Canada

Canada, located in northern North America, borders the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Pacific Ocean on the west, the Arctic Ocean on the north, and the conterminous United States on the south. With a population of approximately 33.5 million, Canada is a highly developed liberal democracy that retains ties to the British crown.

Canada has relatively high rates of illegal drug use. Based on United Nations (UN) estimates, approximately 17 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 64 use marijuana annually. Canada also has some of the world's highest rates of cocaine consumption, with an estimated 2.3 percent of the population using cocaine annually. Rates of use of amphetamine-type stimulants, opiate drugs, and other recreational drugs are also relatively high in Canada.

Prior to 1908 in Canada there were virtually no restrictions on the consumption of drugs that are now illegal, and narcotics were widely available and prescribed by doctors in what today might be called “a libertarian model.” The Opium Act of 1908 (and that of 1911) forms the basis of Canadian drug legislation, as subsequent modifications have dealt solely with the law enforcement process and the number of drugs included in the act. Over the last century more and more drug affairs kept police services busy. This entry will analyze the progression of drug affairs in Canada through the last 20 years.

Under the Canadian federalist system, drug laws are part of the Criminal Code, which is the responsibility of the federal government. Canadian provinces and territories are bound by the Criminal Code, and responsible for enforcing it. The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) adopted in 1996 currently constitutes the main piece of drug legislation in Canada. This act legislates the possession, distribution, production, importation, and exportation of drugs such as opium and its derivatives (e.g., morphine, codeine, heroin), cocaine and its derivatives, PCP (Schedule 1), cannabis (Schedule 2 and Schedule 7 for less than 3 kilograms; Schedule 8 for less than 1 gram of hashish or 30 grams of marijuana) as well as amphetamines, methamphetamines, MDMA, mescaline, LSD, and hallucinogenic mushrooms (Schedule 3).

In 2002, two important reports on drug legislation were drawn up: both the report of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, by the Canadian Senate, and the report of the Special Committee on the Non-medical Use of Drugs, by the Canadian House of Commons, recommended that the act be repealed. The Senate report advocated legalizing drugs while the Commons report recommended decriminalizing cannabis possession. A bill was introduced supporting the decriminalization of individual possession of cannabis but leadership change within the leading political (Liberal) party, an election, and the rise to power of the Conservative Party all contributed to the bill's rejection.

It is interesting to note that the questioning of the relevance of current repressive drug policies around 2002 by two very important federal committees coincided with a halt in the upward trend [Page 125]in cannabis-related incidents reported by police that had been observed in the 1990s. Indeed, after the significant increase in such incidents during the 1990s, their numbers declined and subsequently stabilized. However, the situation was different for cocaine-related incidents, which grew from 14 percent of drug incidents in 2002 to 23 percent in 2007. Finally, incidents related to other types of drugs also increased significantly over this period, reflecting the appearance of new drugs on the Canadian market.

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