Floyd Wiebe's comment on Drug Strategy is captured in the Free Press...

By Joe Paraskevas

Tory drug plan earns applause, little criticism
Focus on both prevention and enforcement welcomed

The father of a young man murdered in a drug-related crime, who has set up a foundation that supports youth drug awareness and education, also applauded the government's emphasis on both prevention of drug use and law enforcement.

"What makes us excited about today is that two-thirds of this funding is based on exactly what we stand for and one-third is based on putting (people) away very strongly for bringing the drugs into the public," said Floyd Wiebe, director of the Winnipeg-based T.J.'s Gift Foundation, named for his son.

"I've never heard of anything this vast or this comprehensive," added Wiebe, who was among a group that met with Harper before his announcement. "I love the two-step approach, two step meaning education and enforcement. ...You can come down with all kinds of laws to put drug dealers away, that's not going to solve your issue."

Following is the entire article...

Fri Oct 5 2007

By Joe Paraskevas



EXPERTS hailed the federal government's anti-drug strategy Thursday, saying it's a balance between tough law enforcement and compassion for young drug users.
Some, however, gave the strategy little chance of succeeding, saying the strategy's attempts to change social attitudes towards drugs were misguided.

And amid the reaction to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's announcement, there was also disbelief that this was the same politician who had built a reputation on viewing illegal drug use largely as a criminal issue.

"The first thing that struck me was I was surprised at how much was earmarked for what they call prevention and treatment," said University of Manitoba criminologist Frank Cormier.

According to Harper, $63.8 million will be divided between preventing illegal drug use, treating drug dependencies and fighting drug production and trafficking.

"Given... the approach to crime and justice from this government, I expected, just based on past behaviour, more of an enforcement approach than a treatment approach," Cormier added.
Still, he gave the strategy a thumbs up.

"I agree with the approach, that is, putting more emphasis on treatment and tackling the problem itself rather than reacting to it and locking people up," Cormier said.

But he questioned the strategy's aim of changing social attitudes towards illegal drugs.

"If you approached the vast majority of young people in the country and said, 'What do you think about using crystal meth or smoking crack cocaine?' I think they'd say that's a bad thing to do," Cormier said. "So, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of ground to be gained there."

An addiction specialist also saw potential for concern among advocates of so-called harm-reduction programs, such as Vancouver's safe-injection facility, that create safe conditions for drug users. The government appeared to favour "just-say-no" programs that were aimed at stopping youth or addicts from using drugs, said John Borody, chief executive of the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, a provincial agency that treats about 10,000 people each year for drug, alcohol and gambling addictions.

Law enforcement officials welcomed the Tory plan.

"For the last, I would say, eight years, 10 years, we've had mixed messages here, with the report on the legalization of marijuana, with the bill on decriminalization of marijuana," said Tony Cannavino, president of the Canadian Police Association, an advocacy organization that represents about 55,000 police personnel across Canada. "Well, what happened? It (normalized) the use of marijuana. A lot of people in Canada think that it's legal to smoke marijuana and (think) it's not worse than tobacco. Well, tobacco is very harmful for your health. Imagine marijuana.

"We're getting on a track where we're going to be targeting drug dealers but we're going to help people struggling with a drug addiction," Cannavino said. "Police officers are happy to see that there's prevention, there's treatment and there's also education for kids." The father of a young man murdered in a drug-related crime, who has set up a foundation that supports youth drug awareness and education, also applauded the government's emphasis on both prevention of drug use and law enforcement.

"What makes us excited about today is that two-thirds of this funding is based on exactly what we stand for and one-third is based on putting (people) away very strongly for bringing the drugs into the public," said Floyd Wiebe, director of the Winnipeg-based T.J.'s Gift Foundation, named for his son.

"I've never heard of anything this vast or this comprehensive," added Wiebe, who was among a group that met with Harper before his announcement. "I love the two-step approach, two step meaning education and enforcement. ...You can come down with all kinds of laws to put drug dealers away, that's not going to solve your issue."


joe.paraskevas@freepress.mb.ca

Floyd Wiebe - TJ's Gift Foundation - www.tjsgift.com