SNUD Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, March 11, 2002

¹

1535

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)):

Ms. Line Beauchesne (Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa)

¹

1540

¹

1545

¹

1550

¹

1555

º

1600

º

1605

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

º

1610

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

º

1615

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Ms. Line Beauchesne

º

1620

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Réal Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Réal Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Réal Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

º

1630

Mr. Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Ms. Torsney

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Mr. Harb

º

1635

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Mac Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Mac Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Mac Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Mac Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Mac Harb

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.)

º

1640

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Lee

The Chair

Ms. Allard

º

1645

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

º

1650

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

º

1655

Mr. Réal Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Ménard

Ms. Line Beauchesne

»

1700

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

»

1705

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Réal Ménard

Madame Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

»

1710

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Ms. Line Beauchesne

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

Ms. Line Beauchesne

»

1715

Mr. Lee

Ms. Line Beauchesne

Mr. Harb

Ms. Line Beauchesne

»

1720

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

The Chair

---

CANADA

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

---

NUMBER 030

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Monday, March 11, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1535)  

[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): Welcome. We are the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs, and we are very pleased to have with us today,

[Translation]

     from the University of Ottawa, Ms. Line Beauchesne. Welcome Line.

[English]

    Please start, and then we'll have some questions from the people around the table.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne (Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa): Thank you for inviting me.

    My presentation will be on prevention. I teach many parents on prevention. I believe that you are looking into establishing a policy on drugs. I have prepared a document that takes a wider look, that involves international conventions and the reduction of offences. But I believe that all this is not very important if we don't understand the objective, and if we don't agree on the objective of the policy. The objective is to prevent drug abuse. Perhaps for some this may sound idealistic, but in defining what drug prevention is, we will see that there are immediate political choices that are made within this short phrase. Certainly, if we don't agree on what drug prevention is, no matter how many millions you spend on setting up an organization to coordinate drug policy, this organization will end up coordinating nothing at all.

    On page one of the document you will read Guide aux parents pour agir dès l'école primaire, because I give this training to parents who have children in primary school.

    In 1985, for the government, I had prepared a review of drug abuse prevention programs to establish the indicators for what constitutes a good drug prevention program. That led to this publication. I don't recommend this book to you, because it is very boring. It is an analysis of various programs. However, the three indicators that are identified are still useful today.

    The first indicator that arises, is that when a drug prevention program is envisaged, all drugs must be included, that is, both legal and illegal drugs. If we achieve prevention by speaking to children about our drugs as if they are part of an entirely separate world, we are already going down the wrong path. Why?

    I will give you a small example that I saw at the door: The Special Committee on the Non-medical Use of Drugs or Medication. The last time I checked, medication is a drug. Therefore, when we make these comparisons, in the eyes of the child there is an artificial separation between legal and illegal drugs. And the child is already exposed to drug situations that lead him or her to ask questions starting at a very early age, which is our opportunity to start dealing with prevention.

    For example, the child has already seen his uncle drink too much, and embarrass everyone, and the child was removed from the room. The child is already asking questions. This is an opportunity for the parent to speak to the child. The child notices that there are debates regarding cigarettes, anti-smoking campaigns, which create tensions, and that there are people smoking nevertheless. Therefore, the child is already asking questions. The child is already aware as well that the very words, "drug", "cocaine", and "heroin", have an emotional impact, much like what he notices when he hears the first words regarding sexuality, and that these words are emotionally charged like no others.

    Thus, the child asks all kinds of questions regarding drugs and their effects. One shouldn't wait until consumption of products that are not necessarily illegal starts to take root. We will come back to this shortly. So, this is the first element. It is important to refer to all drugs to maintain a coherent perspective.

    On this topic, I was looking at chapter 11 of the Auditor General's report. At one point, he refers to illegal drugs and alcohol and he tries to separate the two, which means that he goes from one philosophy to another. I will comment on what this means later on.

    We should also talk about all drugs, because this has been taken away from parents. Each time that I teach parents, they tell me that they leave it up to the specialist or the expert at the school. I tell parents that they are the prevention experts, that they are on the front lines to discuss sexuality and drugs with their children. Prevention is a daily task. Parents tell me: "Ah, but I'm not familiar with all the products". When we put the emphasis on illegal drugs and that it is important to know their effects, the parent feels incompetent. But when we talk about all drugs, the parent has drug experience. We will come back to this later.

¹  (1540)  

    The second element that was discovered in successful programs, was that all consumption motives were discussed. Drugs, whether legal or illegal, are not consumed only because things are going wrong. We can consume, for pleasure, through curiosity, habit or because it is useful. We consume for all kinds of reasons, and this is what we have to talk about to understand the reasons that may not work and those that may be more appropriate.

    Finally, the third indicator coming from the prevention programs, is that the subject has to be broached very early by adults that youths look up to, especially their parents.

    Today, where drugs are concerned, we are a bit back in the 1950's or early '60's, when parents waited until the day before marriage to talk about sex with their child. Often, we already had some knowledge, if it wasn't already a done deal. We are in a similar position with drugs. We tell ourselves that we will wait until the child is old enough to talk about it and have a good discussion, as if the information hasn't already accumulated, as if the child has not already had some experience with drugs, while the child indeed has had some experience.

    Therefore, the subject must be broached very early, and to talk about the subject very early, we already have some experience. When the child is 5 or 6 years old and asks us where babies come from, we don't tell ourselves that we are not biologists, take a biology book and start showing the child the anatomy of a man and a woman. We give the child responses that are adapted to the child's age.

    For drugs as well, the first questions regarding dependency and drugs start very early, and it is important to start giving answers very early so that when there is discussion, it is a case of expanding knowledge, rather than dealing with information that comes out of the clear blue.

    The other element involved is that it is not a question of product prevention, but preventing the need for the product. We need to prevent a negative relationship with the product. Therefore, we need to pay attention to this need.

    With these elements, what is good prevention? Good prevention is a daily task, to be performed as knowledge develops. It is centred on the need for the product, and it tries to prevent dependency. What is dependency?

    As you have been surely told by others, dependency is always a factor of interaction between a product, a person and an environment. Very few dependencies are physical. Most are psychological. Any physical dependency involves psychological dependency, but psychological dependency does not necessarily involve physical dependency.

    I will give you some examples because the notion of dependency is very important. A lot of emphasis is put on the product. There are certainly some among you who drink coffee. What would you say if I were to offer to replace your coffee with a small caffeine pill, that you would no longer have to drink coffee and that you will nevertheless have your dose of caffeine? It is not just a question of having coffee. It also involves holding your warm cup, reheating it, putting it aside, brushing your hair, putting your coffee in the microwave, drinking it again...we all have a ritual with coffee. Quitting coffee is not just quitting caffeine.

    Nicotine is the same thing. To quit smoking physically is really quite simple. It can be done in a matter of days. If that were all that quitting smoking involved, people would ask to be locked in a room and be let out after several days. That is not all that is involved in quitting smoking.

    Psychological dependency is the hardest. Why? There is the threshold of the pleasure of smoking, all the emotions and all the moments where emotions have been invested in smoking, the relaxation it provided again and again.

    It's the same thing in the case of drugs. We must understand that dependency is an interaction between a product, a person and an environment. Dependency is all that, and we can't say that it is just a question of cutting a person off from the product. We talk a lot about withdrawal. Withdrawal is the spectacular part of stopping drug consumption, but it is minor. The real effort made is during treatment, upon dealing with breaking off and the threshold of psychological dependency.

¹  (1545)  

    We often tend to ask why someone doesn't stop when he or she sees that things are going wrong, or why a person starts consuming again. When I speak to you, in my mind I am addressing parents. I tell them that they can tell their children all of this as things develop. They know all this.

    I assume that you have all gone through an unhappy love relationship, at least once. Let's assume this is true. While you were in love, you just didn't decide one day to count the pros and the cons and pack your bags and leave. There were some negatives, and there were also some positives, and you decided to remain in your relationship because you were afraid of leaving and the unknown. Leaving would mean being alone and you wondered if in the end this would be better. When you were too afraid of the unknown, you looked for all the little positive sides of the relationship, and when you did finally ended the relationship, perhaps after a couple of years, you came out of it and you asked yourself why you didn't leave earlier. You did not leave earlier because you were dependant. The interaction between the product, the person and the environment is always a whole.

    Three weeks after breaking off, you still don't have roots in your new situation. You find things difficult. Your former partner calls you and invites you to dinner. You tell yourself that he wasn't so bad after all, and you feel like going back to him. You go back to him because you are not rooted in your new situation.

    It is the same with drugs. In other words, we make it a world apart, which makes people incapable of dealing with prevention. You have to stop making illegal drugs a world apart, which it is not. Dealing with prevention, speaking about drug dependency is not a world apart. There are dependencies, even to illegal drugs. In the case of illegal drugs, even in this environment of reducing offences--we can come back to this during the question period, because I won't have the time to go into this now--, this can lead to confusing messages. I see this with parents.

    For example, parents often ask me if cannabis or Ecstasy causes lesser dependency than some other drug. This is unimportant. Cannabis causes practically no physical dependency. I spoke earlier of psychological dependency. A youth can decide to build a wall with cannabis and believe that think that the world is shut outside. The youth creates a sphere with cannabis. Psychological dependency can very well exist without physical dependency, and it is just as difficult. This is the difficult side of dependency. Dependency is negative when one uses a product to manage one's life, to the point of no longer being able to manage without it. Whether the product creates a physical dependency or not, it is an addition.

    When we put all the blame on cannabis, as we are doing now, or state that cannabis probably creates less dependency or little dependency, parents say that they are not worried because their child is only consuming cannabis; instead, they should be looking into the relationship that the child is developing with the product.

    At this time, we are faced with two extremes: parents who totally panic because their child has tried cannabis once, or parents who are not panicking at all because their child is consuming cannabis, which is not a dangerous drug. They do not question the relationship that the child has developed with the product.

    I was saying that with prevention, we must talk about the product, the person and the environment. This is what I am going to look at in the second part.

    Where drugs are concerned, there are two worlds. There is the illegal market. When dealing with prevention, we have a great tenancy to confuse the effects of the black market and the effects of the products. I even saw this in the Auditor General's report.

    For example, when we had the black market in tobacco, there was violence. People sold it in hospitals, youths sold it in the schools, and nurses sold it in senior citizen care facilities.

¹  (1550)  

     There were plenty of things. Were these the effects of nicotine or of the black market? In other words, we should not confuse the effects of the black market and the effects of drugs, which is often done in the case of illegal drugs.

    For example, the auditor general's report states somewhere--I was reading it this morning and that is why it is still fresh in my mind--that the terrorists get their funding through illegal drugs because these drugs are on the black market. If these drugs were legal, they would not currently constitute such a lucrative market. Therefore, we should not confuse the effects of drugs and the effects of the market.

    Parents can state that they fear the effects of the black market. They can talk to their children about this and tell them that they fear illegal drugs because the markets in which they can be found scare them. One can state this, and upon stating this, we do not confuse the effects of drugs and the effects of the market.

    The second element that parents can talk about is that there is no quality control on black market products and that it is difficult to manage this. I often give them the following example: if they drink a glass of beer without knowing whether it contains 2 percent, 15, or 30 percent alcohol, it is difficult to learn how to manage the product. Is it because beer is dangerous? It is because there is no control on the quality of the product and that is it difficult to learn how to manage quality for a product that is not controlled.

    Also, at the health sites, parents are informed about Ecstasy, this small pill that does one thing or the other. I don't find that this constitutes the major danger for youths. The great danger facing youths is when they are handed a small pill, and they are told that it is Ecstasy, and they have no way of knowing what they have in their hands.

    Police raids demonstrate that there are many dubious products. When there is intoxication, people say that they drank alcohol, had two small blue pills and one red pill. It is very difficult to manage these types of products.

    Parents are able to speak about this, to say that because there is a black market, there is no control on the quality of products and that there are uses that are very risky. It is risky for someone to swallow something without knowing what it is. We don't have to know all the risks associated with the products.

    The third thing that parents can state is that soliciting is much more active on the black market. I often hear that if drugs were regulated on a legal market, everyone would be able to consume. Youths are much more solicited on the black market than on a regular market. Why? Because on the black market, when someone goes into debt, it must be paid, because you don't go to a lawyer's office to settle debts. Therefore, the products must be sold. We have seen this with the tobacco market.

    I will refer to the following example. You have decided to earn extra income by selling black market cigarettes at your workplace. Three weeks later, there are three of you selling. You have bought a certain quantity of cigarettes and you must pay for them. You start to become more aggressive in selling. At the start, you were selling only to those who were consuming, but no, because you have to pay back money, you have to sell your product and you will start soliciting people actively. This is what I call the Tupperware sale, which is the personalized sales approach. Therefore, youth solicitation is very active for selling black market products. Parents are capable of talking about this. These are the three characteristics of the black market.

    On the legal market, which is the other world we are talking about, there is also publicity. The danger does not come from where we think it does. I will not have the time to go into this, but with publicity, the danger arises from the message always being the same. We don't have the right to be sick: there is medication. We don't have the right to be sad: there is medication. The child learns very early on that there is a drug for every problem. Here, things are less serious than in the United States, because we have more severe regulations on prescription drugs.

    Once I was in Washington, at 5 o'clock, and I saw a television advertisement that I will never forget. There was a mother, who arrived home with the groceries. The child has spread lego blocks and other toys over the floor, and the mother, upset, asks the child to pick up everything. The child runs to the medicine cabinet, reaches for the Tylenol, comes back, and gives his mother the Tylenol. We then see that twenty minutes later, by the clock, the mother is playing with her child on the floor. Then we see the caption “Why lose a precious moment with your child? Tylenol”.

¹  (1555)  

Therefore, regulations are much less stringent in the United States, and drug consumption is much greater also.

    Prevention also starts here as well. The child sees advertisements that teach him that we can't be sad or sick, because there are pills for this. I find that we have been very naïve in the case of tobacco, when we decided to ban tobacco advertising. I will use some hypothetical figures to give you an example.

    If I have a million dollars to spend on publicity, and I own a tobacco company, and I don't have the right to advertise in newspapers, magazines or even fund sporting events, I still have one million dollars to spend on advertising. Of course, I will manufacture lighters and all sorts of items with my logo, but what will I start doing? It has already started, and if you watch television, you have surely seen it. Companies have started to fund films and television programs where the hero smokes or where you can see a pack of cigarettes left somewhere. This involves considerable sums. We are seeing this appear because for a long time advertising executives have always known that to get someone to smoke, it is important to associate cigarettes with a positive role mode. This is advertising's greatest strength. If the hero is someone who smokes, this has greater impact than anything else.

    Well-regulated product advertising doesn't have much more impact than directing someone to a product brand. In other words, if there is good prevention, the fact that there are cigarette advertisements doesn't lead someone to start smoking; it only directs a person to one brand or another. However, if we allow advertising to infiltrate through film funding, as is currently being done, we transmit messages that are very perniciously making associations between cigarettes and youth heroes.

    Pharmaceutical companies and tobacco companies, no more than black market drug organizations, are not non-profit organizations. Advertising is very important and is part of the environment that must be addressed in terms of prevention.

    Now let us talk about vulnerabilities. I talk to youths about vulnerabilities because my program targets youths, but there are vulnerabilities with all age groups. Three vulnerabilities have been identified.

    The first one is urgency. That is, there is no space, in a family environment, to express a malaise or even to discuss the subject. In other words, in the house, there is no space where there are no preconceived notions: “do your homework”, “take your bath”, “clean your room”, “don't come back late”, “I have to talk to you”, “you have not cut the grass”. In this space, we are always giving directions or doing chores. There is no space for free dialogue with the children. I tell parents to ask themselves if there is anywhere that free dialogue can take place within the house. Often, parents and children are in a hurry. Even though we may have the best intentions for prevention, if there are no opportunities for this dialogue to take place as the child grows, it becomes difficult to talk about prevention. This is one of the things that come up in the case of youths who have consumption problems. When they are asked whether they have spoken with their parents, youths respond that parents don't have the time.

    The second vulnerability is success at any cost: there is no room for failure. Youths feel that they are always disappointing their parents, and that they are inadequate. Parents often tell others that their children are great, but they don't tell their children. Parents tell their children that they could get better grades in math and in French. When children think that they are constant disappointments, they no longer protect themselves. Why protect oneself, when in any case failure is inevitable? Therefore, the second vulnerability is that there is not any room for failure.

º  (1600)  

The third is individuality or isolation. I am mot talking about a child who is not surrounded by people. I am talking about a child who cannot talk to someone else. As you know, one does not have 50 friends; there are two or three, who are confidants. Well, the child also needs this, especially if the parents do not have enough time. When things are going wrong, the child needs friends with whom he can talk. With youths, these are the three major vulnerabilities that exist in terms of drug abuse.

    As for products, I have been informed that other witnesses have talked to you about this. Therefore, I inform parents about the major product categories. I will not spend time on this because you have already heard from witnesses on this topic.

    Therefore, what is prevention? First, it is a question of recognizing realities by using language that avoids putting illegal drugs into a separate world. For example, I saw an anti-drug advertisement. It stated: “Fight alcoholism and drugs”. There are three errors in this expression; and yet, it is just simple phrase.

    The first error is “fight”. This refers to war, not prevention. If we want prevention, we are going to have stop using war expressions.

    The second is: “alcoholism and drugs”. When we mention “alcoholism”, we recognize that we can drink alcohol and become an alcoholic. There is a difference between use and abuse. When we mention “drugs”, there is no longer any difference between use and abuse. Only abuse is possible. In addition, alcohol is a drug. We always say “alcohol and drugs”. Alcohol is a drug. You will not see that phrase anywhere, although I dream about it. If we wanted to see a phrase stating that dependency is a reality, we would have: “Prevent drug abuse”, and in parentheses: “including alcoholism, medication abuse, smoking, etc.”. But since we want to put illegal drugs into a world apart, we never see such a phrase.

    The second element in prevention is to keep the subject open and centred on the individual. Here is an example. When I see a student in a school, who at 10:00 a.m. is drinking beer or smoking a joint, I ask the same question: “What's wrong? What's going on?”. Does my question refer to the product or to the person? We are too centred on the product. Instead of saying: “If ever I see you smoking a joint...”, we should say instead: “If ever you decide to consume, I would like to know because I would be worried about that.” Therefore, the person, and not the product, must be at the centre.

    Also, there is one thing that worries me. Under pressure from pharmaceutical companies, we will soon start receiving kits from the United States, which will be available in pharmacies, that will allow parents to detect if their children are taking drugs. I find this to be terrible.

     The third element is to avoid the clicheés that come back so easily and that we have heard so often, that is, confusing drugs consumption and drug addiction. Drugs are not a youth phenomenon. There are senior citizens who have drug problems. There are women who have drug problems. There are drugs at all ages. There are types of drug abuse that are specific to vulnerabilities found at various ages. Therefore, there are vulnerabilities with youth, but youths are not the sole consumers of drugs.

    Illegal drugs are not more dangerous than other drugs, but the black market makes them more dangerous. For example, when we had alcohol prohibition, the alcohol being sold was not beer with 0.5 percent alcohol. It was 80 percent and 60 percent, dubious quality alcohol, moonshine, which sent people to hospital. When alcohol again became legal, we did not legalize dubious quality alcohol. We distinguished between high concentration and low concentration alcoholic beverages. So, legalizing drugs is not selling the garbage that is available on the black market. The black market develops hard products specifically for this type of market, to make money.

    In the same way, there are no soft and hard drugs; there is hard usage and soft usage of drugs, and appropriate and inappropriate usage. I can drink a beer at 10:00 o'clock in the morning and drink the same beer among friends at 10:00 o'clock in the evening. I drank one beer. In one case, the usage was appropriate, and in the other case it was inappropriate.

º  (1605)  

    I can inject myself with caffeine or drink it as a hot beverage. In the first case, this is hard usage, while in the other case, it is soft usage. The Pope drank coca tea in Bolivia and the last I heard, he did not become an offender. He experienced a relatively soft usage of coca.

     Another thing that we hear is that you only have to try it once for use to escalate. This also is a myth. We could come back to this, if you are interested, but I will not insist too much on this aspect because you have already heard from some good witnesses on this topic.

     Detecting a high-risk youth is possible. A young teenager is already going through a lot without drugs. So, how can we detect what is drug induced and what is not? I think that if we centre on the individual, that provides the best protection.

     True prevention, in fact, is not to provide information on the dangers of using drugs. Instead, it is to prevent the need for the product by preventing elements that can create a negative interaction between the product, the person and the person's environment. The goal of prevention at the product level is to reduce the bad effects of drugs following inappropriate or highly risky usage. At the personal level, the goal is to reduce the youth's vulnerability and, with the environment, the goal is to reduce the negative effects of marketing within the legal market as well as the risks associated with the black market drugs.

     This is the end of my presentation. I have told the researcher that my text deals with conventions, reducing risks and legislation. I have only presented a part of my text, but your questions can go beyond what I have presented here.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Beauchesne.

    Kevin or Randy

[English]

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance): Thank you for coming.

    You spent a fair bit of time talking about not trying to prevent the product, but just the need for the product. I have some difficulty with that, given that everybody's needs are different. Is your thesis that we shouldn't be preventing any type of product? Is it legalization of all products or legalization of what may be illegal drugs right now? You're an associate professor in the Department of Criminology, I'm wondering how this line carries out and what you're teaching to the people who are going to be enforcing this kind of thing.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Be careful. What I said is that the goal of prevention is the need for the products. The State should be responsible for product quality. This is the State's responsibility. When I buy a quart of milk, there is an expiry date, and the quality is guaranteed by the State.

[English]

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Is it their job to make sure of the safety of illegal products? That's where I'm coming from.

º  (1610)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I will answer in three parts.

    First, in the case of pharmaceutical drugs, there are already scandals because there are controls in place that are somewhat inadequate.

    With tobacco, in my opinion the State is not doing its job. Tobacco's damaging effects could be reduced if tobacco companies were better controlled.

    With illegal drugs, the government has chosen to prohibit drugs while abdicating all responsibility for quality control of the products. These products have become dangerous due to their illegality, just like alcohol had become more dangerous under prohibition, due to its illegality.

    This is why I am saying that when we think about a solution, or rather about a better policy, because “solution” is too strong a word, we have to ask whether prohibition of products makes them more dangerous. This is the question that the State must ask. Since parents don't write policies, they must ask other questions, telling themselves that there are products on the black market and that these products are more dangerous because they are on the black market.

    I have talked about the parents' ability to talk about the environment that creates these products. When we are at the political level and start to question prevention, we must look at legislation, because we are creating products that are made more dangerous through prohibition.

[English]

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: But it's not the government's job to necessarily worry about the illegal products, it's the government's job to worry about the safety of Canadians. If we have a product that is illegal, that shouldn't be in this country, that we ban and try to keep out of the country, through border guards, if we do everything we can to keep it out, everything we can to limit the production of it in our country, it's not the government's job to make sure the product is safe, it's the government's job to make sure Canadians are safe. If we say that our job as government is to ensure the safety of Canadians, maybe our responsibility is only in banning the product. We know it's going to be on the black market. There will always be something that's on the black market, unless you're a complete libertarian and suggest that we just throw the borders open on everything. I do not agree that it's the government's job to ensure that every product is safe, rather that Canadians remain safe.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: If you say that government's responsibility is to maintain the security of Canadians, explain to me how security of Canadians is being maintained by ensuring growth of a drug black market, which makes products more dangerous. Currently, prohibition makes this a flourishing market. With money, you can buy chemists, grow markets and culture. This market is flourishing because of prohibition.

    Laws are passed by governments. Therefore, the government is responsible for these laws. The products did not become illegal out of the clear blue. They became illegal because of the Americans, historically, but we are able to maintain a certain distance.

    So, yes, the government is responsible for the security of Canadians, and one of the tools it has to meet this responsibility is legislation. Yes, there will always be black markets, but we have created one that is highly lucrative, and highly damaging to health. It's a bit like if you tell me that recycling is useless because there will always be polluting industries.

    This is not the issue. The issue is knowing whether it would be better or worse as a situation. We can go for better; we can go for worse. Laissez-faire, in my opinion, will only increase the power of the black market and lower security of Canadians in the case of drugs.

[English]

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Maybe the 95% of drug awareness or whatever it is that is put towards enforcement and interdiction isn't enough. Maybe we need to simply say, no, we're going to ban it. We're going to recognize that there will always be a black market, but you know what, we're going to throw more money, we're going to throw more enforcement, we're going to throw more at it to absolutely make it prohibitive. And I'll tell you why.

    There are two philosophies. There's one like the child with the little sign in front that says “don't touch”, and that's the one they really want to touch. That's the philosophy you're promoting here. We can go back to the philosophy of the apple on the tree: don't touch the apple, and that's the one they end up touching. There are two ways of looking at it. You prohibit it, recognizing that there will still be those who try it, or you license it, recognizing that there will be a whole group of other people who are hurt because of it. I'm still not persuaded that the answer isn't to simply say, no, let's prohibit it, the damage is less. Yes, there's going to be a black market, yes, there are going to be those who use it illegally, but we will ban it. If they aren't going to be responsible, there will be consequences that they will have to take. But as a government, we can't be guaranteeing the safety of every product coming out.

º  (1615)  

    The Chair: Did you want to respond? Also, I'm not sure you answered the first question on the table. You specifically said you have to reduce the need for the drug, rather than focus on the drug specifically.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Don't prevent the product, but the need for the product.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I can summarize what I explained. I said that when parents are in prevention mode, for prevention to be effective, the emphasis should be on the need for the product. If we put the emphasis on products rather than on the need for products, we are not preventing the youth's vulnerability to consume products. For example, it's a bit like if we put the emphasis on the level of youth suicide, which in fact is exactly what we do, and say that we have to eliminate the ropes with which they hang themselves. The problem is not the rope. Yes, the rope was necessary for the hanging, but the problem was depression, the need the youth felt to commit suicide. Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Ménard, if this is not confirmed, but in the same way, they want to install a small barrier around the Jacques-Cartier bridge, to stop people from jumping off to commit suicide, as if the bridge were responsible for the suicides. This is ridiculous. I am saying here that the same applies to prevention, that is, that the cause is not the product; the cause is the need for the product. It is the same image.

    However, I also said that if we take this to the political level, and establish a policy on prevention at the government level, the government has a responsibility regarding products that are available, and this involves legislation. But there is a distinction to be made: the parent does not make the laws. The parent questions the need for the product and finds that there is a legal market and an illegal market. The parent should be concerned, however, with the need for the product.

[English]

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: But in the meantime shouldn't we put a barrier there so they can't jump?

[Translation]

     Ms. Line Beauchesne: You do not put up a barrier. Currently, on the contrary, you are offering them more drugs, more products, more solicitation. If the police did not exist, the black market would invent them. They need the police to raise the prices of their products and increase their profits. They need the police to remove their bad vendors from the market, and they make millions and even billions of dollars. Even if all police officers worked on this problem, too many people work in this market for the police to stop anything. In any case, many police officers who have worked on drug enforcement have recognized that it is not a question of money and resources. Millions of people live off the drug trade, and billions of dollars are made.

    Therefore, it is not a question of increasing repression. Repression regulates the market. It allows the market to justify its prices and eliminate the bad vendors, but it does not hurt the markets. Any police officer can confirm that the police only affects 10 to 15 percent of the market. That's all. I have attended enough commissions around the world to know that the figures are everywhere the same: 5, 10 or 15 percent. It doesn't reduce usage and trafficking, nor money laundering. It's a joke. The police are incapable of doing anything. All countries that have a certain relativity, that have no other sources of income, want to launder money.

    So, by increasing repression, you accomplish nothing. All that is accomplished is to give the black market the freedom to increase youth solicitation or other categories of clients.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Ménard.

    Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I have four questions for you, Madame Beauchesne.

    You are well aware of the various strategies for intervention by governments and you have travelled. If you could name a country that would meet your best expectations in terms of public interventions, which one would you choose?

    I will ask my four questions one after another. Therefore, you will be able to answer each in turn.

    Second, what is your assessment of the defunct national anti-drug strategy? I say defunct because in principle no new funding has beel slated for the strategy.

    Third, at our second session, when senior officials from various departments met with us, they questioned Canada's ability to meet its international obligations as a signatory to various treaties, if marijuana were legalized. I would like to know your opinion on this subject.

    Finally, I know that since 1994, we have not really had a serious study on drug consumption trends in Canada. Have you been able to inquire at all into determining what the trends are or what is the state of the various types of consumption? Do you have any information to share with the committee on this issue?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Regarding the first question, I believe that the Netherlands has a better approach than other country.

     Why the Netherlands? Because as you know, they established the Baan Commission, which came up with findings that were similar to those of the Le Dain Commission, using relatively similar studies. The difference is that they took the report and followed up on it rather than putting it on a shelf the way we did here.

    I find it interesting because the theory on reducing damaging effects became quite politicized in the 80's, but it is an old theory. The Netherlands did not wait for AIDS to find out that there were certain drugs for which the usages that had been developed were softer. They did not want people to use the black market and they tried to see how they could help people who were using the black market. Even if they were not aware of these drugs, they adopted a strategy of reducing damaging effects straight away, without questioning AIDS, without questioning HIV protection. And we should remember that they have signed the treaties.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: To the Netherlands, Madam Chair. We will go in July.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: The Netherlands, contrary to what we may believe, have not legalized drugs, and remain signatories to the treaties.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: Not even the Senate? In a brief note, we were informed that the Senate had adopted a Bill last year.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I say this under reserve, because I was told--and I will have to confirm this--, that they have transferred everything to their administrative tribunals. Therefore, it is no longer a criminal matter. That was the big factor, because they have signed the treaties. So, they are trying to maintain their treaty status, while fully playing the health card.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: When we met with the senior officials, we were shown a slide show, on video, that we could perhaps send you, on two projects in Vancouver and Toronto, on drug tribunals. If you are interested, we would appreciate receiving your opinion.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: OK.

    Second, on the national anti-drug strategy, it comes back to what I said earlier. No matter what organization you create or that you wish to create, or strategy that you write, two things are necessary. First, there has to be one philosophy within the organization. You see, we are a small group here and it is not easy to have one same philosophy, and if we don't have the same objective, the same common objective, how can you ask this organization to rally its troops? Therefore, politically speaking, it will be necessary to have a clear common objective, not something like what has been published by the Auditor General, who goes back and forth and tries to put things that are somewhat contradictory into the same basket.

    Third, regarding international treaties, we are in a very special situation. Most countries do not have a charter of rights and freedoms within their constitution. Here, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is entrenched in the Constitution, and international agreements state clearly, as do all agreements, that drug legislation must not conflict with constitutions or constitutional legislation. Therefore, at that level, we have elements in the Charter that would allow us to widely soften this...

    Legalize? I must admit that among jurists we are divided on the issue, on the word “legalize”, on the issue of relatively wide distribution for therapeutic use. The parallel I would make, is that in Quebec, for a long time, there have been family planning abortion clinics. Yet, abortion was a criminal offence, but in Quebec, it was decided that women who decided to have an abortion could do so freely, and it was done within this context.

º  (1630)  

    Mr. Réal Ménard: However, there is a judicial void regarding abortion.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I would say that with the treaties, there are two factors. Ths first is that as long as the treaties remain the same, it is difficult to go any further, but it is much further than where we are currently. The agreement does not ask us to repress drugs; it asks us to prohibit them. Any repression we apply is made at the national level. So, we can greatly diminish repression.

    The second element is that the treaties allow therapeutic use of drugs. It is up to us to define what we will include within the health framework. When a person is dependant, is it simpler to have the person buy drugs on the black market, or simply provide the drugs? Prescribed heroin in Switzerland is allowed under the treaties for therapeutic use.

    There is a game. To say that we agree on the limits of the game... Currently, there are ongoing court cases. As with any treaty, clarifications will be made in cases that will be upcoming in Europe and here. You will surely hear about these from various witnesses.

    As for the fourth element, regarding trends in drug consumption, there are statistical interpretations that I find difficult. I will give you the Quebec numbers because those are what I have in mind. I am sorry that I don't have data for Canada. For example, two and a half years ago, in Quebec, the government came out with a report stating that alcohol consumption had decreased by 4 percent in Quebec, that things were wonderful, and that prevention was working well. But those working in prevention programs stated that problem consumption had not decreased. The number of people with problematic alcohol behaviors, such as driving, for example, or people showing alcohol-induced risky behaviour, did not decrease. You are confusing the moral ideal, as if, ideally, no one should drink, with prevention, which is the reduction of problematic behaviors.

    To come back to your question on data, if someone were to tell me that in responding to a survey, 56 people stated that they had taken Ecstasy--I am using hypothetical numbers, because it is not important--, I interpret this to mean that 56 people have gone to the black market and have purchased a small pill that they believed was Ecstasy. It absolutely does not tell me that these 56 people did indeed consume Ecstasy.

    I believe that the numbers on the black market should be provided in terms of risk. Persons who have taken drugs believed that they were taking stimulants. For example, in a centre, there were cocaine users who had withdrawal symptoms, and the centre staff were asking themselves why were there withdrawal symptoms when there is no physical dependency with cocaine. These were cocaine users who had sources of supply. It was discovered that there had been so much cocaine that had been cut with amphetamines, that the users had become dependant on the amphetamines. If people who have sources of supply regularly purchase products of dubious quality, you can imagine what it must be like for youths, who have no sources, and buy littles pills from anyone, anywhere.

    As you know, the statistics are not objective. If we are told that Ecstasy purchasers have dropped from 56 to 54, this tells me absolutely nothing. What I do find interesting, is to know what risk behaviors are still out there. This is where we are missing data. What problematic behaviors are out there?

    As for alcohol, and with illegal drugs and in the matter of medication, we have...I am sorry, but I have American data in mind because I was reading this yesterday. There are approximately the same number of overdoses of heroin as there are of aspirin in the United States. Yet, one statistic creates a scandal, and the other is swept under the rug. Therefore, I believe that, in terms of prevention, to be significant, the data should be presented in terms of problematic behaviors with drugs. I find that this is greatly lacking. We have some clues, but the data would have to be collected, not in numbers but in terms of risk behaviors, for more targeted prevention.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: Do I still have any time?

    The Chair: Your time is up.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: I will come back in the second part.

[English]

    The Chair: Before I turn to my colleagues on this side, I wonder if you could tell us where we would find the statistics to show, if I heard you correctly, that as many people died in the United States last year from aspirin overdoses as from cocaine overdoses.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse presented the data in a brochure.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: In the case of an overdose, you can wind up in the intoxication unit at the hospital. You are not necessarily dead, but with an overdose, you go to intoxication and...

[English]

    The Chair: So as many people overdosed on aspirin last year as on cocaine.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: It wasn't last year. The data covered 1996 or 1997. It's in the brochure by...

    The Chair: But it was the same year.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Yes it was the same year. I will tell you why that example hit me. It's because aspirin and heroin were put on the market by Bayer in the same year, and had the same publicity. Since Bayer had launched heroin and aspirin on the market and both had the same advertising, I was taken by the fact that both had the same intoxication rates in the same year.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay.

    Mac wants to ask questions, and I think Derek.

[Translation]

    Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much for your presentation.

    In your report, you mention availability of drugs and draw a correlation between this and drug consumption, particularly on page 12. You provided the example of Quebec, where, before 1978, there were almost 350 stores selling alcohol. A Bill was adopted there, and the number of stores selling alcohol jumped to more than 10,000. A comparative study was made regarding the pre- and post-1978 periods. The conclusion was that upon increasing the availability of alcohol or of a drug, it doesn't mean that there will be an increase in consumption. It would be interesting if my colleague from the Canadian Alliance could read this part of your report, which I find very interesting.

    I would like to know if yes or no, do you have any information on this topic since 1987, which is now 15 years ago. Do you know if any other studies have been conducted in Quebec that would show that this correlation does not exist.

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Alcohol is in fact a good example. Of course, to consume a drug, it has to be available, but availability is not sufficient. You alluded to Bill 79. Each year, statistics are taken from Quebec and the other Canadian provinces on the rates of alcohol consumption. The alcohol consumption per capita decreased in Quebec the year following the proposed legislation, as it did in all Canadian provinces, because basically the same prevention programs had been put in place. Therefore, Quebec follows the Canadian trends, but Quebec is lower than the national average in terms of alcohol consumption.

    However, it allows me to underline an element that I saw again in L'Actualité this month. We like to think that Quebec drinks more because it presents itself as such. We measure consumption in terms of litres of alcohol. But a litre of beer and a litre of scotch is not the same thing. Per capita consumption is not calculated in terms of number of litres sold. Since Quebec is the province with the highest consumption of beer with 0.5 percent alcohol, wine and low-level alcoholic beverages, its rate of alcohol consumption is among the lowest in Canada. This is how alcohol consumption has to be calculated.

    In fact, our country is not very different than others. When we look at other countries, at the demographic level, in terms of legal and illegal drug consumption, we find that the profiles are almost always the same. People who are the highest consumers of drugs are either very rich or very poor. Then come the other regions. So what this tells us is that Quebec is neither very rich nor very poor.

    Mr. Mac Harb: Do we have post-1987 statistics that you are aware of?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: On alcohol, yes.

    Mr. Mac Harb: Do we have statistics for 1995 or 1997 that...

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: The most recent I have included here.

    Mr. Mac Harb: It's on page 12.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I don't have the same page 12 because I don't have the same document.

    Mr. Mac Harb: OK.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Give me 30 seconds and I will get to the table.

    Mr. Mac Harb: On page 12, there is reference to a study by M. Lamarche made in 1987.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Ah, on diversification of products.

    Mr. Mac Harb: That's it!

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Yes, wine consumption increased, but it would be difficult to attribute this entirely to the convenience stores. People travel more. English Canada is also consuming more wine. But in fact, the Le Dain Commission, in 1972 had clearly indicated that one of the fears of the legal drug companies was that legalization of certain drugs would lead to the arrival of other recreational drugs on the market. They had well understood that people would not increase their consumption, but would diversify it. People don't tell themselves on a particular evening that they will drink cognac, alcohol, and beer because it is all available. We make choices. Therefore, this trend has increased, but it can't be entirely attributed to that legislation, given that other variables came into effect after that.

    Mr. Mac Harb: Thank you very much.

    The Chair: This is very interesting. In English, there are no page numbers. It is totally different. I look and l look. There, I've found it.

[English]

    Derek, did you have a question?

    Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.): I do have one question. It relates to possible approaches in educating the youth. Whether or not we have a system of prohibition, whether or not a drug is prohibited, there is still a need to make young people aware of the use of any particular drug. I had a conversation with a young lady who sat beside me at a public event. She was about 20 years old--I won't say when and where, because this is on the public record, and I don't want to embarrass her. I asked her how one might deal with this whole issue of approaching youth, and she said two things. I'd like you to comment on what she said, because the two things she said may relate to some of the studies you've done or the things you lecture on.

    The first thing was that when society attempts to inform its youth, it should convey the facts, not value judgments: stay away from value judgments and give the youth the straight goods. Everything else is going to get tossed out of the youth's brain, it's likely to be rejected. Second, many young people have, from time to time, a need to confide in an older person to verify what they know, to validate what they know, to seek advice. She said to me--and I think I understand what she's saying--more often than not, it's not a parent. It could be a parent, but a lot of the time it's not the parent. It might be a teacher, a family friend, or a distant relation.

    Those two things cause me to shift around a little as to how society might address the challenge of informing our youth, especially from a federal government perspective, where we don't participate in education directly at all, the provinces do it. First, are those two comments by her correct or in the ballpark, is it useful information? Second, how could it help us in our report with a view to shaping public policy and the way we deliver information to our youth about non-medical use of drugs?

º  (1640)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: You are correct in saying that prevention is the same, whether drugs are legal or illegal. You have to add the black market to the environment, but you have to deal with prevention in the same way as with all other risk behaviors, be it automobile driving or other. Whatever the behaviour, you decrease the damaging effects. I was telling you that the policy of reducing damaging effects was an old policy. We continually do this. We want our children to benefit from the good effects of something while reducing the risks. We decrease the damaging effects. We want them to learn how to drive a car, as long as they take the necessary precautions; they can ski, as long as they take the necessary precautions.

    So, where drugs are concerned, yes, we have to state precisely what the situation is, whether in the legal or the illegal environment, and as I said, parents can do that.

    You say that the youth will want to verify. Yes, young people will verify, but parents underestimate themselves greatly when they talk about their kids. We have all been adolescents. Yes, we also verified certain things, but we can't say that in the back of our minds there were not certain limits to what we would do because we had talked about it, because there had been some prevention.

    So, yes, verifications are made during our youth, but as parents, our job is to ensure that the choice of risks made by our children are as enlightened as possible, through prevention. I think that the parent should play his or her role regarding drugs, just like in sexuality, for example.

    In fact, as with anything, the more a youth has an open dialogue on things, the more he learns about being independent and the more he avoids doing very naive and high risk things.

[English]

    Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Allard.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval East, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Beauchesne, you are a criminologist. You put a lot on the shoulders of parents. Parents should do this and that. You are a criminologist and you are in a criminal environment. You can act as a criminologist with adults.

    We often state that prison terms are not severe enough in Canada. Canada has a reputation. Criminals want to be judged in Canada because, apparently, it is easier to get away with things in Canada. Look at what is happening in Montreal. We have trials. We have an anti-gang law that has hardened the laws on drugs and bike gangs, and the bikers plead guilty. We think that it strikes some fear into the heart of organized crime.

    I am asking you in your capacity as a criminologist. Is there no action that we could take with adults, with criminals, to ensure that they are also aware of what is the impact of damaging effects on society? In that sense, could we look at reinforcing penalties? Have you also analyzed the situation regarding criminals?

º  (1645)  

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: First of all, you tell me that I am putting a lot on the parents' shoulders. Since I was asked to talk about prevention that parents should be involved with, I spoke about this. Many people think that parents are incapable of prevention where drugs are concerned. I wanted to show quite simply that they know all this and that they are indeed capable of dealing with prevention.

    Now, where criminal policies are concerned, if we want to reduce the drug black market in any way, we have to realize that there are three different levels in this market. There are consumer-salespersons, who sell sufficient quantities to consume, and sometimes make money. There are distributors, who have roles similar to those that some native persons played during the tobacco black market, namely, the biker gangs. These groups have territories, but these people do not own the market. The people who own the market wear ties and suits, and own plants and industries. The Hell's Angels are distributors. People think that we are hitting the market, when in fact we are hitting a distributor in a given region. This will only lead to replacing that distributor. A distributor will be removed, and will simply be replaced.

    The drug market is somewhat similar to prostitution. When I talk about prostitution, it's somewhat similar. Street prostitution is the visible part. We don't see the greater prostitution market, with the trafficking of children. We attack the visible part. I am not saying that we should not do this, but we shouldn't think that by arresting bikers, we are hitting the black market. These are distributors. These are not the producers. It is not because one has a few acres of cannabis that one also has tons of opium that arrive through the import-export companies. Therefore, they are the drug distributors. They have markets, and if they are not capable of managing their markets, they will be replaced. But this does not impact on the drug black market. People will always be able to get drugs. Even if there are many bikers inside prison, no one outside of prison has difficulty getting drugs.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: And even in prison.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: And even in prison. Also, in prison, things have now gotten out of hand. When people started to say that they needed needle exchange programs, Correctional Services Canada increased drug testing within their prisons. The only drug that can be minimally tested over a long period of time is cannabis, because the others dissolve quite rapidly.

    I will take another look at your example and your question. We arrest a hashish pusher in a bar, and send him to prison. In prison, it is too dangerous to use cannabis because of the drug tests. He starts using injected drugs. When he comes out, he is HIV positive, and he is now hooked on injection drugs. Is this what you wanted to show the hashish pusher? When he comes out of prison, he has become an injection drug user. This is what you have done.

    As you have said and as the studies have amply proved, in any case, there are drugs in prison. Therefore, if you think that by putting someone in prison, that there will be no drugs there, you are mistaken. Besides, Canada has the second highest rate of drug user imprisonment. What happens when you imprison a whole bunch of drug addicts, drug users and drug sellers? You have a drug market.

º  (1650)  

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Ms. Beauchesne, that means that the people are completely fooled when they thinks that they are currently protected. We have tremendous funding to try to control supply, and it accomplishes absolutely nothing, according to what you have said. Therefore, we are all playing a big game.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Careful! The biker gangs were fighting among themselves at the expense of innocent civilians. If only for that reason, they should be repressed. But if we do so thinking that we are reducing supply, we are mistaken. If we do so because innocent civilians are killed and restaurants and cars get blown up, then yes.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: What about increasing penalties?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: You think that increasing penalties is going to affect the drug trade? No, it will not change anything.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Sorenson, do you have any other questions? No.

    Mr. Ménard.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: I have three brief questions. All this is very interesting. To go in the same direction as Ms. Allard, obviously, I understand your reasoning and we are not questioning the necessity of antigang legislation. We only have to remember that there have been some 250 innocent victims in various communities. Therefore, this is not the issue. The issue is the true source, those who really control the drug market. I wish to understand you completely on this and I would like you to give us more information.

     The Canadian Security Intelligence Service estimates that there are 35 criminal biker gangs in Canada. Perhaps you even watch the Wednesday night show on Radio-Canada, or Sunday night in English, The Last Chapter or Le Dernier Chapitre. You say that those who control this market are not necessarily the biker gangs. I would like you talk about who really controls this market.

    Second, upon terminating our report, what we could do best is to submit legislation that would end the status quo. What are the different elements that a Bill would have to contain to get closer to the Dutch model, which you prefer?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: As for the first question, on the anti-gang legislation, I would answer that you have read my mind. They must be reprimanded for acts committed. These are not choirboys. But if we think that the drug supply gets resolved at that level, we are mistaken

    In fact, when we think about who controls the drug market, it is pretty frightening. As you are no doubt aware, drugs that are currently illegal were marketed and globalized by the western countries. The western countries, during the colonial period, found that certain people consumed certain drugs, and they widened consumption and made it a business.

    In a second phase, when these drugs started to be prohibited at the start of the last century, we continued to sell them elsewhere. With the establishment of the United Nations, after the second world war, groups that were created stated that it was not right to prohibit products at home that were deemed to be dangerous, and yet sell them elsewhere. Therefore, they assigned their secret services to control the laboratories. For example, laboratories that transformed opium into heroin, which first belonged to the French, and then to the Americans, helped finance the Vietnam War. They also helped to fund the contras in Nicaragua.

    Therefore, one may say that they belonged to the western countries until the end of the 1970's. In the '70's, certain groups that had been created to control these markets started to become more autonomous, and became multinationals. It is the same principal as the multinational. There are local groups to control production, there are import-export companies, and banks.

    In the '80's, three groups were identified, and a fourth at the end of that decade. The first was the Sicilian mafia, which controlled a good part of the North and South American and cocaine markets. The Japanese Yakuza, who the Americans had released from prison at the end of the war to give them the Asian market and keep communism within China's borders, controlled Asia. There are also the Chinese Triades, Indochina and the rest. Finally, the Russian mafia, which entered the scene at the end of the '80's, was to become a large courier.

    But we mustn't think that the Colonial phase, which was replaced by the secret services, was replaced entirely. States still profit from the drug trade, but have less and less control over the criminal groups. Before, States could stop a country from receiving arms. It was said that a certain country did not have arms. Now, as there is less control over the drug market, there are people selling arms. “You have drugs, I have arms”.

    Therefore, they not only lost control of the drug markets, but many other markets. These people are now making billions. Why do States continue to hold on? Because they still control certain markets. They still sell drugs for arms. After all, arms are bought from the West. The West still profits from many aspects within this market.

º  (1655)  

    Mr. Réal Ménard: Including Canada?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I could go into the CANDU situation, but we don't have time.

    It's like anything else: the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing; with one hand we do what suits us, and so on. To give you an idea of how strong this market is, I can tell you that when the Taliban regime was in power--I was telling my students this before September 11--, the drug traffickers paid them millions to considerably lower their opium production, because there was a surplus, and price had to be maintained.

    When political regimes are paid money to compensate lost drug sales to maintain world prices, we are no longer dealing with biker gangs. We are talking about financial levels that are much more...

    Mr. Réal Ménard: Will you allow me a secondary question, if I still have time?

    We have heard witnesses from police forces, the RCMP, from British Columbia. The scenario you have just described seems very plausible. It has been documented, and you have written on this. We will certainly have to take this into account in our report.

    However, I thought that a distinction was to be made between the interior market in Canada, for cannabis production. I thought that everything surrounding hydroponic greenhouses...We were told that it was the second largest industry in British Columbia.

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: You are now going into your second question. I will talk about cannabis.

    When the Netherlands evaluated their drug policy after 20 years, they found that the case with cannabis was different, that they could produce it internally--they produce Nederweit--, and the government found the locally produced cannabis to be of good quality, with varying degrees of concentration, and declared that it should be the only product sold in the country. I will tell you quite frankly that it didn't work, because in the coffee shops, it's like in the restaurants. When all the restaurants have the same menu, you get bored. Therefore, they continued to import cannabis. It just couldn't work.

    That doesn't mean that a good part of the cannabis found there is not Nederweit, but to think that you can restrict...If I were told that from now on I could only drink Canadian wines and that I could no longer buy foreign wines, personally I would put a sign of protest on my front lawn. I simply want to say here that it is very difficult to limit consumption of recreational products to local products, even if a special variety has been created.

    The Netherlands government, of course, hoped to avoid having anything to do with the import-export of drugs produced abroad, but it just didn't work out.

    You asked me to tell you what the steps would be to follow the example of the Netherlands. Without trials, and within the framework of the treaties, we could already considerably reduce repression of users, politically. The treaties do not oblige us to impose so much repression. It would therefore be possible to adopt a policy more geared towards help.

    The second aspect that could be dealt with is care, for which there is quite a range of services. You have certainly heard of the prescription programs. Within the context of therapeutic care, we can already considerably cover the consuming milieu by making it safer with more information. For example, when women attend family planning clinics in Quebec, they meet with a psy professional; this was accomplished in an environment that required some learning. We shouldn't go too fast, either, because there are learning curves. You only have to think about alcohol. The existence of dubious alcohol and alcohol on the legal market led to another world of drugs.

    In my opinion--and I know that I will attract the ire of certain drug users because I am saying this--, we have certain cultural things to learn, and the therapeutic environment, if it is sufficiently large and we ensure follow-up, would allow us to do so more carefully. There are things to learn because these are new products. We should not skip any steps.

»  (1700)  

[English]

    The Chair: Merci beaucoup.

    Before I turn to my colleagues, I have a question for you. We asked you to talk about prevention, and I think you've been great in identifying the main components of a good prevention program, how it should be guided. We seem to have been talking about a lot of issues, which has been really helpful, because you've got a vast experience, but when you discuss the way to talk to children particularly--and basically, I think it goes all throughout people's lives--you're saying, focus on the kid and figure out how to guide them into living a healthy life. It may be appropriate to have some risk-taking behaviour, but you're not necessarily a drug addict, which has a really negative connotation. Why do you need drugs? We all have certain needs. Some people need to succeed, some people need to run faster. If you can talk to your children about what their needs are, then rather than substituting that need with hash, maybe there's something of less harm they could fill that need with. Maybe a beer is a better substitute in that case, once they're at an appropriate age.

    Is that what you're trying to say, how to live a health lifestyle, how to prevent harm?

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Yes, we can widen the meaning. It is not a question of drugs. The Nintendo game is not bad in itself. However, if your child spends 30 hours in front of the Nintendo because it helps create a wall between her and the world, it becomes a problem. This can be the case with television also. Therefore, as a parent, we have to teach our children to understand the relationship that certain activities have with their needs. If we tend to escape reality by using the Nintendo or the television, we have behaviors that can help the parent talk about certain subjects. I simply wish to state that the same applies to drugs.

[English]

    The Chair: While I'm on that particular case, the Internet is necessary for kids to do school projects now and to get information. You certainly don't want them in sexually explicit chat rooms or being lured on the Internet, but there is a need to use that piece of equipment.

    What I like about your approach is this. We heard from a mother who had lost a child, and she had a need for some relief at a time of incredible despair to hold herself together. So she was given licit drugs by a doctor, and then kept hooked for 20 years, with all kinds of horrible things happening to her. Yes, the doctor played a part, she played a part, but if she'd had other ways to deal with her need or if there had been a way somewhere to break that process, there could have been other ways to support her, rather than giving her a pill. That's what some of your advertising comments are about: there's a pill to cure everything.

»  (1705)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: We talk about youths and their need for drugs. Look at how adults raced out to get Prozac.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: They also ran out to get Viagra.

    Madame Line Beauchesne: That is true. But Viagra deals with other less-related realities

[English]

    The Chair: Yes, but that's a matter of opinion.

    When we talked to young people in Vancouver about why they use drugs, it concerned me greatly that the number one reason wasn't to feel good or to be part of the crowd, it was the need to escape. So what's the problem here? What's so wrong in your lifestyle? Maybe we should be, as you say, dealing with the underlying causes of suicide in Montreal, rather than just dealing with some damage control measures. When I was at McGill University, we had locks on the great big windows, because too many kids had jumped out of the window. They solved the problem, they thought, by locking the windows, rather than dealing with the underlying problem.

    Do you have, based on your information--I know you told us it's a rather dry document--any good prevention programs out there? I've talked to kids who have done DARE. In the context of trying to get out of the situation or trying to come up with excuses, they were told to tell their friends they were allergic, which they thought was a pretty stupid answer. But the concept of saying, look, I don't want to, or figuring out an excuse is not a bad idea for a kid, if that's the way they can handle it. Are there any good examples of prevention programs? Because, ultimately, if we can delay until they have some other avenues to deal with things, that would be a better approach.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I won't name any one in particular because I am sure that there are many out there. Anyone working in prevention is surely familiar with several. I am sure that there are many documents that refer to this type of program.

    However, I find that there are not many documents out there for the general public. This is why I have written this guide. There are many good documents that are written for the 10, 12, or 15 year olds, for the workers, the teachers, but there are none that talk about dealing with the issue from the start. So I wrote one. Does that mean that there are no others in Canada? I don't know. I haven't seen any. This is why I have prepared this guide for parents. I don't want to presume that there are none. There were none in my environment. Therefore, I prepared one.

[English]

    The Chair: So far we haven't found one either. In British Columbia, where there were some good programs, they were having trouble getting the materials into the schools. So there seems to be this great big disconnection. As my colleague fromn the Alliance pointed out, we spend 95 pourcent of this extraordinary amount of money in the country trying to stop the supply, but if you never turn off the demand, it doesn't matter if it's illicit drugs, it will be alcohol or it will be gambling or it will be hashish or it will be whatever. As we heard the other day, you ban airplane glue in a town because the kids are getting high on it, so they turn to gasoline. You can't ban gasoline. We've got to get to the underlying causes of the problem and figure out how to ensure that people have healthier lives. It's not a bad escape to have a glass of wine to calm down, to go to a party and feel mellow, but too many glasses of wine is clearly a problem.

    It would be helpful if you do have any examples of programs, because, honestly, we're having trouble coming up with any. There seems to be a great need out there to talk appropriately. I think your example of children at some very early stage seeing some uncle or aunt or parent who's had too much to drink is good.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I know that the publisher is thinking of translating it next fall. I will let you know if it is to be translated.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay, that would be helpful.

    There's some debate about whether harm reduction is an appropriate approach. You've clearly identified a harm reduction model. Do you see that as a helpful way to go?

»  (1710)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: Yes, I think it is good. As I said earlier, harm reduction is not new. In the case of drugs, no matter what the behaviour, as parents or politicians, we try to ensure that the person fully benefits. We wish to reduce harm. When a person learns to drive an automobile, we want that person to learn how, while reducing harm. In other words, harm reduction is not a novel approach. What is new, is that with the arrival of AIDS, we are trying to apply it also to illegal drugs. In my opinion, we should have done that earlier. But the approach in itself is not new.

    As for me, the harm reduction approach is not the prevention of AIDS or the needle exchange. Prevention includes two aspects. First, we try to reduce risk behaviors by providing information on the risks. That is prevention. Then, when the problems occur, we try harm reduction. A person is not obliged to be addicted to cigarettes, poor, sick and in prison. The person can be simply a drug addict. We can reduce all of the other harmful effects.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay.

    On that point, I'm sure our colleagues have heard this as well. There are these lunch conversations that we seem to have, various parties and things. Somebody was telling me they were quite disturbed that while they thought the drinking and driving message had really got through to young people and they really went in a big way for designated drivers, and they were so happy initially to see their cousin saying, I won't have a beer, I'm driving, they then saw them toking outside. It wasn't that they wanted to reduce the harm from drinking and driving and being impaired, what they didn't want was to get caught. So they thought cannabis was the way to go, because there was no way to test for it.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: I am not really familiar with it because I don't watch much television.

    In Quebec, there are two very explicit ads. One of the ads is about a person who hasn't consumed very much. The ad shows that even if a person hasn't consumed much, she can be arrested. The message is not telling people that they should drive only when they are in a condition to do so, and that this is their responsibility; the message is that they should beware the police. The message is very clear.

    I always ask my students if they know on which bridge between Ottawa and Hull there are never any police inspections. They are all able to tell me which one. They have learned that there may be inspections on the other bridges and that if they have had too much to drink, they can use that bridge because the police are never there. There is always a way out.

    There are also students who leave very late, and who I ask to sleep over because it is 3 o'clock in the morning. They leave at 6 in the morning. At 6 in the morning, they don't have the necessary reflexes to drive if they have had a lot to drink, but they calculate that they have sufficiently absorbed the alcohol not to get caught by the police.

    There is also the example of the husband, who having had too much to drink, wakes up his wife who is sleeping on the sofa, and gets her to drive. She has just awoken and he asks her to drive because he tells himself that she has not had a lot to drink, while he has. If he puts someone behind the wheel who is not used to driving and who is half asleep, it is because he is afraid of the police officer, and not because he is concerned about being able to drive.

[English]

    The Chair: Yes, it's not about good behaviour.

    Mr. Lee, and then Mr. Harb--because Mr. Lee is going to jump out of his chair.

    Mr. Derek Lee: Having read your brief and listened today, I have come to the conclusion, whether or not you stated it explicitly, that you regard prohibition as a losing strategy. I feel pretty much the same way myself. Where can we go from here? This is a very short question with a very long answer, but I'd appreciate your comments on that.

[Translation]

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: As I said earlier, before deciding on whether to legalize from one day to the next, there is a certain cultural learning curve in terms of prevention, the types of treatment, and information. We can't change the situation overnight.

    I think we have to define the learning steps. The first thing is to change the message on prevention, and reduce repression to adopt a more effective strategy for help and prevention for users. I believe this should be the first step. We don't need international treaties for this. We can do this already.

    Second, in the case of cannabis, like Mr. Ménard said, we have already acquired the knowledge and cultural usages that can allow us to address certain things. I am tempted to say that we would have to start with one, that is, determine what it would mean for the market in terms of control measures, regulation and distribution. This involves many things to be learned.

    At the same time, because a lot of effort is involved doesn't mean we should not go forward. Let me use another example, a person who is actively engaged against racism. Does that person think that racism will disappear tomorrow? No. But her direction is clear: ideally, there should not be any racism. So, it's somewhat similar with drugs. Do I think that things will change overnight? No. But my direction is clear, nevertheless. My direction is that ideally, the products should be safe and there should be prevention. This is the direction I take. I am very aware that we can't skip any steps, but we can at least go forward, which in itself is positive.

»  (1715)  

    Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Harb.

    Mr. Mac Harb: To legalize or not to legalize? If we legalize, how many products? One, two, or three more?

    Second, if we legalize, how do put in place an action plan, taking into account our American neighbours?

    Ms. Line Beauchesne: First, legalization means regulation. How many products would there be? I don't know, because as I said earlier, even with alcohol, there was a huge change in the market. There are products that will disappear because they only exist due to the black market. There are products for which usage will change. Injection, whether legal or illegal, is certainly an extremely hard usage which has no place, which should be considered high-risk and probably part of a separate strategy.

    Therefore, there are learning curves, and I cannot make market predictions. This is why I don't want to go too fast, so that the process remains safe. But to legalize means to regulate. I would not want to be in the same situation as abortion, which is not regulated by any legislation currently. If we decriminalize, we are still dealing with the black market. In terms of public health, I don't think this is the right way. It would be healthy for the black market, but not necessarily its consumers.

    As for the Americans, to be honest, in fact, there lies the reason for my greatest pessimism. They make enormous money from this market as a State. They have tremendous interest in the whole thing continuing. There is an entire bureaucratic industry that has been built on this. There are the secret services, the government organizations, who, anticipating the end of the cold war, restructured their budgets for drug operations.

    I believe, and I can't tell you whether it is realistic or idealistic, that our best interest is to move as close as possible to the European model regarding drug policy, because only group action will be able to counter the American interests. Acting alone, I think we can considerably reduce repression, but not much more. Why? I will use the Netherlands as an example.

    In the Netherlands, when they adopted a different strategy than other countries, they didn't require cards, we're not talking about health cards here, but similar cards, to receive services. They wound up with all the drug addicts from Spain, Italy, and Germany, until they said enough is enough. From that point on, even the homeless person, if he was a Netherlander, had a card for services. So, Netherlanders, and not foreigners, now have access to all services.

    At that point, many foreigners tore up their passports because they could not be sent back to where they came from. Among others, I remember that many Moroccan heroin addicts tore up their papers, and the Moroccan government refused to recognize them. The government there did not want to end up with a lot of returning heroin addicts. You can't just return people anywhere just like that. Of course, no country wants to welcome problem cases from neighbouring countries. Therefore, the Netherlands became very strict on allowing only Netherlanders access to services. They considerably reduced their problems.

    Other problems would be in the reaction by the Americans, which has told countries...A country may demand repatriation of an individual. For example, a Netherlander who is accused in another country of drug possession was repatriated and once back home, was not severely punished. The Americans have told other countries to punish whatever Netherlanders they have arrested.

    Therefore, it makes things very difficult when you have a neighbour with opposing viewpoints. All I can say is that I think that Europe is uniting on these issues, on certain aspects, to succeed in modifying the international conventions. I don't think that Canada could modify the conventions alone. But I do think they could do so with the Europeans.

»  (1720)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much. I think we have run out of time. Are there any other questions.

    Well, thank you very much, Madam. It was very interesting for us. I think that you have many good ideas. If you have programs that specifically...

    Mr. Réal Ménard: I have a point of order. Do you plan on hearing any witnesses Tuesday and Wednesday this week?

    The Chair: Not tomorrow.

    Mr. Réal Ménard: Not tomorrow.

     Second, when are we going to decide on the schedule for our trip to Europe? You know how it is. If we want the whips to let us leave...

[English]

    The Chair: Let me adjourn the meeting, and we can have a chat afterwards.

    Merci beaucoup.