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Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy | ||||
Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs | ||||
Volume 2 - Policies and Practices In Canada |
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Chapter 12 - National Legislative ContextSenate
report of 1955
On
February 24, 1955, the Senate passed a motion creating a Special Committee
of the Senate on the Traffic in Narcotic Drugs in Canada following the motion
made a few weeks earlier by Senator Thomas Reid. At that time,
Senator Reid had asked the Senate government leader,
W. Ross MacDonald, whether the federal government intended to create
such a committee since, based on his information, the traffic in opium and
other narcotics in the City of Vancouver was beyond the control of police
authorities. In debate on the motion, Senator MacDonald accurately summed
up the task before the members of the Senate Special Committee as follows: The work
of the committee will largely be to consider the causes of this unfortunate
problem with which this country is faced, to hear expert witnesses and to
determine in what way the Government can make its most valuable contribution in
resolving this unfortunate condition. The reports of this committee, based upon
an objective, cautious and factual assessment of the problem, may well become a
document of the utmost importance and have far-reaching consequences in helping
to found policy upon which the successful solution of this problem can rest. [1][62] Upon
adoption of the motion, Senator Reid was appointed chairman of the Committee.
From March 25 to June 17, 1955, the committee organized public
hearings in Ottawa and was the first to travel outside the capital, holding
meetings in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. In addition to specialists, public
servants and police officers, the senators also met a group of 150 people
suffering from a drug dependency at Oakalla Prison in Vancouver to gain a
better understanding of the reasons leading them to use drugs. The Committee
heard 52 witnesses: 13 from law enforcement agencies, 10 from the
various federal departments concerned by the fight against drug trafficking and
12 addiction treatment specialists. On June 23, 1955,
Senator Reid tabled the Committee's report containing a series of
recommendations for the treatment of people suffering from a drug dependency
and the fight against the traffic in narcotic drugs. According
to the report, the figures provided by the Department of Health revealed that
there were 515 “medical addicts” in Canada, that is to say individuals who
had become dependent on a drug as a result of treatment for a disease,
333 “professional addicts” (doctors, pharmacists and so on) and
2,364 “criminal addicts”, for a total of 3,212. Of the persons belonging
to the last category, 1,101 were located in Vancouver.[2][63] Only 26 of the 2,364 “criminal
addicts” were under 20 years of age. To
establish a relationship between crime and drug dependency and to explain the
difficulties in establishing treatment programs, the Committee cited a study
conducted by the RCMP noting that, of 2,009 “criminal addicts”, 341 had
first been convicted of an offence under the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act, 1,220 had first been convicted for
other crimes and 478 had already had a criminal record. Thus, 1,668 of the
total 2,009 “drug addicts” were criminals, which was sufficient in the
Committee's view to confirm the thesis of the “criminal” or “contaminating”
user.[3][64] It was therefore clear that drug
addiction was not a disease. In the Committee's view, most “addicts” came from
disadvantaged backgrounds in which crime and family problems were omnipresent. The evidence of medical authorities was to the
effect that drug addiction is not a disease in itself. It is a symptom or
manifestation of character weaknesses or personality defects in the individual.
The addict is usually an emotionally insecure and unstable person who derives
support from narcotic drugs. The Committee was gravely concerned to learn that
relatively few cases could be authenticated where drug addicts, while out of
custody, had been successful in abstaining from the use of drugs for any
lengthy period of time. The complications and difficulties in the successful
treatment of drug addiction, having regard to the pattern of development of the
addict and his almost invariable criminal tendencies, cannot be too heavily
stressed. [4][65] In the circumstances, the Committee
unanimously rejected the idea of creating government clinics which, on certain
conditions, would provide “criminal addicts” with ambulatory treatment. The Committee
moreover emphasized that a resolution adopted at the time at the tenth annual
session of the United Nations Narcotic Drug Commission, stated that this form
of treatment was not advisable.[5][66] It also rejected the United Kingdom's
model after confirming, with the aid of British specialists, that doctors
should not encourage drug addicts to persist in their addiction if they could
not, even after lengthy treatment involving gradual reduction of the prescribed
doses abstain from drugs. On this point, the report states: “[…] dangerous (narcotic) drugs in the United
Kingdom are subject to a wide degree of control of the exacting standards
demanded by the international agreements to which the United Kingdom, in common
with Canada, is a party.”[6][67] Considering that “addicts” were
“basically criminals who daily violate the Opium
and Narcotic Drug Act”, the Committee argued that municipal and police
authorities, more particularly those of Vancouver, should more effectively
invoke the provisions of the Criminal
Code dealing with theft, vagrancy and prostitution. Citing the testimony of
Harry J. Anslinger before a U.S. Congress committee, the Committee
stated that such an initiative would solve much of the problem caused by drug
addiction. Second, it noted that “the
evidence of many witnesses recommended the compulsory segregation and isolation
of all addicts for long periods of time for the purpose of treatment and
possible rehabilitation.”[7][68] Thus, to prevent this “scourge” from
spreading in the penitentiaries and to cure “criminal addicts” convicted of
crimes, the Committee suggested that “the
penitentiary authorities might give further consideration to the particular
problems presented by criminal addicts in terms of segregation, treatment
including specialized training and rehabilitation and other measures necessary
in view of the special problems which addiction superimposes.”[8][69] In fact, as Minister of Health,
Paul Martin had done a year earlier, the Committee instead emphasized the
limits of federal jurisdiction and the efforts the provinces should devote to
the treatment of “drug addicts” who had not been convicted of a crime. Still
advocating the segregation of these individuals, the Committee indicated that
the federal government wanted to make available to British Columbia the federal
William Head quarantine station on Vancouver Island so that it could
transform it into a treatment centre similar to that in Lexington, Kentucky. It
further proposed the creation of a national health program to provide financial
support for provincial drug addiction initiatives. The Committee also encouraged the
creation of groups similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, but rejected the idea of
national education campaigns for the general public and teenagers on the ground
that “such programs should not be used
where they would arouse undue curiosity on the part of impressionable persons
or those of tender years”.[9][70] The Committee supported the position of
the UN Narcotic Drug Commission, recommending instead that a “mental health”
program be established to detect behaviour in the schools that might lead to
drug addiction. Since treatment programs could not
cure all “drug addicts”, the Committee also proposed that certain measures be
adopted to fight illegal trafficking in narcotics. It thus recommended:
In the Committee’s view, the
severity of these penalties would “act as
an effective deterrent to an individual in smuggling drugs into Canada for the
profit of a ‘higher up.’”[10][71] Rather than waste police and court
resources in trying to convict organized crime leaders who were the cause of
the problem, an attempt had to be made to eliminate the
“trafficker-distributors” in the neighbourhoods of the large cities and the
problem would be solved. Although the Committee's proposals
were much more conservative than those advanced in the debates preceding its
establishment, contrary to a number of other reports by parliamentary committees
or royal commissions of inquiry, most of its recommendations would be followed
by federal authorities. First, it contributed to a number of research projects
in British Columbia and Ontario in 1956. And second, the Senate Committee’s
report was at the origin of most of the new provisions of the Narcotic Control Act, which was passed
in 1961 to replace the Opium and Narcotic
Drug Act. [1][62] Hansard,
Senate, February 24, 1955, page 239. [2][63] Hansard,
Senate, June 23, 1955, page 739. [3][64]
Hansard, Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 739. [4][65] Hansard,
Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 742. [5][66]
Hansard, Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 740. [6][67] Hansard,
Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 740. [7][68] Hansard,
Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 744. [8][69] Hansard,
Senate, June 23, 1955, p. 745. [9][70]
Hansard, Senate, June 23, 1955, page 741. [10][71]
Hansard, Senate, June 23, 1955, page 746. |