According to a 2020 Prison Policy Initiative study on mass incarceration, one in five incarcerated Americans are in prison because of a drug-related charge. In the U.S., there are approximately one million drug-related arrests each year, and six times as many arrests for drug possession as there are for drug sales. I myself have loved ones who have faced incarceration, familial ostracization, and travel restrictions because of petty drug charges. A somber weight bears down upon me at the thought of how many people continue to experience the brunt of these punishments. In Canada, new legislation such as Bill C-5 and the proposed Bill C-22 may appear progressive by repealing mandatory minimum drug sentences for drug offenses, but these reforms do little to address the systemic impacts of drug prohibition.
There are many reasons why public and legal tolerance of drug use is slow to develop. Stigma, anti-drug campaigns in schools, federal and state laws, racism, and no-tolerance drug policies at institutions like McGill continue to privilege out-of-sight, out-of-mind approaches to drug use that are rooted in racist and colonial value systems. By prohibiting and punishing drug use, such policies enact undue harm upon people, especially marginalized and minority communities. These attitudes, at a policy level, feed into the prison-industrial complex by justifying the incarceration of nonviolent offenders, and giving law enforcement more reason to harass and persecute. Certainly, using drugs comes with inherent risks, including physiological and psychological harm. But zero-tolerance drug policies have deleterious effects of their own. For one, they prevent scholars and researchers from asking serious questions about how drugs have affected human history, and how they could positively impact the future. And even worse, these policies can force people to hide their drug use. Fearing legal consequences, users are less likely to access services such as drug testing and safe-use facilitators that reduce said dangers.
There is a long history of political movements using drugs as symbols to scapegoat minority communities. For example, in the early 20th century, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Henry Anslinger promoted propaganda campaigns that used the Spanish word “marijuana” rather than “cannabis” to forge an association between cannabis use and Black and Latinx people. Aslinger’s campaign made xenophobia and anti-drug legislation one and the same. Later on, U.S. President Richard Nixon famously termed drug use “Public Enemy Number One” and initiated a “War on Drugs” that has resulted in the disproportionately high incarceration of Black and Latinx people, who are significantly more likely to receive harsh sentences for the same drug-related crimes as white people.
The criminalization of drug use is often associated with the U.S., and for good reason: The U.S. holds less than five per cent of the world’s population, but nearly 25 per cent of the world’s incarcerated people. However, targeting minorities by policing drug use isn’t limited to the U.S. In 2012, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government enacted Bill C-10 (the Safe Streets and Communities Act), which amped up legal consequences for minor drug offenses. It increased the maximum possible penalty for the production of Schedule II drugs—substances which included marijuana at the time—from seven to 14 years. Since the 1980s, Black communities in Canada have been systemically targeted by a kind of low-level war on drugs, as the Act facilitated intensive policing, racial profiling, and disproportionately high rates of incarceration for Black Canadians.
In an interview with //The McGill Tribune//, Alexandra Holtom, a knowledge mobilization specialist with the National Safe Supply Community of Practice (NSS-CoP) at the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) explained that this pattern of targeting minorities through drug policies continues into the modern day.
“When we’re talking about criminalization and prohibition, what we actually see is that people of colour, people who are racialized, people with disabilities, queer and trans folks, Indigenous folks all suffer disproportionately highly compared to white individuals, or people of higher class or status,” Holtom said.
CAPUD aims to empower and inform drug users by pushing for drug policy reform and giving drug users a voice in the creation of policies that affect them. At NSS-CoP, Holtom works to facilitate the development of medicalized safer supply models, which provide drug users with known quantities and qualities of legal pharmaceutical-grade drugs in an effort to prevent overdoses.
After decades of drug-related fearmongering in news and classrooms, the veils of confusion and apprehension that surround drug use are understandable, although I hesitate to use the term “natural.” Opioid overdoses, addiction, extreme paranoia, and psychosis are truly scary. But despite the harsh reality of these effects, not all illegal drugs induce these symptoms. Some illegal drugs could even potentially be used in therapies for certain conditions. Recent research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs––also known as entheogens or hallucinogens––suggest it might be a good idea to turn away from treating drugs as public enemy number one. One small study involving Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers found that two doses of psilocybin, the main active hallucinogenic chemical in a variety of fungi commonly known as “magic mushrooms,”, rapidly relieved depressive symptoms in adults with major depression. The drugs were given in combination with supportive psychotherapy.
