Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Canadian Drug Policy Coalition head: Ideology has no place

On June 2, the Global Commission on Drug Policy report was released after two years' work, denouncing the "war on drugs" as a failure and recommending political leaders worldwide adopt evidence- and rights-based approaches to drug policy. This is a pan-political group, with left- and right-wing politicians involved. 

Donald MacPherson, the director the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, spoke to rabble.ca about the implications for Canada.

Cathryn Atkinson: Tell me about the Global Commission report.

Donald MacPherson: The Global Commission on Drug Policy launched itself about six months ago in Geneva. They have been working on this report for some time and the main intent of this report is to put forward a sensible, reasonable step forward in drug policy. More importantly it is to demonstrate that significant leaders from around the world are calling for change.

That makes this report powerful. It's certainly a synthesis of some of the better ideas in terms of what are our next steps if we are going to move away from the war on drugs.

CA: Let's talk about the Canadian response. There have been a large group of Canadian NGOs and other groups, over 30, supporting the report. How is it important to this country?

DM: It's particularly interesting timing for us, and I think it's good timing because it is affirming what a lot of people across the country are saying about public health and drug policy and the criminalization of the drug-crime agenda. Even conservatives I know who have no problem with what our Conservative government is doing [in general] really have a problem with the tack that the federal government is taking on drug policy and criminal justice policy.

This report basically shows that the rest of the world and significant leaders in other parts of the world are moving in different directions.

It is timely for us because the Conservative government needs to take a look at what is happening globally and find out where they want to be on these issues. Clearly, the Americans are moving away from the mandatory minimum sentencing policies, prison policies, for non-violent drug offenses. That experiment has been had and it's over. Even the conservatives in the States have been saying this hasn't worked and they need to try something else.

Full Interview
Source: Rabble.ca 

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