Cigarette prices keep going up and there are increasingly less places one is free to smoke. Cigarettes cannot be shown in stores and cannot be advertised. It is not an illegal habit – it is just an increasingly inconvenient one to enjoy. Even with the stigma of death being attached to each pack and the constant reminder of health repercussions to the smoker and those around them, smoking continues to be seen everywhere. However, it is not just the traditional corporate brands being enjoyed. Many of them are lesser known brands of contraband cigarettes. The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco and The Canadian Convenience Stores Association recently released a report explaining a connection between illegal cigarettes and organized crime including drug and weapons smuggling. The CCSA points to contraband cigarettes being the primary cause of difficulties felt by convenience store owners around the country.
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Several cities in Canada now have programs that provide safe crack pipes to drug users with the aim of curbing diseases like HIV. Programs like this and Canada’s government funded safe-injection sites are being criticized by the United Nations for violating the International Narcotics Control Board that Canada signed onto in 1988. The aim of the safe inhalation and injection sites in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver are to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis C. Laurel Ostfield from the Ontario Health Ministers office said, “The evidence shows — and this is evidence that’s supported by the World Health Organization — … that you really can prevent the spread of infectious diseases through safe inhalation or safe injection sites.”

Safe and Legal crack houses are a controversial topic, and for good reason. Having a government sanctioned spot for people to smoke a potent and dangerous drug can lead one to think that the Canadian government is condoning illegal activity. In Canada, crack cocaine is a Schedule 1 substance which holds a maximum possession sentence of 7 years, and a trafficking, production and exportation sentence of up to life. Critics have been arguing that the safe inhalation sites would further encourage crack addicts and would be diverting money from harm reduction and treatment.
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The militarization of the drug war (and other issues) has been a grave mistake and has caused the deaths of millions of innocent men, women and children throughout the world.

This reality serves only a small group of men and women whose job it is to manufacture weapons of war–at the expense of the other 95 percent of the world’s population.

If the pen is mightier than the sword (and corrupt politicians) then I suggest the United Nations use their collective pen to create a Pathway to Peace, namely:

1. Eliminate the prohibition of drugs
2. Legislate a prohibition on weapons of war

What would that look like…
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