Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jan 2003
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Michael T. Mulligan
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n091/a01.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

THE KEY IS TO TREAT DRUG ADDICTION

Re: "Drug dealers thrive despite added heat," Jan. 20.

I am a criminal lawyer and have had some considerable experience dealing 
with individuals charged with drug offences. Accordingly, I read with some 
interest Jack Knox's column, which begins with the proposition that now 
that we've decided to treat drug addiction like a real illness, we should 
treat drug dealing like a real crime.

While there is certainly a category of drug trafficking that occurs on a 
commercial scale and might properly be described as serious, parasitic 
activity, this will not be abated by police officers on bicycles repeatedly 
arresting individuals selling minute quantities of drugs on the street corner.

Contrary to Sgt. Darren Laur's suggestion, it has been my experience that 
the vast majority of the individuals charged with street-level trafficking 
offences are, themselves, rather pathetic drug addicts who are involved in 
this activity in order to support their own unsustainable habit.

It was my experience, when I spent some time at the beginning of my career 
doing drug prosecution work, that if the risk of death involved with the 
use of intravenous drugs was not going to deter a user, the risk of myself, 
or Laur, sending someone to jail will not do so either.

While our enforcement efforts fail to impact on the availability of drugs, 
they do succeed in increasing their cost and as a consequence we have 
stories such as another one on Jan. 20: "Grocery owner uses broomstick to 
thwart knife-wielding robber."

By ineffectively restricting supply we also manage to create a lucrative 
market for individuals to engage in commercial level drug trafficking.

While it is not as viscerally satisfying as the idea of longer jail 
sentences for street level drug traffickers, it is indeed the treatment of 
addiction that will both prevent Laur from banging his head against the 
wall enforcing our present policy -- and also reduce the need for shop 
owners to fend off desperate people with broomsticks.

Michael T. Mulligan, Victoria.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager