War on drugs 'not working,' Harper says (Canadian prime minister)

[alp227]

News conferences with Canada's Prime Minister don't happen every day — which, of course, increases the likelihood that, when he does hold one, he'll make news.

But it's even rarer that you'll hear Stephen Harper concede that the war on drugs is a failure.

It happened, though, after two days of listening to Latin American leaders explaining just how costly, and bloody, the war is.

Harper met Canadian journalists at the summit in Cartagena, Colombia, on Sunday and readily admitted there are differences among the leaders over the exclusion of Cuba from the Latin America summit. He admitted, too, that there was a disagreement over British rule in the Falkland Islands.

full: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/04/15/pol-milewski-harper-war-on-drugs.html

Isn't it sad when a Conservative Party leader from Canada makes more sense than a Democratic Party leader from the US?

[Spazito]

1. Don't give him much credit...

He is quite happy to continue the 'war on drugs' in Canada, is even building more prisons to house the dastardly pot felons.

He is a total POS, a bush wannabe who lies and lies and lies.

Edited to add what he really thinks which has NOT changed from when this article was written in 2005:

"And unlike the Liberals, the Conservatives would not decriminalize marijuana. Instead, they say they would introduce a national drug strategy that would target keeping substances away from young people.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that we have seen a rapid expansion of the drug trade," since the Liberals started talking about taking marijuana possession out of the criminal code.

Asked why he would saddle a student who is caught with a small amount of the substance with a criminal record, Mr. Harper said "we believe we have to send a message" that these types of activities are unacceptable. In his talks with people who have become addicted to harder drugs, he said, they almost always say they started with marijuana."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article921915.ece

[supraTruth]

3. The message is that he is "willing to BANKRUPT his country with a PRISON POPULATION like US

rather than investing in college educations!

[supraTruth]

2. RAYgun&cheney'sBUSHclan have BANKRUPTED OUR STATES with their ESCALATED Drug War in America & Mexico

[sad sally]

5. Might want to add Obama to your list of presidents

The “increasingly large chorus of nations” in Central America arguing for decriminalization of drugs instead of Washington’s failed drug war seem not to have received their warranted share of focus at the Summit of the Americas conference this weekend. The havoc and blood wrought by drug prohibition and efforts by Washington to militarize the issue have been so detrimental to nations like Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, et al. that they are pushing the Obama administration for a change. Obama said no, although apparently “agreed to direct the Organization of American States to name a group of experts to study the issue.”

Instead of confronting this vital issue, the Obama administration’s focus at the Summit was apparently Cuba. New York Times: “Americas Meeting Ends With Discord Over Cuba.”

[Joe Shlabotnik]

4. Yep he's a dangerous asshat.

In terms of scale, (Canada being 1/10 the population, finances, influence etc) he's comparably as dangerous and ideologically driven as W was. He doesn't need any consensus from the house or senate like in the US and he is able to stack the supreme court with conservatives over the next few years. The only defenses against him is the provinces refusing to pay for his programs, although he can retaliate by starving dissenting provinces, and rewarding compliant provinces, as well as attempting to shame them as 'soft on crime', or 'separatists' etc. If supreme court challenges to his crime bills fail, then maybe the provinces can drag their heels in implementation until after the next election, when he'll be consigned to the dustbin of history like the post-Mulroney Conservative party.