Where should the money be spent?

That was the question for the day's discussion at the third of three drug awareness conferences held in Vancouver,B.C. Canada. Today's (Wed.Feb.27'08) meeting was a breath of fresh air as the prohibition movement and it's proponents finally got the message and went to form their own group somewhere. The audience was only slightly smaller than the other two meetings but the dialogue was sharper,clearer and more concise as there were no off beat rants or unrequested evangelism from the crowd in attendance. There was agreement that the drug war was a total failure and that the horrendous burden of prosecuting the war was costing us far too much in money ,health and in respect for order.Vancouver's former mayor,Phillip Owen ,was passionate when speaking about the things he'd witnessed in his world wide travels promoting and studying harm reduction efforts.He was less optimistic about the current Canadian Government and it's neo-con ideology and the way it rejects any and all research that doesn't fall in line with it's own predisposition toward a biblical philosophy. Citing 24 research papers submitted by the proponents of the safe injection site. Owen said the Conservative government would not ,had not and will never listen. He suggested we try to elect politicians with a more lenient outlook toward drug policy.He didn't tell us where we were supposed to find these politicians.My experience has been that NO-ONE in politics has the stones to declare on drug issues no matter how hard they're pushed.The lone exception is the green party's Adrienne Carr,who has spoken openly about the drug war and the need for it's quick and merciful end.Unfortunately,there is as much chance of a Green Party victory as there is of Ralph Nader becoming president.I do think that if Ms.Carr makes it an issue in the next federal election. The Green's could elect their first members to the house. The only dissenting voice all afternoon was a young lady that works with at risk youth.She could not understand why marijuana was such an important issue at the meeting.Such naivete was the result of youth,inexperience and frustration at what she saw as a non issue.We were all young once. The conference ended with strong consensus that prohibition was a failed experiment and that it was past it's due date. There were no firm commitments to any post prohibition ideas but a firm belief that that was the way of the future.