FW: BILL S-10 HURTS PEOPLE, FAMILIES AND PUBLIC COFFERS

The following is a news release from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network / Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida.  The letter which is referenced in it is available in French and English on the Legal Network's website - www.aidslaw.ca/ (see News Releases or Communiqués). Please read the news release and the letter, consider what it has to say, and contact your MP or Party Leader - or both - and as many Senators as you wish, to express your concerns about this bill and, we hope, your objections to it.

Also, please forward this notice to your friends.

Canada must not follow the lead of the United States on this critical matter. It is not prudent, responsible or humane.

Walter Cavalieri
The Canadian Harm Reduction Network

---

News Release / Communiqué

For immediate release / Également disponible en français

BILL S-10 HURTS PEOPLE, FAMILIES AND PUBLIC COFFERS
Over 200 experts call on Senators to be sensible on crime

Toronto, 6 October 2010 — Over 200 frontline organizations, public health
professionals, researchers and experts — working with people who use drugs and those
vulnerable to HIV infection — have endorsed a letter calling on the federal government to
get sensible, rather than tough on crime.

This action comes as the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
deliberates this week on whether to hold hearings on Bill S-10 (an Act to amend the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential
amendments to other Acts). The letter — endorsed by the Committee's own former cochair,
Senator Pierre Claude Nolin — urges Committee members to respond to the public
health problem of drug addiction by focusing on scientifically proven approaches instead
of demonstrably ineffective ones, such as mandatory minimum sentences. If the
Committee chooses not to hold hearings, crucial expert testimony may never be heard.

"As currently drafted, Bill S-10 would target the most marginalized people living with
addictions, whose only engagement with trafficking is often related to their drug
dependence," said Patricia Allard, Deputy Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal
Network. "Additionally, a Canadian study found that over 80 percent of federally
incarcerated women are mothers of minor children. Are child-service agencies prepared
for the number of legal orphans likely to land on their doorsteps should S-10 see the light
of day?"

"The 30-year war on drugs waged by the U.S. government, and its disastrous
experiments with mandatory sentencing, offer all the evidence we need that incarcerating
people for minor drug offences is counterproductive to addressing the issue of addiction
and is detrimental to public health," stated Walter Cavalieri, Chair of the Canadian Harm
Reduction Network.

According to Ms. Allard, "evidence shows that imprisoning people who inject drugs fans
the flames of Canada's HIV epidemic. The HIV prevalence rate in Canadian prisons is at
least 10 times that found in the population as a whole."

---

This email was sent to you by the Canadian Harm Reduction Network http://www.canadianharmreduction.com
To unsubscribe from our mailing list, please reply to this message, with the subject of your mail reading "Unsubscribe" (without the quotes).