The 1980’s ended with Canada making tentative moves away from its traditional strict prohibitionist policy on drugs. The Canadian Drug Strategy (CDS) placed the problem of substance abuse squarely in the health issue frame and called for a solution that would balance supply reduction and demand reduction initiatives (Health Canada 1998). But whatever tentative steps forward the CDS achieved in shifting the definition of illicit drug use to something other than a criminal matter were effectively undermined by one giant legislative leap back into the prohibitionist camp when the new Controlled Drugs and Substances Act was passed in 1996. The new law embraced the tough maximum penalties and extensive police powers articulated in the previous Narcotic Control Act, and iced the prohibitionist cake by actually adding resources to the arrest and prosecution capabilities of authorities (Erickson 1999).

It is tempting to see the hand of American influence at work in this seeming about-face in Canada’s drug policy direction. Was Canada emulating U.S. priorities and will it be propelled down the same policy cul-de-sac that has been paved by America’s bitter drug war experience as some drug reform advocates suggest (Beauchesne 2000, Alexander 1990, Oscapella 1993)?

These speculations give an odd twist to the “cultural lag” thesis which defines the differences between patterns of deviance in Canada and U.S. as matters only of degree and time (Hagan 1991). According to this view, Canada will one day experience the same high rates of crime and illicit drug use we see today in the U.S.--an assumption that underpins much of the alarmist crime coverage to be found in the portentous headlines on the evening television news. Ironically, drug law reform advocates make similar assumptions to buttress their argument that tough, prohibitionist legislation makes Canada subject to the problems that have grown out of U.S. drug policy and that now plague the American justice system.

An alternative view is that Canadian and American cultures differ fundamentally in their mythologies and social institutions to an extent that not only affects the degree to which crime, including illegal drug use, is a societal problem, but also significantly affects how the prohibitionist stance is played out in each nation. To understand why such differences might arise we must begin at the place where attitudes and national mythologies reside--in the realm of message, language and metaphor.

MEDIA, METAPHOR AND THE PUBLIC MIND

The media is a primary source of information for both Canadians and Americans on the whole gamut of public policy issues including drug abuse and crime. A poll in Canada found that 96% of respondents cited the news media as the source of their information about punishment of offenders (Roberts and Stalans 2000). And it is often American sources that are supplying the material. Over a broadcast day, 68% of the programming Canadians watch originates outside the country, primarily in the United States. During the peak viewing hours between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., foreign content makes up 74% of the programming Canadians watch (Friends of Canadian Broadcasting 1998).

The media, and particularly the American media, has tremendous power to shape public attitudes. Studies have documented how fluctuations in opinions in both countries are closely correlated with the media attention the issues receive (Iyengar and Lenart 1989). Whatever media audiences use to access their information--whether television, radio or print--they are exposed to behind-the-scenes editorial decisions about what is newsworthy, what is important, and how various policy options are packaged. These decisions combine to select and arrange what Lippman (1922) referred to as the “pictures in our head” and influence public attitude formation through two processes: agenda-setting and priming.