Canada warned not to emulate U.S. drug policy

[CHIMO]

Vancouver — Governments in Canada should steer completely clear from adopting or emulating any current drug policies in the United States, an outspoken New York state prosecutor said Tuesday.

“My advice to Canada is stay as completely far away from U.S. drug law policy as possible,” said David Soares, the district attorney for Albany County in the state of New York. “You (Canada) are headed in the right direction.”

In a blunt and scathing condemnation of his state and country's ineffective drug war, Mr. Soares said lawmakers, judges and prosecutors in the U.S. know their system is ineffective.

But they support it anyway because it provides law enforcement officials with lucrative jobs.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060502.wdrugs0502/BNStory/Front

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. And it keeps those "Dark People"

in their place! :mad: Oh Mr. Limbaugh Mr. Limbaugh, your "counselor" is in to see you.

[LiberalVoice]

2. David Soares for Presidnet in '08! nt

[Robbien]

3. What is surprising here is that the DA would actually say this

to someone who would publish his statement.

Most know the law is just a tool of the elite, but for job safety sake they know better than to say it in public.

Well the US/Canada divide is hard to cross so perhaps this story will stay north of the border.

[Solon]

4. He's probably sick of his office wasting money, on a limited budget...

to crack down on pot smokers, and also at the same time they get to see rapists, robbers, and murderers get early parole to make room for said pot smokers. Many in law enforcement, on all levels outside of the DEA are pissed at this.

[rodeodance]

5. "Lawmakers in the U.S. lack the willpower to reform drug laws" Politicians

will not even risk bringing up the subject in the US.


......The vast majority of people incarcerated as a result of drug laws in the U.S. are young African-American and Hispanic males, he said after a speech at the 17th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related Harm.

Harm reduction has been a movement developed over the past two decades as a complement to the harsher but ineffective abstinence-only policy. It essentially recognizes that drug use won't be eliminated and tries to find methods to reduce negative consequences.

Mr. Soares was elected in his state on a ticket to fight what he termed the “Draconian” drug laws that call for long prison sentences for drug crimes that in Canada would be considered minor.

Lawmakers in the U.S. lack the willpower to reform drug laws despite their ineffectiveness at curbing drug use and crime because “reform is scary.”

[rodeodance]

6. In the US building prisons is an accepted “economic development strategy.”

... He said, not sarcastically, that the U.S.'s well-known penchant for building more and more prisons was an accepted “economic development strategy.”

Legislators who believe in harm reduction will have their futures in politics threatened by taking any kind of progressive stance on harm reduction, he said.

He noted that often in the United States, authorities speak out only after they have retired.

Mr. Soares defeated the Republican candidate in Albany County in November 2004, completing what some observers in the state said was one of the most stunning political upset in New York political history.