In China, 2,000 years ago, Chinese sages wrote "First a yin then a yang, no one knows what I do. Jade buds of holy hemp for the one that lives apart." Likewise, back in the 11th century, cannabis not being prohibited in the Koran, there was a long history of cannabis use in Muslim countries. It was written: "God has granted you the privilege of knowing the secrets of these leaves, thus may your dense worries disappear and your exalted minds become polished." Again and again, throughout history, we see examples like this and the medical applications recorded cross-culturally.

Today in Canada, we have the opportunity, through our influence on America, to act as an example for the world on how to deal with this substance. We can go two ways: We can go with the Amsterdam model, with coffee shops, regulations, and a soft drug industry that is much easier to control than alcohol. The cannabis consumption has not gone up amongst the population and there is treatment for addicts who decide on their own feelings to move away from those drugs and get into other places. Or we can go with the American model, with over 50 per cent of the people in jail incarcerated on drug offences. One in six of those people are in jail on marijuana-related offences, and that is often just for simple possession. One in three Blacks in the United States cannot vote presently because of these laws. College and university students are being removed from their schools and having their futures ruined by simple tests that are just focussed on testing for marijuana. You do not find heroin, you do not find cocaine in the urine, you find cannabis, and this is the focus of the DEA in the U.S.A. We have a situation in America where the California voters passed proposition 215 with more votes than any elected official received. Despite this, we have federal governments sending in the DEA. Thirty DEA agents recently raided the Los Angeles Buyers Club, a cannabis club that has received endorsements from the mayor and other members of the L.A. council - 30 DEA members at a time when we are facing the so-called "threat of terrorism." Then we have people like Asa Hutchison lumping in drug users en masse with terrorists. We have the D.A.R.E. organization releasing press statements saying that cannabis dealers should be considered as much of a threat as terrorists.

We can go the way of the U.S. We can imprison our population. We can join them in incarcerating the largest number of people of any country in the world, including China, Russia, South Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. We can join them in throwing one in six people in jail for marijuana-related things. Do you know how much that costs? Despite what the officer said, although I thought he was a very eloquent speaker and I appreciate his good intentions, we spend a vast amount of money on marijuana and marijuana-related things. Why not focus it on rape? Why not focus on family abuse? Why not focus it on crime? One thing this Senate could do to bring back disenfranchised citizens of this country and bring them back into the fold of Canadian voters and the fold of businessmen, is to legalize cannabis. And we can do that.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Richard Cowan: As a matter of disclosure, I am only one-quarter Canadian. My maternal grandfather was born in Quebec. The other three-quarters of me, unfortunately, are from Texas. It is in that capacity that I am here. I am also the former national director of the national organization to reform our marijuana laws in the United States and am on the board of the NORML foundation. I also do a website, MarijuanaNews.com, and the marijuana news for Pot-TV.

I look at Canadians as family, as friends. I have been enormously appreciative of the support of Canadian people after the attacks of September 11. There are very close bonds between our countries. Yet, I have heard questions from members of this panel, and others over the years, about what the United States would do if Canada were to legalize marijuana. Well, they might slap a tariff on lumber or they might institute policies that cause delays at the border, but really, seriously, what could the United States do? The answer is, essentially nothing. Canada should not, in any case, sacrifice its people to try to satisfy the blood lust of a government that persecutes the sick and dying in its own country. I am ashamed of what the government in my country is doing. It is profoundly immoral.

Now, frankly speaking, and as a good friend, I am also a little embarrassed by what Canada is doing. Canadians joke about being nice. Canadians are really lovely people. I love Canada and I love the people. And yet I look at what is being done here. For example, you are still arresting medical marijuana users. This is wrong, and Canada arrests almost as many people per capita on marijuana possession charges as does the United States. Now, the consequences are far less serious, for the most part, depending on who you are and where you are, just as in the United States. If you get arrested in some places in the United States, it is just an embarrassment. It costs you a little money, a few bucks, when you get arrested. Other places in the United States, it will totally wreck your life. You could lose custody of your children, your job, your driver's licence and your student loans. This is total injustice. The same thing applies in both countries, because there was testimony, I believe earlier this year, before the Senate committee that people are still actually going to jail for possession of marijuana in Canada.

In terms of effective law enforcement and basic human justice, I think that Canada really should look at the United States and learn what not to do. The day after tomorrow, I am flying to the Netherlands. Twenty-five years ago, on November 1, the Netherlands stopped arresting its citizens on marijuana charges. It began de facto decriminalization. What have been the consequences? The Netherlands has a lower rate of marijuana use than does Canada, much lower than the United States, and much, much lower than the United Kingdom. The Netherlands has a lower rate of hard drug use than does Canada, much lower than the United States, and much, much lower than the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, they decided that that was enough, because not arresting people was good in itself. During that time, the United States has arrested over 10 million people. The Dutch have not arrested anyone for possession, but they realized that they had to break the connection between hard and soft drugs. That is the basis of all Dutch drug policy - the separation of the markets - and that is the basis for the coffee-shop system. You can look, as Chris and others have said, to the south and see a profound disaster that has undermined freedom in the land of the free and the home of the brave, which I find heartbreaking, or you can look to the Netherlands, to a policy of tolerance and an effective drugs policy. That really is the choice, and I hope that the Canadian Senate will stand up for the rights of the Canadian people and for what is right. I think that my country, that the three-quarters of me belong to, would benefit from that as well. Canada does not often think of itself as leading the United States, but believe me, the United States desperately needs Canadian leadership in this, and I hope that the Canadian Senate will offer that leadership.

The Chairman: Thank you for your comments, Mr. Cowan. I am reminded of the testimony of Governor Gary Johnson last Monday in Ottawa. It was almost word for word what you just said.

Mr. Cowan: He is in New Mexico.

The Chairman: Colleagues, that is it for today. I wish to thank everyone who participated.

The committee adjourned.

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