As Unitarians we are each committed to use our own reason and values in arriving at our positions on any topic. For a topic as controversial as the effect of the War on Drugs on American and Canadian societies, we are certain to have differences of opinion. We will have an opportunity to explore those differences here in this space after the conclusion of this service.

I do believe our values as Unitarians point us in a direction different from that now being pursued. We in North America have the largest proportion of our population in prison than any other developed society, the United States first, and Canada second, largely due to our policy toward those convicted of drug related crime. We have a high level of property crime, largely due to the artificially high price of drugs, created by the laws against them.

We see the drug black market created by the drug laws providing income for organized crime at home and terrorist groups abroad, such as that which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York before our very eyes.

Why have we Unitarians as individuals been relatively silent about this problem? We were at the forefront of those struggling for abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, equal rights for Blacks, and an end to unjust war. From Thoreau's imprisonment in opposition to the War in Mexico, to more recent opposition to the War in Vietnam, we have not been reticent. Are we so muted on the conflict between our values and present drug policy for fear of being seen as being in favour of the use of drugs?

We did have a General Assembly resolution on the subject as early as 1970. "An Alternative to the War on Drugs" was adopted as a Study/Action issue of our continental denomination at the June 2000 General Assembly in Nashville. A computer search of the UUA website produces over ten hits, and it was the subject of an article in the UU World November/December 2000. A social action group has been formed, UUs for Drug Policy Reform, with their own website and electronic discussion list. You may find them at http://www.uudpr.org/ (if you speak "url").

In 1974 there was a Canadian Unitarian Council resolution in favour of control and rehabilitation as opposed to harsh punitive measures, and that soft drugs be under Food and Drug Regulations as opposed to the Narcotics Control Act. Several congregations made proposals to this effect before the LeDain Royal Commission.

But this subject has not caught our individual imaginations as some other causes have done.

Often, I think, we fail to make a basic distinction between our more basic values and our more transitory opinions. Values are usually formed early in life, and usually remain fairly constant. Opinions evolve. If you have the same opinions as five years ago, and still hold the same ones five years hence, you are perhaps inactive from the ears up! It's time for our attitudes on addressing the problems associated with drugs to change.

My values had to be formed, and articulated, by the time I was 19. I was almost expelled from university for supporting the application of a Black student for admission. I was in a room with the Dean of my College, the Minister of by Church, the Judge of the County Supreme Court, all telling me I was wrong. I knew I was right. (Probably the beginning of my pigheadedness.)

Let me attempt to state those values. You will notice some similarity to the Unitarian statement of principles, which gave me new ways of saying that to which I already adhered, and made me feel at home in this movement.

The ultimate value is the self aware human personality. That which damages it is evil; that which helps it is good.

Human personalities are to be respected and their rights protected regardless of colour, religion, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation. This is particularly important at the moment as our fellow Canadians who are Muslim or Arab, or even mistaken to be such, are under attack.

Human personalities develop best in at atmosphere of intellectual artistic, economic, and political freedom. They require a society which guarantees their basic material needs.

While human personality is the supreme good, that personality exists in a society, and that society exists in a natural world. Humankind is part of the interwoven web of existence. Humankind should not wantonly cause unnecessary pain to any living creature, or wantonly destroy any species or part of nature.

In contrast to these values, my opinions evolve and change, often as the result of discussions and experience. Please allow me to give two examples. I was reared thinking that some relationships were too close for marriage (siblings, first cousins) although marrying second cousins was a time honoured tradition in my family. Similarly, I believed some relationships were too distant, such as members of another race. The experience of my luminously beautiful adopted daughter, whose biological mother was white, and biological father was Black, has changed my mind.

I was reared to believe that one did not cohabit before marriage. The experience of my daughters wanting to test drive their partners before accepting them as husbands and fathers of their children, has changed my mind.

Before attempting to relate the values I have outlined to the question of drugs (about which my opinions are, perhaps like yours, in flux) perhaps a statement of personal experience with them is in order. As those of you who know me are aware, I need no artificial assistance in lowering my level of inhibitions. In fact, a handy dandy drug which raised them a tad might be advantageous. So it is not moral strength but lack of need which explains the fact that I have never in my life smoked nicotine or pot, or used alcohol beyond wine or cider with a meal, or a Kahlua and cream after. My abhorrence of needles, if nothing else, would keep me away from injected drugs.

Do you remember the scene in "Days of Wine and Roses" in which the heroine Lee Remick is descending the elevator gobbling a chocolate bar? It was a harbinger of her susceptibility to becoming addicted. If that's any indication, not to mention my ongoing affair with DQ milk shakes, it's just as well I've not been tempted.

If you wish to consult a report of a Unitarian minister's personal experience in a drug experiment, in contrast to my lack of experience, I suggest Mike Young's "Reflections" in the November/December 2000 _UU World_. He makes a good case for the wrong headedness of lumping together non addictive recreational drugs and addictive drugs in terms of legal sanctions. He also points out the silliness of denying even addictive drugs to the terminal ill for fear of making them addicts. Of my friends, more have suffered from muggings and robberies to pay for another's habit, than have suffered from the ill effects of drug use themselves.

The question for me is, what approach to the ill effects of drugs would be most in accord with the values outlined earlier? There is no question in my mind that the use of drugs is not good for the user in many instances, although there is little correlation between the harm and the legal status of the drug. More die from nicotine and alcohol than pot. The median of time served in prison for murder or manslaughter, drug trafficking, and drug use, are all 40 months. Annual deaths per 100,009 of users is 650 for nicotine, 150 for alcohol, 80 for heroin, and 0 for cannabis. (Hoftstra Law Review 18:3 1990)

The harm created by moderate recreational use of recreational drugs is far less damaging than the legal consequences of being caught doing so. Some use of course should always justified: the terminally ill cancer patient among them.

The irony of the Robert Latimer case, in which a Canadian father was imprisoned for life for releasing his daughter from constant pain, is that if a fraction of the effort spent persecuting this father after the fact had been expended ameliorating his daughter's pain before the fact, the tragedy might have been avoided. While none of us wishes a slow, painful, death for ourselves, our society seems determined to force it on others by prolonging the dying process, denying sufficient pain treatment on the grounds that it might be addictive or hasten death, expending 40% of Canada's health care resources in the process.

Life should be measured by quality as well as quantity.

The argument that pot is a "gateway drug" has no validity in my view. Not only do must later coke users drink Coco-Cola first, but the primary reason pot serves as a gateway drug is that it does not have the ill effects predicted, and users have already become accustomed to disregarding and disbelieving both the law and the dire warnings. Both the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine concluded that any "gateway" effect of cannabis is due to the laws forcing people to the black market to acquire it. It has been repeatedly shown that making pot less available results in increased use of alcohol. In the Netherlands, where cannabis can be legally purchased and used, both alcoholism and hard drug use is declining, while in North America junkies are becoming more common, and their average age is going down.

Some drug use is increased by media coverage, earlier glue sniffing, and now gasoline sniffing, both of which decline when cannabis is available.

In terms of "sending the wrong message to youth" is concerned, my son Matthew points out that his daughters are quite capable of understanding why they are only allowed a sip of wine, while their parents may drink a glass. He also points out that hard drugs are easier for his children to obtain in a school yard than nicotine or alcohol, because the former are outside rational regulation. The same can be said for availability of drugs vs. alcohol in prisons. He points out that increased use of pot, rather than being a gateway, usually leads to decrease in the use of other drugs, including alcohol. He not too jokingly suggests that sending a good supply to pot to northern communities would be the most effective way of dealing with gasoline sniffing.

Currently the success of authorities in intercepting hard drug shipments is actually measured in the resultant increase of street price, leading in turn to an increase in house break-ins, sometimes resulting in the violent death of elderly residents. Other societies, and ours in the 19th century, showed that drug addicts could be maintained in their habits while functioning in society. The 20th century change in our treatment of drugs some have attributed to racial prejudice: anti Chinese in the case of heroin, and anti Mexican in the case of pot.

My experiences. and these facts, lead me to favour the repeal of all criminal drug laws, and the treatment of drug addiction as a social and medical problem. This is not an advocacy of drug use, whether it be overindulgence in alcohol, any use of nicotine, some form of hemp, or the hard drugs. It is a judgment of what might be the most effective way of reducing drug addition, and even more importantly, reducing the harm done to society by drug addicts. Drug use is a victimless crime, until that drug addict turns to violence to support the habit. That violence is a law created phenomenon.

Let us hope that the United States, our neighbours to the South, in funding their War on Terrorism, divert resources from their War on Drugs, rather than further cutting social services. Such cuts increase the despair which often results in seeking solace in drugs.

Half, I think it is now, of all prisoners are incarcerated because of drug offenses. Over half of the muggings, house break-ins, and store hold-ups are to support expensive drug habits, habits which are expensive because of the laws against them. Over half the ill effects of drugs, and most of their ill effects on society, would be solved by decriminalizing them, and treating their abuse as a social and medical problem. We seemed to have learned nothing from the failure of prohibition, which among other things strengthened the organized crime system, just as the drug laws are strengthening it today.

Among the strongest opponents of drug decriminalization are the drug producers and dealers. Their profit, and motive for hooking new users, would vanish.

I suspect there will always by a percentage among us who because of physical, chemical, psychological, or personality difficulties, will turn to drugs. Our task as a society should be to determine what methods will do most to minimize the damage to individuals and to society of drug use. In making that determination, we should not be doctrinaire.

We as Unitarians are more equipped to assist in that task than most. For us as citizens, I am suggesting that it is important that we individually be the grains of salt in society which season it with sanity, writing our members of parliament, and speaking up among those whom we encounter. Just as we participated in the challenge to conspicuous consumption in funerals, the recognition of our ecology as fragile, and the growing loss of social acceptability of racist and homophobic jokes, we can, despite our small numbers, make a difference in how drugs and perceived and handled. As Canadians, living in a less massive society that the one to the South, we have a greater chance of bringing sanity to bear on social issues, as we have done for medical care. We can expect misinformation to the South about whatever we may do, just as the American Medical Association spreads misinformation about our medical system. We should be concerned that the United States and Canada joined in turning down the Columbian suggestions the the subject of decriminalization be added to the agenda of the world drugs consultation. We do have the opportunity to demonstrate a better way.

We do have our First Nations tradition of restorative justice upon which to draw.

We Unitarians believing as we do in the value and dignity of each human individual, should attempt to bring rational and value related discussion to this vexed question. I invite you to join me and other concerned Unitarians in reexamining our attitudes on this troubling issue, and to bring the results of our thinking to bear on our society.