Journal of Drug Issues

Canada's drug laws originated and developed in response to racial and political factors rather than reasoned analysis. After tracing the history of the legislation, this paper outlines the current drug offences and enforcement powers. The impact of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on drug legislation and enforcement is also considered.

In 1989, the Province of Ontario became the first province to appoint a minister of the government to deal with drug abuse. A Provincial Anti-Drug Secretariat was created to formulate and direct policy. Ontario's strategy emphasizes prevention and education, as well as support for community activism. The goal is to reduce unhealthy chemical reliance.

As in most parts of the developed world, Canada has experienced a considerable expansion in specialized services for the treatment of alcohol and drug abuse since the 1960s. This paper contrasts the addiction treatment system within two of Canada's largest provinces — Ontario and Quebec. Within the limitations of descriptive survey data, some of the similarities and differences between these treatment networks during the mid-1980s are discussed. For example, the Quebec system was characterized by more private fee-for-service programs and larger facilities that provided a range of services along the continuum of care. In Ontario, there were more separate programs, but they tended to be smaller and more specialized within the treatment continuum. Quebec had a higher rate of participation in outpatient, day treatment and short-term residential programs.

This paper examines trends in the prevalence of drug use among Canadian adolescent students during the past decade. Canadian surveys clearly show a dominant pattern of declining drug use during the 1977 to 1980 period. Several issues regarding these findings are discussed, including reasons for declining use and the future of drug use among Canadian adolescents.

This article reviews and analyzes the available data on AIDS cases related to intravenous drug abuse in Canada. About 2.9% of Canadian AIDS cases were associated with drug abuse. Although only 120 cases are involved, Canada ranks about seventh in the world in AIDS cases related to drug abuse. In addition, the true number of cases may be under-reported. The low rate is probably due to the low rates of use of injectable illicit drugs. However, more research on these issues is needed. Also, effective prevention programs for drug abuse and needle sharing are needed as the HIV-AIDS rate among drug abusers could increase rapidly.

The notion that official statistics have an unknowable relationship to the “actual” volume and morphology of criminal activity is now part of sociology's conventional wisdom. This article examines a seldom-addressed element in the repertoire of possibilities that official statistics might reveal — the nature of the deviant community itself. Using qualitative data, it suggests community solidarity has eroded and certain adaptive practices have been abandoned. These changes have facilitated enforcement.

A 1989 newspaper story describing twenty-nine cocaine-related deaths in British Columbia is used to illustrate the lands of unwarranted inferences that are propagated by the news media during the current War on Drugs. The newspaper story conveys the impression that most of the deaths involved well-integrated, moderate drug users, that all twenty-nine deaths were caused by cocaine, and that these deaths provided evidence of an epidemic of dangerous cocaine use sweeping the province. However, the coroner's files on which the story was based, and related research, provide strong evidence that all three frightening inferences are wrong. A more careful analysis of these deaths as a consequence of chronic deterioration in a fringe population can contribute to the development of realistic drug policy.

This paper presents Canadian data on crack use collected from a community-based study of seventy-nine crack users in Toronto, and compares these findings with popular images of crack and its users. Crack was portrayed in the media and police reports as extremely dangerous because of the quick and intense high from smoking it and its powerful addictive property. Data from the study show that, while the quick and intense high was what crack users liked most, adverse physical, psychological and financial consequences of crack addiction have also cautioned users. The overall frequencies of use in the past month, past year, and lifetime were quite low, suggesting that crack use is not necessarily compulsive. The major factor affecting level of use was perceived risk of harm. Crack users were likely to be powder cocaine users as well, and they did not differ significantly from powder users with respect to sociodemographic characteristics. Treatment and prevention implications of the findings are discussed.

The article describes one physician's campaign to have heroin legalized for medical use as a painkiller. Funding and lobbying support from the public was marshalled by the author to put the heroin issue on the federal government's agenda. The Canadian cancer establishment generally fought the proposed reform and made many unfounded arguments. The government compromised by granting physicians the right to administer heroin, while tying up the process with such demanding red tape that almost no one bothers with the narcotic.

At the 1988 Olympic games, a urine test on Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson left him bereft of his gold medal and nullified his record-breaking time in the 100-meter event. Immediate media reactions to this affair, shaping the popular discourse surrounding it, were distorted by the ideological constructs of the Olympic games philosophy. A national inquiry into the use of performance-enhancing substances in sports focused unyielding attention to details of the reality of Canada's athletes who had used drugs. This initiated a conceptual shift into a more familiar discourse, the demonic perspective on illicit drug use. This is a notoriously unproductive framework for policy analysis. Consequently, potentially instructive parallels among drugs on the street, drugs in medicine and drugs in sports were obscured.

Reality is socially defined. But the definitions are always embodied, that is, concrete individuals and groups of individuals serve as definers of reality. To understand the state of the socially constructed universe at any given time, or its change over time, one must understand the social organization that permits the definers to do their defining (Berger and Luckmann 1967:134).

How far should the state go to prevent drug abuse? This paper rejects H.L.A. Hart's paternalism, and even more strongly opposes Lord Devlin's case for the legal enforcement of morals. It adopts instead, J. S. Mill's argument that only public defence justifies state intervention or coercion. Canadian drug laws, which embody Devlin's position, are abusive of civil rights and ineffective despite their oppressiveness. In particular, the paper examines the violation of rights involved in school and employment drug detection plans, and also in compulsory treatment programs for illicit drug users. Basic legal reform is advocated.

Protection of individual freedom and civil liberties is highly valued in Canada. Yet, as a society, Canadians allow the erosion of these rights in the service of the War on Drugs. Ostensibly, this war is waged in order to protect society at large, and to protect individuals from themselves. However, the harm to society and to individuals resulting from our drug control policies is, in fact, greater than the benefits which drug policy legislators would have us believe are achievable. Through these policies, we are condoning a war of economics, politics, and power, while simultaneously sacrificing our societal and individual rights, rather than supporting a rational effort toward lessening the abuse of drugs.