Lecture Nine – HIST 277/LS 237

IncreasingAcceptanceoftheMedicalUnderstanding
ofAddiction andtheQuestionofthe
AppropriateRoleforLawEnforcement
1950s-1990s
 Drug User as Victim
• The medical community had recognized a condition of “habitual”
use and begun to construct addiction as a bodily condition by the
late 1800s
• Concept of the “white” drug user as a “victim” also develops
• By early 1900s, drug use was also equated with violent crime and
sexual misconduct
• And seen as a threat due to the widespread application of contagion
theory to drug users
• This concept of drug use and the drug user, although medical in
many ways, encouraged a law enforcement approach
• Drug use was represented as such a serious threat to the individual
body and to the Canadian body politic that incarceration was
viewed as the only reasonable way to prevent further injury
• Law enforcement approach also due to the centralization of One cover of Emily Murphy’s
authority in the Narcotics Division “The Black Candle”
 From Victim to Criminal Addict
• From the 1920s onward, the paradox of the drug user as a victim/criminal
was replaced with the representation of drug users as psychologically
deranged
• Two ways of classifying the causes of drug use were developed by the
medical and law enforcement communities
• The first was to view drug users as mentally ill (medical)
• The second view ( law enforcement) was that most users were criminals
• By the 1950s, the criminality of drug users was believed to have preceded
the drug use
• Both the medical and law enforcement discourses of the nature of drug
use co-existed from the 1920s to 1950s
• Each model argued for or employed confinement and no treatment
programs were available
• The Narcotic Division ignored attempts by some physicians to medicalizeShoplifting to support drug habit
responses to drug use and challenges to the law enforcement approach From: “Harm Reduction, 50s Style”
were few 17 August 2008, Past Tense Vancouver
pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com Link
 Revival of the Treatment Model 1950s
• In the 1950s, several changes allowed the medical treatment movement to
revive the notion of drug users as ill individuals requiring medical attention
rather than criminals
• In Vancouver, an independent committee to examine the city's drug
problem was established
• The report of the committee (Ranta Report) made only two
recommendations, yet both fundamentally challenged Canadian
approaches to illicit drug use at the time
• The first called for a pilot medical treatment and rehabilitation centre for
drug users
• The second advocated provincial narcotics clinics where registered
narcotics users could receive maintenance doses of drugs
• A permanent medical lobby for treatment, the Standing Committee on the
Prevention of Narcotic Addiction was created in 1952 and continued to Edna MacCullins
advocate for treatment (compulsory) and maintenance From: “Harm Reduction, 50s Style”
17 August 2008, Past Tense Vancouver
• The medical model and medical community was beginning to reassert its
pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com Link
power/authority over the issue of drugs and drug users
 Treatment vs. Law Enforcement 1950s
• Treatment model receives tentative support from BC government and
Department of Health
• Led the government to create the Special Senate Committee on the Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs in 1955 Link to a Summary of the Report
• During the hearings, the Minister of Health and the law enforcement
community countered the medical/treatment model
• The Committee's Final Report accepted the need for treatment but viewed it as
an additional means of confining drug users rather than as an alternative
• And Committee rejected the idea of maintenance doses as a treatment option
• Still the treatment model and medical construct was slowly gaining credence in
government
• In 1957, government removed the minimum 6-month sentence for possession
• The Narcotic Control Act (1961) did contain one important change that allowed
physicians to prescribe Controlled Substances Special Senate Committee Members
• Led to the opening of treatment such as Methadone clinics in 1960s From: “Harm Reduction, 50s Style”
17 August 2008, Past Tense Vancouver
pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com
 Medical vs. Law Enforcement 1970s
• Several pressures lead to questioning and modifying the dominant
policy of strict enforcement and criminalization over 1960s, 70s
• Increase in youth drug use and overloading of the Courts
• New and competing interest groups, including the more
“respectable” middle-class drug user
• These factors impact the Le Dain Commission hearings and its
recommendations
• The Commission rejected several constructs critical to a law
enforcement approach to drug use
• Reveals a major change towards drug use and public health being
discursively placed under the purview of the medical community
• Still, many drug treatment and research facilities were placed From: “Experimental Estimates of
within the criminal justice system Cannabis
Consumption in Canada”, 1960 to 2015,
• And conviction and arrest rates for drug offences continued to rise
18 December 2017, Statistics Canada
throughout the 1970 and in to the 1980s
www150.statcan.gc.ca Link to Article
 Reduction in the Law Enforcement
Approach 1970s-80s
• The policy approach and attitudes of Canadians
appeared to be heading in the direction of less
criminalization through the 70s and 80s
• 1969 amendment allowed for fine-only option for
marijuana possession and a 1972 provision added for
absolute or conditional discharges
• Also a new public awareness of the rights of drug users
led to further legislative changes that protected the
legal rights of users
• These changes led to less pressure for reform of the law
News reports in the 1970s suggested
or for debate on how to respond to drug use (and polls that PM Trudeau had smoked pot and his
showed Canadians were less concerned about the issue) wife, Margaret, continued to do so.
• Greater social acceptance of use of substances like Original Source:
marijuana Toronto Star, January 4, 1994, p. A1
 Resurgence of Prohibitionism 1986-1990s?
• In 1986, Canada follows the US and declares that Canada was experiencing • Drugs, Drugs, Drugs PSA 1
an “epidemic” in drug use 990s
• Despite little concern about the issue and evidence that drug use among
youth was actually decreasing (since the high in 1979)
• In 1987 the government introduced a new “national drug strategy” with a
focus on reducing “the harm to individuals, families and communities”
• Link above to a PSA from
• 70 percent was to go for prevention and treatment; 30 percent for
enforcement and control 1990 developed by
Concerned Childrens
• Contradictory approach as a resurgence of prohibitionism did go along with
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the emphasis on treatment
• Evidenced by an increase in police enforcement and incarceration for drug • Features an anti-drug rap
offences song aimed at children
• In part the resurgence of a law enforcement approach resulted from • Consider the method used
growing concerns about drug use by latter 1980s, in particular crack and to educate children about
cocaine drug use in this
• More money was being devoted to treatment and to public education commercial
programs intended to stop drug use, or to encourage responsible use