Controlled Drug and Substances Act Essay

Illicit Substance Use and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA)

Illicit substance use in society is addressed by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). It was implemented in January 2002 with the intention of managing, regulating, and enforcing the sale and use of dangerous substances in Canada. (Vallerand et al., 2016). The Narcotic Control Act, which deals with narcotics, and the Food and Drug Act, which deals with prescription medications, were the two acts that were previously in use.

CDSA Offenses and Summary Convictions

There are some CDSA offenses that don’t require fingerprinting. Since they involve crimes from schedules II, III, and IV, the majority of these criminal acts are not punishable by an indictment. They include minor offenses with less serious penalties than those listed in other schedules. These charges are mainly punishable by way of summary convictions (Boyce, et al., 2014). A summary conviction means that the punishment is less severe, involves shorter charges and small fines.

Double Doctoring and the CDSA

Double doctoring is the act of seeking authorization to acquire a particular type of medication from more than one medical practitioner (Gomes, et al., 2014). In most cases, it is illegal and impossible to obtain the medication from different professionals as it would result in possession of greater amounts of a drug. Double doctoring is illegal for substances in schedules I, II, II, and IV. Section 4(2) in the CDSA deals with double-doctoring offenses; it states that persons shall not obtain substances in schedules I, II, III, and IV from a practitioner unless there is disclosure and no other professionals are involved (Haines-Saah, et al., 2014).

Enforcement and Awareness of Double Doctoring

Since police officers in Canada are responsible for enforcement of the CDSA, they should be aware of double-doctoring (Chan et al., 2014). It results in drug and substance abuse in the sense that individuals have access to an excess quantity of the substance. Possession may lead to trafficking.

References

Boyce, J., Cotter, A. & Perreault, S. (2014). Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2013. Juristat: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 1.

Chan, W., & Chunn, D. (2014). Racialization, crime, and criminal justice in Canada. University of Toronto Press.

Gomes, T., Juurlink, D., Yao, Z., Camacho, X., Paterson, J.M., Singh, S., ... & Mamdani, M. (2014). Impact of legislation and a prescription monitoring program on the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescriptions for monitored drugs in Ontario: a time series analysis. CMAJ open, 2(4), E256.

Haines-Saah, R.J., Johnson, J.L., Repta, R., Ostry, A., Young, M.L., Shoveller, J., ... & Ratner, P.A. (2014). The privileged normalization of marijuana use-an analysis of Canadian newspaper reporting, 1997-2007. Critical public health, 24(1), 47-61.

Vallerand, A. H., Sanoski, C. A., & Deglin, J. H. (2016). Davis’s Canadian Drug Guide for Nurses. FA Davis.