Pubdate: Sat, 31 Dec 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Paul Willcocks
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

TO DEAL WITH GUNS, WE MUST DEAL WITH DRUGS

VICTORIA - Years ago I interviewed an American police officer who was
on an exchange with an Alberta RCMP detachment.

So what's the biggest difference up here, I asked?

He didn't hesitate.

Back in Washington state he had to assume that every driver he stopped
might have a gun. He approached every car as if he could be shot.

We're nowhere near that point in Canada. Despite alarming cases in
Toronto and Vancouver, the rate of gun deaths has steadily declined
over the last 20 years. We'll probably end up with fewer than 50
homicides in B.C. this year. Vancouver will have more than 20, and
only half will involve guns.

Meanwhile more than 40 British Columbians will die working in the
forest industry, and more than 400 of us will commit suicide. Gun
violence is among the least of our problems.

But perhaps a rising one. The overall downward trend reflects changes
in rural Canada, where fewer homes now have firearms. In urban areas,
and especially within some cultural groups, gun violence is on the
rise. Vancouver police report the number of gun incidents they deal
with has been rising by about six per cent a year -- not
extraordinary, but a worry.

The Boxing Day shootout on Toronto's Yonge Street, which killed a
young girl and left six wounded, has helped create a public demand for
a real attack on gun violence. The question is what's needed.

A good start would be some honesty. The rise in gun use isn't a broad
trend. In Toronto, more than 50 people have been shot dead this year.
The victims have been mainly young black men. In Vancouver, young
Indo-Canadian men have been doing much of the shooting, and the dying.
Gangsters and posers are carrying the guns, police say.

Break up the gangs, take the glamour from the life, and you take the
largest single step to solving the problem.

Tougher laws and gun controls aren't going to make much difference. A
person willing to spray bullets through the windows of a townhouse is
not much worried about consequences. You already go to jail for that.
And if a handgun costs $3,000 because the supply is limited, it simply
offers more status.

The most obvious solution is to attack the gangs' foundation -- the
big money to be made in selling drugs. The National Post reported that
the Boxing Day gunfight in Toronto was over drug sales on that stretch
of Yonge Street.

Just as Prohibition created Al Capone and a generation of gangsters,
our approach to illegal drugs has created a new, violent world of gangs.

Criminals would still be around without the drug trade, and gangs
would still attract young men with no skills, no support and no
prospects. But break-ins, counterfeiting, robbery -- those are all
work, and none offer the huge, easy money provided by drugs. Gangs
without serious money have limited appeal.

Prohibition proved that people who need or want a drug will get it.
Suppliers will emerge, despite seizures, arrests and threats from rivals.

That remains true. Drug enforcement efforts have cost Canadians more
than $2 billion over the last five years, according to the federal
auditor-general.

And today illegal drugs are cheaper, more potent and more widely
available than ever. The supply hasn't been reduced. Drug dealers
haven't disappeared.

We've just preserved a marketplace that encourages the growth of
violent gangs and pushes drug users into a world of desperation,
degradation and petty crime.

There are lots of issues to look at in dealing with gun violence,
including an honest examination of why some cultural groups seem drawn
into that world.

But let's start by getting practical. Let's set a target of reducing
illegal drug use by 50 per cent in Vancouver by 2010.

That means a massive commitment to education, addiction treatment
programs, and much broader support -- housing, coaching, counselling
- -- for people trying to get and stay off drugs.

And it means a recognition that it makes sense to legalize some drug
use. Addicts would be spared the daily scramble for money, and the
property crime rate would fall. The gangs would lose the cash that
makes them alluring, and allows them to survive.

To deal with gun violence, we need to deal with gangs. And to deal
with gangs, we need to change our approach and smarten up about drug
use.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin