Seen from this perspective, needle exchanges and safe injection sites are relatively minor attempts to reduce a harm created by prohibition.

But people don’t see it from that perspective because all they hear about is harm reduction. The news stories. The research. The politics. The debates. The noise about harm reduction is deafening. It dominates public discussion of drug policy.

As a result, perception is totally out of line with reality. Most Canadians, I suspect, would assume Margaret Wente is right in calling harm reduction “the philosophy that has come to dominate drug policy.” But to say that harm reduction dominates drug policy is to focus on the housefly while ignoring the elephant on whose rump it sits. Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen

The headline on the Wente piece is “Legalization in disguise”. Some chance. As Gardner points out the safe injection sites are the fly on the elephant of drug prohibition. Do they work? Do they reduce harm? Perhaps. But compared to the harm inflicted needlessly by the current drug laws in Canada the entire concept of safe injection sites is trivial.

I had business in downtown Victoria today and it took me down Pandora Street. There are handy receptacles for “used sharps” which is a good thing as I sure as Hell don’t want one sticking in my foot or my children’s. There were a lot of people who were clearly “on something”. And there were street workers out checking to see how the people they know were doing.

Gardner advocates an end to the drug prohibition, so do I; but that end has to be managed very carefully lest it turn out like the influx of Residential Schools settlements or resource money on Indian Reserves.

Part of that management may well be the creation of a quasi-criminal space where, for their own benefit, substance addicts can be taken off the street for a period of time. And, yes, this is exactly opposite to my libertarian views and to my skepticism about the State’s ability to do good; but the tragic fact is that there are concentrations of two or three thousand people in various cities in Canada for whom full legalization of drugs with the attendant 95% (or 70% or whatever) drop in price would be fatal.

Drug prohibition must end and end soon; but we will have to deal with the consequences of 50 years of this misguided policy. They are people and they are citizens - and they might just be your brother or your child.

Update: Excellent rebutal of Wente from Rebecca Jesserman in today’s Globe.

Mandatory minimum sentences are a lovely way to send the message that the CPC is tough on drugs. Rather like the GST, the fact that qualified experts actually think mandatory minimums are, at best ineffectual, at worst counter-productive in that, with hard cases crowns and judges will be inclined not to charge or not to convict if they know that there is a mandatory minimum in place, is not going to stop the Tories.

It is no surprise that the CPC is also backing away from the last twenty years of scholarship and experience with respect to marijuana legalization. It seems pretty clear that the Tories want te establish brand differentiation early and this position will certainly ensure that on this issue the Tories have left the building.

Politically it is difficult to see how these positions are going to actually win any votes; but it is a certainty that these fairly simplistic postures will energize the base in the Rovian sense. No bad thing if you are trying to avoid the 50 seat scenario; hopeless if you are looking to pass the Liberals.

Cameron found the prohibitionist rhetoric - stamp, stamp, stamp it out - increasingly ludicrous and self-defeating. So he has begun to advocate the only serious alternative: legalisation at the international level through the UN.
johannhari via andrew sullivan

The Ambler and I were on a long walk yesterday afternoon and discussing our general sense of disillusionment - for entirely different reasons I hasten to add - with the CPC. One of the things which is annoying is how very little vision the Tories seem to have. They have fallen into the trap of letting the Liberal set the agenda and then trying to gain votes with little second order variations on the Liberal theme.

The Tories in England seem to be made of sterner stuff as David Cameron proves with his clear eyed look at the massive defeat which is the “War on Drugs”. The old golfing rule, “Always change a losing game, never change a winning one.” seems to apply. Not even the most zealous DEA official can keep a straight face if asked if the war on Drugs is being won. They know that drug use in the US and the rest of the world is increasing, that the price of drugs is falling and that all their efforts are doing is tossing poor, often black, kids in jail and blighting the lives of the middle class dope fiends who are unlucky enough to get caught.

It is open to the CPC to actually embrace legalization and harm reduction rather than the silliness of Canada’s half hearted WOD. Will they? Of course not. that would be a position and the one thing the CPC is truly scared of is taking a position.

The Ambler thinks the Liberals will win a majority in the next election. So, sadly, do I.

It is impossible to tell; but a CPC on the ball and the NDP for sure should be asking the Minister of Justice who these masked men were and they should demand proof that these were not DEA agents operating in Canada.

A miracle occured.

First Colbert posted a long rebuttal of my email in which he states:

So what happened to this comment, I went through my spam filter to see if it was caught there but besides the countless manhood enlargement products and on-line gaming ads no “rather insulting” comments.
As I was away from my computer for most of the day, it being my youngest first birthday I know I did not delete it. A quick check with my security guy to look at the records shows no posting activity beyond what appears on the site of held in the spam blocker.
colbert

And then in his comments Colbert comes up with this:

When a comment is posted to my site I instantly get a copy sent to my blackberry so that when I am away from my desk I can see what people are saying. In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert

Meaghan Walker-Williams beats the poor man about the head and shoulders with, er, logic and eyewitness testimony. Ian Scott nails him on the tech end. Kate McMillan suggested that it was just spiffy to delete whatever comments you want.

With the arrival of the screen shot from Andrew Anderson’s invaluable CanConv, Colbert had to go to plan B.

I’m not disputing that Jay may have posted something to his blog. I’m not even suggesting that a few people may have seen it on his site before it was deleted by someone with administrator privileges.
colbert

Meaghan wallops the poor man pointing out that he had earlier claimed that with respect to the substance of my post, namely my comment on his blog, “I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.” op. cit. supra. Kate is surprisingly silent. Ian Scott was being “spam blocked” but posted to his own blog:

So either he is a liar, or an idiot, or his “security guy” is totally incompetent and an idiot. One comment he could miss? Perhaps. Two or three?

In fact, I’ve just tried posting a comment on Colbert’s blog a few minutes ago – the same “spam tag” message, and then tried resending it and got the “Oops” message.

So that indeed is evidence that his software DOES have a record of the comments. Therefore, Colbert is outright lying or is incompetent at figuring the difference between a spam comment about spam and a comment about inherent rights.

My guess is that Colbert is blocking some folks and is using his “spam filter” to prevent some people’s comments from going live before he has a time to “vet” them.

So fire away with your libel allegations against me, Colbert. I’ve got the screenshots, and I’ll post them on my blog as soon as I’m done my coffee.
ianism

Better still, Ian has lock down evidence that Colbert’s “spam filter” was extra clever,

In fact, if you go and look at this post, you will notice that Les McKenzie has a comment in which he says, “Had you not been such a shithead, Ian, I might apologize for misreading your quote…”

Now, Mr. McKenzie was directly replying to my one of my comments on Colbert’s blog. You’ll notice that both of my comments have been deleted. Yet McKenzie’s remains… do you see anyone else named “Ian” above his? Colbert’s actions make McKenzie look like a blooming idiot.. responding to some guy named “Ian” on TWO separate occassions on Colbert’s blog – yet no “Ian” author exists. I’d be a little miffed at that if I were McKenzie.
ianism

Ooops….smart people are ganging up on Mr. Colbert. Time for Plan C. The old “you’ve been hacked…well so have I and I am not going to take it lying down” gambit:

We have found the missing comments! By going through the actual database we have located the original comments and something very curious. it would seem that “User Unknown” was able to delete the comments, using time stamps and IP access logs I will be forwarding the information my security guru discovered off to the same person at the RCMP that reviewed the logs when I was last hacked first thing in the morning.
colbert

First rate. Better still, Colbert or his security guru were miraculously able to find and restore the comments which

“In the last couple of days I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie.
colbert

You can read the wee thing here - which is a link to Colbert and I will repost it to my blog shortly. “What once was lost is now found”, as the hymn goes.

[Apparently the “hacker” really had it in for me. Every comment I have posted to Colbert, until today, has been miraculously restored with the little “Comment edited by User Unknown Comment recovered by Administrator” tag. Even the ones which were not deleted in the first place…]

Having been caught lying Colbert realizes that an apology might save his well flayed skin:

I will apologize for possibly suggesting that these post never existed, I just never saw them and had no knowledge that they had been removed. If Mr. Currie is willing to withdraw his potentially libelous accusations regarding my involvement in tampering with his blog I will conceder the matter settled.
colbert

Now, as it happens I know a little something about libel law. First of all there is no legal animal as “potentially libelous”: either something is a libel or it isn’t. Here are a couple of examples of libels:

It might have even sounded like a good idea while you were refilling your bong
colbert

Stating that a person uses drugs is outright defamation of character. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.

I have not received any notification of a comment left here by Mr. Currie and it is not in the spam list so I am left with no other option but to believe that he has made this story up.
colbert

Stating that a person “made this story up” is defamatory. Doing so in writing and publishing the result is a libel.

I’ll hold the question of Colbert’s libels in abeyance for the moment in the general expectation of a full apology posted prominently on Colbert’s site.

“Money laundering” is another favourite truncheon of the U.S. police state-within-a-state: The minute a drug dealer does anything with his illicit income, a door opens magically to a cavity search of his financial affairs and, upon conviction, property seizures. We are not obliged to co-operate with the worst excesses of U.S. federal law, and I’m afraid this case will turn out to exemplify them.
national post via simon pole

Dead right. And I suspect Colby did not know when he wrote this that the head of the DEA has now confirmed the political motivation for the charges.

Cotler will be in Vancouver on the 15th of August. With luck he will be greeted by a very large number of very, very, determined but polite people.

“Q&A period featuring a panel of B.C. Federal Cabinet Ministers. Monday August 15, 7:30-9-15pm, Wosk Auditorium (950 W. 41st Ave). Free admission, info 604-257-5101. ”

A few thousand angry, but contained, people outside the hall, a couple of hundred well dressed, smart, controlled people inside each with one question on a piece of cardboard would make Cotler and his Cabinet colleagues realize this will not stand. When the questions begin each of the people gets in line and refuses to give up their place in line. Firmly, politely, they ask the same question. Over and over. Every person in the line at every mike. There is no other topic.

When will you free Marc Emery?

On the street, when the questions begin, signalled by a cell phone call, a chant. “Free Marc Emery”. Slowly, loudly, until the building trembles with the the sound of cold fury. And the chant continues until every single one of the Minister have left. The Liberals need to know they will lose on Emery. They will lose seats. Lots of seats. Because, in the end, that is all politicians understand.

Why? Tandy gives us a handy dose of innuendo.

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.”
seattle post-intelligencer hattip to Simon Pole (with whom I want to have a beer when next in Vancouver

Ms. Karen Tandy is the head of the DEA.

This is a direct interference with Emery’s political rights. As Simon says, “When are Canadian polticians going to speak out?” The thin veil of “the law is the law” was just pierced by the pointy end of the DEA’s poltical agenda. Under the extradition rules Canadians are not to extradited for political offences and Ms. Tandy’s remarks simply confirm that Emery’s arrest is all about politics.

I have put up a page of these rendered at different sizes…you can reach it here