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Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy | ||||
Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs | ||||
Volume I - General Orientation |
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Chapter
10
Canadians’ Opinions and Attitudes
One of our main objectives throughout
our study was to get Canadians involved. We wanted people to share their
opinions, experiences and fears regarding marijuana. We also wanted to provide
access to the information we held so as to contribute, within our modest means,
to better knowledge of the realities of marijuana, if only to raise the level
of public debate. At the start of each public hearing the Committee Chair
stated: The
second thrust is the sharing of knowledge. This is definitely our most noble
objective. The committee wants all Canadians to become informed and share the information
we collect. Our challenge will be to plan and organize a system to ensure that
the knowledge is available and distributed. We would also like to hear what
people think about this knowledge. In order to do this, in the spring of 2002,
we will be holding public hearings in various parts of Canada. This was indeed a major challenge.
It is one thing to passively make available such information as proceedings of
our hearings and our commissioned research reports. It is another thing to
actively disseminate that information widely, having the means to do so. And it
is another thing again to take the pulse of Canadian society. To convey the information to
Canadians, we chose to make full use of our Internet site, posting all of our
documents as they were ready. To boost circulation, we used two main tools. The
first was a conventional tool: the media. We worked to get as much media
coverage as possible in order to promote our work or simply let people know the
Committee existed. With the same goal in mind, some members of the Committee
took part in conferences, round table discussions and open-line shows. The
second tool, one we considered essential in promoting our work, was the
discussion paper we released in May 2002. The paper laid out some of our preliminary
research findings on eight key issues, put forward a number of public policy
options and proposed questions for the public hearings. The main aims of the
paper were to convey our knowledge and generate public interest. A third
objective was to provide a backdrop for the public hearings we held throughout
the country in May and June 2002. Only time will tell whether and to
what extent we were successful in promoting our work and, more importantly, in
increasing public knowledge of marijuana. We did not have the financial means
to conduct a far-reaching public information campaign or an opinion poll before
and after the release of the discussion paper to determine whether we had any
impact on Canadians. It is much harder to gauge the
public’s opinions, attitudes and concerns. The traditional method of surveying
a representative sample of the population was too expensive. Surveys also have
limits, which we will discuss in more detail later. However, we did commission
a qualitative study using focus groups, the results of which will be presented
in this chapter. We will also report the results of other surveys that came to
our attention. As well, many Canadians wrote to us or sent us e-mails, and some
came out to our public hearings. We obviously cannot draw any conclusions from
this: the only people who wrote to us were probably people to whom the issue is
very important, regardless of which way they lean. Some will be cited but we
reiterate that nothing is to be drawn from these opinions in terms of
representativeness. No account of Canadians’ opinions on
and attitudes toward drugs in general would be complete without an examination
of the role of the media in shaping those opinions and attitudes. In recent
years, as a result of this Committee’s work and other initiatives, various
Canadian newspapers and magazines have run stories or written editorials on the
issue. These will be the focus of the first part of the chapter. The next part
presents the results of surveys and polls, including the survey we commissioned
and surveys conducted in different provinces. The last part covers our
understanding of what Canadians told us. |