Toronto

Situated 566 feet above sea level on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, Toronto is one of the southernmost cities in Canada.

As the capital of Ontario, Toronto is the seat of government for Canada’s most populous province and is the industrial and business centre for the country.
Toronto is home to a vast multicultural population and is welcoming to all.

Toronto Moves Toward Four Pillars-Style Drug Policy

After a comprehensive 18-month review of drug policy in Canada's largest city, Toronto's Drug Strategy Advisory Committee has issued a report calling on the city to adopt a comprehensive approach to drugs similar to the Four Pillars strategy (prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and law enforcement) adopted across the continent in Vancouver earlier this decade. Containing 66 specific recommendations, the Toronto Drug Strategy calls for increased emphasis on prevention, the decriminalization of cannabis possession, and a larger role for harm reduction programs, including consideration of a safe injection site for hard drug users similar to the one already in operation in Vancouver.

The advisory committee included five city councilors, including committee chair Councillor Kyle Rae, as well as representatives of the city's public health, police, housing, and social development departments and representatives from Health Canada and the Canadian Department of Justice. It also included 26 community members representing drug prevention, treatment, mental health, and harm reduction organizations. Notably, and in stark contrast with similar panels in the United States, the committee also explicitly included drug user representatives as stakeholders in drug strategy issues.

The strategy is also remarkably brief when it comes to the law enforcement component, limiting its enforcement calls to supporting "increased enforcement efforts... targeting high-level drug traffickers, importers, and producers of illegal substances" and "ensuring resources are available... to effectively respond to illegal drug production operations such as marijuana grow operations." Other than that, the strategy largely calls on law enforcement to ramp down. Other policing recommendations include urging increased use of drug court instead of incarceration, exploring "alternative enforcement strategies" such as merely ticketing drug users, and exploring alternative community justice approaches.

On the harm reduction front, the strategy calls for Toronto to expand already existing needle exchange and other harm reduction programs, "including the provision of equipment to support safer use of substances... to reach marginalized users, in particular people who use crack cocaine." Other harm reduction recommendations include funding a 24-hour drug crisis center, more harm reduction programs in shelters, and more harm reduction programs in jails and prisons, including needle exchange.

sources : http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/408/morepillars.shtm

 

The challenges facing Toronto The Research Group on drug use in Toronto records that between 1995 -1997, the cocaine use in Toronto students is 1.9% to 2.7%. (1999) In 1997 Ontario Student Drug Use Survey reports that 3.2% of all students report using at least one inhalant drug during the year. Research Group on Drug Use, January 29,1999. Students in grade 7 are more likely to inhale glue or other solvents, compared to students in grades 9, 11, and 13. The percentage is 5.8% vs. 1% -3%. Research Group on Drug Use, January 29, 1999. In the 1997 Ontario on Drug Use Survey,1.4% of all students reported both uncontrolled use and other problems of cannabis. November 2, 1998. Cannabis use among adolescents students in Canada per year - Alberta 16%, British Columbia 48%, Vancouver 48%, Halifax 34%, Montreal 24%, Toronto 18%. November 2, 1998. In an Ontario province wide survey of 3,870 students in grades 7, 9, 11 and 13 found that almost 1/3 reported exposure to drug selling. July 15, 1996.