The outcry this week over Canada’s endorsement of a new U.S. statement on international drug policy is puzzling.
Unveiled in New York during a session of the United Nations General Assembly, the “Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem” is unconventional, it’s true. It appears to have been drafted unilaterally by the Trump White House and presented to other countries as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. That’s a departure from the usual consensus-based process for arriving at UN drug policy.
Maybe that’s why 63 countries, including U.S. allies such as Germany and Spain, declined to sign on. Mr. Trump’s domestic emphasis on fighting the opioid crisis through law enforcement may have also been a turn-off.
The content of the “call to action,” though, does not justify the outrage directed at Canada for signing on – a decision one drug-policy expert called “pathetic and painful.”
It’s a bland document. It asks for “national action plans” from signatory countries that consist of reducing demand for drugs, expanding treatment to spur recovery and save lives, strengthening international co-operation on law enforcement and health, and cutting off the supply of illegal drugs.
This is anodyne stuff. Some drug-policy advocates see any allusion to crime-fighting as backward and heavy-handed. But remember that Portugal is still the only country to fully decriminalize drug use. Perhaps more countries should follow suit, but it is hardly wrong for a nation such as Canada to make a vague commitment toward fighting the supply of illicit narcotics.
In any case, consider Canada’s actual drug policies under the Liberal government. Between pot legalization, the rapid expansion of supervised-injection sites and increased access to the opioid antidote naloxone, the federal government has focused overwhelmingly on harm reduction. Nothing in the U.S. call to action commits Canada to anything different.
Going along with the Trump administration’s attempt to set global drug policy amid NAFTA negotiations may look like cynical diplomacy. That is certainly what foreign observers seem to think. They shouldn’t be so sure. The U.S. call to action may not be perfect, but it is something the Canadian government can sign in good conscience.