That is not to say that Canada’s drug policy is cause for complacency. In recent years, more than 70% of drug offences in Canada involved cannabis, and cannabis possession charges have driven the overall trend in this category of offence (Tremblay 1999). Thousands of Canadians have been needlessly imprisoned at great public expense and little public benefit. But while Canadian practices are not as progressive as some European nations, neither are they reflective of the severity or fervour of America’s policy of war. Here, judges are not constrained by minimum sentences while police officers can cooperate with public health workers to reduce the harm, if not the incidence, of illicit drug use in local communities through the use of discretion in applying the law as it is written.

As Patricia Erickson points out, a tough law on the books does not always translate into tough action:

While the punitive direction of Canada’s drug laws has not changed, but even intensified, there have also been contrasting developments in policy at more local levels of practice. Several emerging issues [including needle and syringe exchange programs, expanded methadone treatment programs] can be considered to illustrate Canada’s tendency to moderate its severe federal laws with its expertise in public health and education in provincial jurisdictions (Erickson 1999:27).

What can be concluded is that while America is at war with drugs, Canada’s tough-talking legislation has not translated into the same carpet-bombing engagement that has characterized our southern neighbour’s reaction to illicit drugs. Clearly the tough language of law is playing out in two different cultural and political contexts. To understand those contexts, a look back at both nations’ earlier experiments with intoxicant prohibition might be instructive.

THE NOBLE EXPERIMENT

Alcohol prohibition, or the “noble experiment” as it was known, was instituted in Canada and the United States during the early decades of the twentieth century. Although stemming from similar roots, the implementation of alcohol prohibition on either side of the border reflected differences between the two nations--differences that continue to affect public policy choices today.

Prohibition had its roots in the Christian Temperance Movement, a very popular, successful and long-lived social movement that was meant to bring moderation and temperance to a pioneer society where heavy drinking, and its associated problems, were common. Early Temperance organizations came mostly from the United States and were closely associated with Methodism and other fundamentalist Protestant, particularly Baptist, religious groups. The Anglican and Catholic Churches, on the other hand, remained largely aloof from the cause.

The Temperance Movement can easily be framed as a manifestation of Victorian morality, racism and prudery. Shifting the perspective to the role Temperance supporters played in highlighting social inequalities and women’s issues sets the stage for a somewhat different discourse on its role in Canadian history. At a time when the Anglican Church was pre-eminent in Canada, the Temperance cause was identified early in its career as a lower middle-class movement associated with liberalism. Early Temperance societies in Ontario included almost all members of the reform movement including Egerton Ryerson and Jessie Ketchum, who were both active in the 1837 Rebellion against the established Family Compact (Smart and Ogborne 1996).