Vancouver recommended Canada decriminalize drugs to reduce overdose deaths.

This is the most stupid approach. You want no overdoses? then eliminate drugs from the society. How? Put a severest penalty for people and gangs who produce and distribute drugs to our children and people. Life sentences for drug producers and dealers, and long prison sentences for drug buyers. Many countries including Dubai and UAE have been using this policy and it is working.

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Narrator:

Jul 11, 2018 at 3:00pm

Actually, no it doesn't work.

hmmm

Jul 11, 2018 at 3:15pm

Let's focus on the real problems. The consumables causing the greatest number of deaths and costing us the most dollars are alcohol and cigarettes. They are legal. Suddenly making them illegal isn't going to reduce the number of deaths or diseases associated with their use. Education will make the difference, as it does generally with all drug use. It won't solve the whole problem though because teaching avoidance is only one part. The other part is teaching people that self-medication to deal with trauma is a terrible coping strategy. This is where all the cannabis-boosters are missing the point--- if you think getting baked is a better strategy than CBT for dealing with your anxiety, you are as self-deceived as Mad Men needing whiskey to unwind.

Adult life is hard. No one is having an easy time. Drugs always end up being more of a problem than a solution for people. Pick another way to stay on track. Ask for help when think about needing it, long before you are desperate for it.

Anonymous

Jul 11, 2018 at 5:33pm

Wow....you have no idea how the world works do you, bud. You can't just do that. Decriminalizing drugs is a step in the right direction in my opinion. I really hope psychedelics get decriminalized because they actually help you too..just like marijuana. A lot and i mean A LOT of people believe what they are told and research nothing. They are told drugs are bad. Psychedelics are drugs so they must be bad...right? Wrong. I suggest watching some Joe Rogan podcasts about Mushrooms, DMT and acid. It might enlighten you. I have about 3/4oz of shrooms right now. I might trip this weekend..or next. I don't use mushrooms as a party drug or to see everything twisting and melting and warping and bending. That's cool..but there's more to the trip than just the visuals. Do some research.

OhForChrist'Sake

Jul 11, 2018 at 7:58pm

You voted for Harper, didn't you?

Anonymous

Jul 12, 2018 at 12:42am

I've guess you've done absolutely no research on America's War On Drugs and what a failure it's been with the exception of keeping America's Industrial Military Complex churning out helicopters for the Colombians. How hard is it for people to do research before they open their mouths?

Never used drugs

Jul 12, 2018 at 6:55am

I’ve never used drugs, never even thought of trying and I really wonder about those who do use them BUT even I can see that “the war on drugs” and “tough on drugs” does not work.

You can get drugs in the UAE or Dubai and the story is just the same in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore who all have the death penalty.

I don’t know if it will work but perhaps legalising drugs, have them made by pharmaceutical companies - except weed of course and priced reasonably but taxed heavily. Pour the tax money and what is saved from fighting the war on drugs and from imprisoning users into education, mental health etc. We may just get a better outcome.

Not saying it will work but it’s obvious current control/punishment based policies are not!

So...

Jul 12, 2018 at 6:48pm

Way back when the City had its "roundtable" on addictions, I was at a table with a VPD officer. It was put to him that the Police get less than 1% of drugs, and that is "generous." Your idea that 'the death penalty is a deterrent' doesn't make sense, it is from watching TV and thinking 'the law always catches everyone who sells drugs.' It does not. I have a few friends from highschool who sold drugs, they either were never that great at it, or they're millionaires. Nobody ever did any real time, afaik none of them even has a record. It's "money for nothing."

The people who benefit from prohibition are the dealers and the police who get inflated budgets to "deal with" the problem. Nobody else benefits, certainly not users.

We spend millions of dollars to interdict less than 1% of drugs. It's not the penalty that dissuades, it's investigation. So, if it's a linear relationship, we would need to spend at least 100x more on drug investigations, and even then, I bet it's not linear, it's like, yeah, maybe 10x investment would get us 5x more interdiction, but 20x is only going to get us 7.5x, and 30x won't even get us 10x.

People who believe prohibition is workable are either not very good at math, or, like law enforcement and the drug dealers, they have no incentive to really solve the problem.

What we need is legalization and regulation, especially in Canada, where it is clear that the prohibition violates the right of drug users by exposing them to unnecessary risk to their life, liberty and security of the person. Using drugs is not a moral failing, it's something that some fraction of the population does. And those people are often vulnerable people with poor impulse control. Prohibition simply means that vulnerable people on the margins of society are more likely to use poisoned drugs, there's no evidence prohibition makes them less likely to use drugs. It's the sort of "logic" that appeals to a small minority of "reformed addicts" (at the Government Committee level, one or two are always invited to talk about "pushers," funny, that.) and people who don't use drugs in the first place.

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