Feature:
Toronto
Moves
Toward
Four
Pillars-Style
Drug
Policy
10/21/05
After a comprehensive 18-month review of drug policy in Canada's largest city, Toronto's Drug Strategy Advisory Committee has issued a report calling on the city to adopt a comprehensive approach to drugs similar to the Four Pillars strategy (prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and law enforcement) adopted across the continent in Vancouver earlier this decade. Containing 66 specific recommendations, the Toronto Drug Strategy calls for increased emphasis on prevention, the decriminalization of cannabis possession, and a larger role for harm reduction programs, including consideration of a safe injection site for hard drug users similar to the one already in operation in Vancouver.
"It is important that we had drug users on the committee," said Councillor Rae. "They tend to be isolated and stigmatized, and many people forget they are our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. If we need programs to assist the people who are addicted, who better to consult? I'm not interested in moralizing; this is about their experiences and their needs. We could pretend the American model works, but all it has done is create a need for more jails. Making drug users stakeholders in this process was useful in helping all of us manage the drug problem," he told DRCNet. The key recommendation, said Councillor Rae, was the one calling for an implementation committee to plot the next steps in the city's drug strategy. "This report balances the interests of public health and public order. I am proud of what we have accomplished together and we now need to build on the excellent work behind these recommendations." "We need to step up our efforts,
especially in prevention and harm reduction," said Dr. David McKeown, Toronto
Medical Officer of Health. "The report sets a direction that will
contribute to improving community safety and building stronger neighborhoods."
The strategy is also remarkably brief when it comes to the law enforcement component, limiting its enforcement calls to supporting "increased enforcement efforts... targeting high-level drug traffickers, importers, and producers of illegal substances" and "ensuring resources are available... to effectively respond to illegal drug production operations such as marijuana grow operations." Other than that, the strategy largely calls on law enforcement to ramp down. Other policing recommendations include urging increased use of drug court instead of incarceration, exploring "alternative enforcement strategies" such as merely ticketing drug users, and exploring alternative community justice approaches. On the harm reduction front, the strategy calls for Toronto to expand already existing needle exchange and other harm reduction programs, "including the provision of equipment to support safer use of substances... to reach marginalized users, in particular people who use crack cocaine." Other harm reduction recommendations include funding a 24-hour drug crisis center, more harm reduction programs in shelters, and more harm reduction programs in jails and prisons, including needle exchange. For Toronto Police Chief William Blair, who supports the overall drug strategy, both handing out crack kits and the marijuana decriminalization proposal were problematic. "Certain of these recommendations have the potential to do more harm than good," he said after the strategy's release. "The chief believes there needs to be an overall drug strategy," said Councillor Rae, "even if he has problems with a couple of specific recommendations, one of which is decriminalization, and that's because existing law says it's illegal and he's not going to say it should be changed. But that recommendation merely reflects what the federal government has said it wants to do, and once that becomes the law, the chief will just have to live with it," Rae told DRCNet. The chief wasn't the only one with at least initial reservations about harm reduction. "I wasn't sold on harm reduction at first," said Councillor Michael Thompson, who sat on the advisory committee. "But Dr. Sheila Bursar, the chief medical officer for Ontario, convinced me that we needed to look at our drug strategy from a harm reduction perspective. While some drug sellers create havoc in society, for the most part drug use is a medical issue and it didn't appear that we had enough of a structure in place to help people," he told DRCNet. Thompson and others toured Vancouver and talked to officials there about their experiences, he said. "You have the safe injection site there. It's not something we were necessarily enamored with, but we had a chance to see how that particular program is helping people in Vancouver," he said. "Mayor Campbell seems to think it's working, and so do senior police officers there. We were pleasantly surprised, and the community here is quite interested." While Thompson originally approached Toronto's drug milieu from a position of tackling drug-related violence, the reliance on the criminal justice system to control drug problems now seems less attractive. "The police are there to enforce the laws, but we are working to help them recognize that we don't necessarily want to criminalize people, such as those in possession of small amounts of marijuana." Thompson was referring to the strategy's recommendation that Toronto urge the federal government to pass its much unloved decriminalization bill, which satisfies neither the pot people nor the law and order types. Under that bill, which died again this year, possession of up to 15 grams would be punishable by a fine, but penalties for all but the smallest grows would be increased. The Toronto drug strategy recommendation does not go far enough, said marijuana activists. "It's good to see they are still calling for the government to continue down the path of regulating cannabis, but that federal decriminalization bill is not really decrim at all, just alternative penalties," said Tim Meehan of Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis. And even true decriminalization will not solve the problem of bad marijuana getting into the market and will not resolve issues around supply, such as the grow ops. Grow ops are not inherently dangerous, so we have to fight the myths around that, but there is the prohibition factor, so you see large-scale grows run by Asian gangs, as well as problems from illegal wiring and theft of power to avoid detection," he told DRCNet. "Legalizing marijuana was never raised seriously by the people on the strategy committee," said Rae. "There were some people at the public meetings who jumped up and said we should legalize it, but it was not seriously considered." Perhaps the drug strategy needs to catch up with Toronto reality when it comes to marijuana, said Meehan. "The cannabis culture here is quiet but thriving. You can walk around the streets of Toronto smoking and nobody will call the police," he said. "We also have three Vancouver-style cannabis cafes, where you bring your own. While legalization is a federal issue, I would like to see Toronto open a compassion club for recreational users, or at least have the council cut off police funding for marijuana enforcement and redirect into other, more critical programs." Despite the criticism of the relatively weak position on marijuana, the Toronto Drug Strategy stands as a model of a progressive approach to drug policy, but it is not a done deal yet. On Monday, the strategy will go to the Board of Health, where the city's chief medical officer is a strong supporter. From there, it's on to the police service board and the council's policy and finance committee. In December, it will go before the full council for final approval. "This is obviously a work in progress," said Councillor Thompson. "We have 66 recommendations and we are going to start working on the ones that are doable now. There are still areas that need more work, but the bottom line is that we've been trying things for years now that don't work, and it's time to think outside the box."
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
