Overview
An increasing number of jurisdictions across Canada and around the world support the concept of a balanced and integrated drug strategy, although how this plays out in terms of budgets, policies and activities varies greatly. Strategies typically embrace and attempt to find balance between supply reduction and demand reduction aims through prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction activities. Integration between these arenas or pillars is important because activities within one arena can affect the others, either positively or negatively. Those developing drug strategies or particular measures at any level (i.e., municipally, provincially, federally) need to consider and take guidance from the three International United Nations Conventions to which Canada is a signatory: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961); the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971); and the Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988).
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Selected Readings
Drug Treatment CourtsCanadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), March 2007
Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2008
International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), 2009
Drug Situation in Canada - 2007 [PDF]
Criminal Intelligence Directorate, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)Alcohol Intelligence
The Globe, U.K., Issue 2, 2006
Expanding Drug Treatment Courts in Canada
Backgrounder, Department of Justice Canada, June 2005
Marihuana Growing Operations in British Columbia Revisited: 1997-2003 [PDF]
University College of the Fraser Valley, March 2005United States - Canada Border Drug Threat Assessment 2007Government of Canada and the Government of the United States,
March 2008
Drug Recognition Expert TestingDepartment of Justice Canada, April 2004
Trends in Drug Offences and the Role of Alcohol and Drugs in Crime (2002) [PDF]
Juristat, Statistics Canada, Vol. 24, No. 1, February 2004
Green Tide: Indoor Marihuana Cultivation and its Impact on Ontario [PDF]
Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP), 2003
Toronto Drug Treatment Court Policies and Procedures Manual [PDF]
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), undated
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