Attack of the LSD Gummy Bears

The RCMP issued a public warning on Saturday about LSD gummy bears. The story has been picked up by national media in Canada.An interesting angle to this is that one could allegedly buy LSD in Cranbrook, a small city in the interior of British Columbia (population 20,000, home of the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel).

LSD is supposed to be relatively scarce these days. Ryan Grim wrote a 2004 piece for Slate titled Who's Got the Acid?

Here's an excerpt:

Evidence of acid's decline can be found practically everywhere you look: in the number of emergency room mentions of the drug; in an ongoing federal survey of drug use; in a huge drop in federal arrests; and in anecdotal reports from the field that the once ubiquitous psychedelic is exceedingly difficult to score. In major cities and college towns where LSD was once plentiful, it can't be had at all.

Apparently that's not the case in Cranbrook.

What's our solution?

The British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV / AIDS just released an important scientific review. They looked at all known English language scientific literature focused on the link between drug law enforcement and violence. They identified fifteen studies completed over the last twenty years, of which thirteen suggested that more drug enforcement results in increased levels of violence. Here are links to the one page summary and the full report.

Here's the response from RCMP Staff Sergeant Dave Goddard, as quoted by The Province:

B.C. had 140 homicides in 2008, more than in any other year, and the RCMP deemed 30 per cent of those deaths were "gang-related".

But the UBC report is dismissed by RCMP Staff Sgt. Dave Goddard, who posed last week in front of 1,001 kilograms of cocaine seized from a sailboat, leading to charges against a Canadian and a Mexican.

"These intellectuals who come up with these ideas are great at pointing out the problem, but what's their solution?" demands Goddard.

RCMP hiring policy re: drug trafficking

Many police agencies in Canada could not staff themselves if they turned down every applicant who admitted past drug use. Usually this is limited to "soft" drugs, such as marijuana, LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Departments often have formal or informal waiting periods, such as a mandatory two or three year gap from the date of last drug use.

The 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey showed that approximately 44% of citizens have used cannabis at one time or another. With all the baby boomers about to retire, police departments have no choice but to hire a former pot head or two.

This article was posted on the CBC News web site back in March, but it is worth reading if you haven't already. It talks about a recent change to the RCMP hiring policy that allows recruiters to ""to permit consideration of mitigating factors in all cases of criminal activity, which may include drug trafficking, etc." This expands the common practise of hiring former drug users to also include former drug sellers.

Canada's Bill C-15 is before the Senate. This bill would create mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offences. And so we have an odd situation. At the very time Canada is bringing in harsher penalties for selling drugs, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has changed its policy so it can hire former drug dealers.

Now, the article emphasizes the force has no plans to hire professional drug traffickers. So the policy change is likely to enable the hiring of those who engaged in accommodation sales (for example, a young woman who once sold a couple of dime bags to her friends).

To sum up the situation: if you're a small time drug dealer with plans of becoming a Canadian police officer, there is still hope for you. Unless you get arrested and convicted, in which case you may be subject to a mandatory jail sentence.