Canada, Don't Emulate US Drug Laws

Sometimes those in power will be completely honest. Although this guy probably won't be able to make a difference, he can get the dialogue started that may lead to change.

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

"My advice to Canada is stay as completely far away from U.S. drug law policy as possible," said David Soares, the district attorney for Albany County in the state of New York. "You (Canada) are headed in the right direction." In a blunt and scathing condemnation of his state and country's ineffective drug war, Soares said lawmakers, judges and prosecutors in the U.S. know their system is ineffective.

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

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

...

He suggested that the heavy-handed drug fight in the U.S. is perpetuated by authorities' need to "give people a wonderful living" by hiring more police, more judges and more prosecutors.

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

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