Harper Government on the Wrong Side of the Drug War

Harper's new omnibus crime bill will mean stiffer sentences for those growing a few marijuana plants, clearly designed to go after the user.  However, if he really wanted to do the war on drugs right, he would be targeting the pharmaceutical industry; the real drug pushers of this generation.

I often mock the ads on U.S television for new prescription drugs;  "cures" for ailments you never heard of.   Clearly they're just starting to make things up.

Direct-to-consumer advertising can be very effective, but also dangerous.  According to the Canadian Health Coalition, the ads push the newest medicines, those without a history of the affects of long-term use.

Truth in advertising demands that they list the side affects, but they are practically sung at the end or read so fast you can't keep up.

"Did she just say that this drug might make me want to jump out a window?"

What you remember the most from the ads is "ask your doctor".  Arthritis sufferers asked their doctors about Vioxx, a heavily advertised pain medication, and yet 115,000 died from heart attacks as a result of taking the drug. 

CHC also warns that the ads are designed to turn the normal into a problem, convincing people who feel fine but with "symptoms" of a new medical condition, that they need drugs. Others who have symptoms of a legitimate condition, could instead treat the fabricated one and mask the symptoms that need to be addressed.

In Canada direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicine is still prohibited, but Canwest Global is hoping to change that, calling it an infringement on their freedom of expression.  I believe the case is still pending.

With Harper now controlling the Supreme Court, if it goes that far, CanWest will win.  They'll just have to bring him a hockey sweater.  It won't hurt that Pfizer is now running the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, either.

History Repeating Itself

In his 2008 book White Protestant Nation, Allan J. Richtman traces the modern conservative movement to the 1920s and Prohibition, which was not only about banning the sale of alcohol but an attempt to crack down on all vices, including drug use.

A near panic over drug-induced crime that hit the United States during the 1920s led public officials and private reformers to declare America's first war on drugs. The nation closed its public drug treatment clinics and as it had done with venereal disease, adopted a moral and law enforcement approach to narcotics. Addicts had no recourse other than illegal sources of supply ...

Despite a continued drug war, however, the nation's experiment with Prohibition crashed in the late 1920s. Prohibition exposed the tension between moral reformers and a business community opposed to govern­ment control over industry ... a continuing thirst for alcohol gave rise to a thriving underground market operated by organized criminal syndicates that waged bloody street battles for control of market share and paid off law enforce­ment officials to look the other way. The prisons swelled with felons con­victed of violating the dry laws and collateral crimes. The cost of federal law enforcement quintupled during the '20s and intruded into the lives of ordinary Americans. (1)

Many believe that the narcotic trade is new and addiction something that can be cured with tougher laws.  They thought the same thing in the 1920s when federal laws were passed and a war on drugs was launched.

Throughout the Victorian era, narcotics were readily available and sold as patent medicines.

Cannabis Indica, patented by the American Druggist Syndicate in 1906.  Bottle reads:

"Fluid Extract. Cannabis Indica. USP eighth revision. The flowering tops of cannabis sativa. Alcohol 60 percent. Physiologically tested. A.D.S.

This was one of many cannabis products promising to cure migraines and "nervousness".  The 60% alcohol didn't hurt.

Bayer began selling liquid Heroin in 1899 for pain relief.  It earned it's name because those testing the miracle cure claimed that it made them feel heroic.

However, by the early 1900s heroism turned to addiction, so pharmaceutical companies began to patent a range of cures for addiction, including the German Liquor Cure.

To those addicted to the habit of using opium or morphia in  any form or manner whatever. We guarantee this preparation to be absolutely harmless, to contain no poisonous narcotics. Can be taken freely without producing any of the deleterious effects on the system, such as are caused by the use of opium and morphia. Immediately on taking a dose of this remedy, a calming and soothing effect is produced. It acts as a tonic to  the nerves;it will act at first as perfect substitute, rendering the patient independent of these poisonous drugs, and after continued use for a short period the nerves will become strong and the general health improved, so that the remedy can be taken at longer intervals and soon altogether discontinued; then the cure is complete". Cannot be sent by mail on account of weight".

They don't say what was in this stuff, but perhaps more alcohol than Cannabis Indica.

Enter the crusaders of the conservative movement, who were going to end all that, with a whole range of federal laws.  We'll call it an omnibus bill. 

Since Ronald Reagan launched his war full scale war on drugs, the results have been pretty much the same.  Some examples:

- the U.S. per capita spending on schools increased 32%. The per capita spending on prisons grew 189%

- California built 21 prisons since then but just one college.

- From 1985 to 1998, the number of deaths per 100,000 for drug-induced causes almost doubled. In other words, having a drug war proved twice as deadly as not having one. (2)

By the 25th anniversary $4 trillion dollars had been spent on the war on drugs with a record expansion of prison and jail systems.

Martin Beckford, Health Correspondent for the UK Telegraph writes that the War on drugs has failed:

Leading peers – including prominent Tories – say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible. Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country.

So why does the Harper government, at a time of record deficits, insist on making the same mistakes as those who have tried "crack down" before?

Robert O. Paxton blames it on the mindset of these kinds of populist movements. They "despise thought and reason" and "abandon intellectual positions casually" (3) .  Preferring emotional arguments to proven facts, is the basis of the new conservatism.  Even if their leaders know otherwise, manipulating emotion is what puts them into power and keeps them there.  They often refer to it, as Guy Giorno, Harper's former chief of staff, did, as "playing to the base". 

I tried to debate Canada's new drug laws with one of my conservative followers.  Frustrated, he said "You can't tell me that things weren't better in the Victorian era", (we'd already run the gamut from the 1920s).  And yet I can.  Every generation has had their problems and there has never been any quick fix.

Bill C-10 will only create a new set of problems.  Or an old set of problems, as history will repeat itself.

Sources:

1. White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, By Allan J. Lichtman, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008, ISBN: 10-0-87113-983-7, pp 14-15

2. BOTTOM LINE: The true costs of Reagan and extreme capitalism, by Sam Smith
 
3. The Five Stages of Fascism, By Robert O. Paxton, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 1. (Mar., 1998), pp. 1-23. The University of Chicago Press

Rob Nicholson is Not Tough on Crime, Just Stupid on Crime

It was kind of neat in the above video, watching Rob Nicholson get the smack down. "If you don't pass my crime bill, I'm telling ....". He looked a little humbled after this. Maybe Ref-Con blackmail is losing it's punch.

However, John Geddes wrote a piece recently for McLean's, and is wondering, as many of us are, why so much smoke, when there's no fire?

The last Statistics Canada report on crime revealed that our crime rate is now the lowest in 25 years. Why this panic toward a 'tough on crime' bill. They want it passed without reporting on it's cost, claiming it to be a 'cabinet secret'. Obviously, they're just playing to their base, because a recent poll shows that health care is still the number one issue with Canadians and they haven't done a thing to improve that.

This government is doing nothing to move this country forward. They continue to try to take us back to the 'good old days' that were never as good as they remember. This is not who Canadians are.

Are we really soft on crime?
The Tories prefer tough talk to hard proof on punishment
by John Geddes
November 9, 2009

The federal Department of Justice boasts Canada’s biggest concentration of legal brainpower. Of its roughly 4,300 employees, about half are lawyers, and its policy branch alone employs about 200 bureaucrats. Not surprisingly, the department has a long history of producing sophisticated policy papers and commissioning probing research on crime and punishment. So as the Conservative government continues this fall to roll out its long series of tough-on-crime initiatives built around mandatory minimum penalties for a raft of offences—from gun crime to big-time fraud—it would be reasonable to expect a thick stack of Justice studies explaining why dictating longer prison terms is the way to go.

But Justice Minister Rob Nicholson doesn’t offer up any departmental research at all to support the Tories’ major law-and-order thrust. Nor does Nicholson rely on reports by independent experts to buttress his case for telling judges how long they must lock up criminals for a slew of offences. Instead, in response to requests from Maclean’s for any analysis or data justifying the new minimum sentences, his office produced a 1,000-word memo explaining the policy. It candidly admits that research doesn’t offer persuasive evidence that mandatory minimum penalties, called MMPs for short, reduce crime. “In our opinion,” it says, “the studies are inconclusive particularly with respect to the main debate: do MMPs deter crime?”

If they can’t be shown to act as a deterrent, why put MMPs at the core of the government’s high-profile anti-crime push? Nicholson offers a list of seven other reasons. Some are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the government’s relentless tough-on-crime messaging, like the goal of ensuring that criminals “spend a minimum amount of time in custody to receive the treatment and rehabilitation they need.” The memo also cites the aim of keeping criminals behind bars long enough to disrupt their gangs. But the top reasons on Nicholson’s list have to do, not with actually fighting crime, but with assuaging the anger of law-abiding citizens who believe the system coddles the bad guys.

The top item on Nicholson’s seven-point list: “ensure victims feel that justice has been rendered.” And the second: “ensure that the amount of time served is proportional to the gravity of the offence.” It’s these linked objectives that clearly stand at the centre of the government’s MMP policy. They combine into an undeniably powerful argument: if judges refuse to hand down sentences that fit the crime, then victims will feel doubly victimized and society understandably outraged, leaving the government little choice but to legislate longer prison time.

This seemingly irrefutable line of reasoning, however, rests on the premise that the government knows sentences now being handed down by the courts are too light. In fact, they often haven’t bothered to collect that information. Nicholson’s office and his departmental officials admit they have not compiled statistics on typical sentences in convictions for most of the crimes they’ve targeted for MMPs. And it’s not always clear the new minimum terms will be any tougher than the sentences often imposed up to now. For instance, the government announced last month, with much fanfare, that fraudsters who net more than $1 million will face at least two years in prison under a new MPP. According to some experts, that’s low. Vancouver lawyer Eric Gottardi, who chairs the Canadian Bar Association’s criminal law subsection in his city, says that when a white-collar criminal in an authority position is convicted of major fraud, the “quite settled” pattern is for the judge to hand down “a sentence in the range of three to five years in prison.” And the penalties can be much tougher in extreme cases, like the crooked financial adviser convicted in a recent high-profile Montréal case, Vincent Lacroix, who was sentenced to 13 years.

Statistics on gun crime are particularly murky, since firearms offences often occur in combination with other crimes, like drug dealing or robbery. The government’s Tackling Violent Crime Act dictates at least a five-year sentence on the first offence and seven years on subsequent convictions for using a gun in the most serious crimes, like attempted murder or hostage-taking. But will that really translate into significantly stiffer penalties? For 2005-’06, the latest Statistics Canada figures available, the average prison term for all firearm-related violent crimes—including many offences less serious than the ones targeted by the new mandatory minimums—was just over four years, about double the typical sentence for the same crimes committed without a gun.

The government’s refusal to present detailed evidence of soft sentences to justify imposing minimums makes this a debate more about impressions than facts. That frustrates criminologists who argue that the research, by and large, doesn’t show much measurable benefit from MMPs. Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd says mandatory minimums might be justified, but only if they were more narrowly targeted.

Rather than the government’s proposed two-year minimum for anyone convicted of growing 500 or more marijuana plants, he suggests “smart and focused” tougher sentencing only for those who use guns, set spring-traps or endanger children in running a grow op. Boyd slams the broad application of MMPs by the Tories as “not tough on crime, but stupid on crime.”

That’s exactly the sort of exasperated expert reaction Conservative strategists welcome. Ian Brodie, the former university political science professor who served as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff from 2006 to 2008, explained why in an unusually candid talk on Conservative strategy last spring at McGill University in Montreal. “Every time we proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, sociologists, criminologists, defence lawyers and Liberals attacked us for proposing measures that the evidence apparently showed did not work,” Brodie said. “That was a good thing for us politically, in that sociologists, criminologists and defence lawyers were and are all held in lower repute than Conservative politicians by the voting public. Politically it helped us tremendously to be attacked by this coalition of university types.” (What a horrible thing to say. So this thing is entirely political and not what is in the best interest of Canadians. Good to know)

The popularity of any policy sold as a crackdown on crime is a given around Parliament Hill. As a result, Liberals show little interest in pushing back against the Conservatives’ law-and-order agenda. Some NDP MPs, including Libby Davies and Megan Leslie, have been more willing to challenge Nicholson. When he appeared before the House justice committee last spring, Davies repeatedly pressed him for evidence that MMPs work. He didn’t offer any. “We have the mandate of the Canadian people,” Nicholson answered, “and they have told us that this is what they want to see us move on.” (The have the mandate of 1/3 of the Canadian people)

The policy extends beyond mandatory minimums to other measures aimed at locking up criminals for longer. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, Nicholson’s partner in combating crime, recently announced a range of measures to make it harder for prisoners to get parole.

Under a program introduced in 1992, non-violent, first-time offenders often qualified for parole after serving only one-sixth of their sentence. Van Loan is ending that practice, along with the routine granting of full parole when prisoners have served one-third of their time. He estimates the move to make it harder to qualify for parole will cost $60 million a year to pay for keeping non-violent criminals behind bars longer.

Like mandatory minimums, the tougher parole rules play on the public fear that criminals will return to crime soon after they’re let out. It happens, of course, and sometimes with tragic and highly publicized results. But statistics suggest only a tiny minority of offenders commit new crimes while on parole. Correctional Services Canada, part of Van Loan’s department, says 1.3 per cent of federal offenders were charged with another violent offence while they were out in the community under some form of supervision in 2006-’07.

After serving their entire sentence, about six per cent of violent offenders are convicted of another violent crime within two years, just under 10 per cent within five years. About the same proportion of non-violent offenders—one released prisoner in 10—are convicted for another non-violent crime within five years.

Dry data of this sort doesn’t make it into speeches by Nicholson and Van Loan. It’s only fodder for discussion among those “university types” disdained by a government that asserts, when it comes to crime, a higher “mandate of the Canadian people.” A more thoughtful debate might include a discussion about how to identify that minority of convicted criminals most likely to reoffend, rather than lengthening time behind bars for broad categories of prisoners. It might seek to first establish a clear understanding of what sorts of sentences judges are actually handing down, before prescribing mandatory minimums as an all-purpose solution. As it stands, Canadians are hearing plenty of the tough-on-crime rhetoric they clearly crave, but not much about evidence-based policy thinking to back it up.