Pubdate: Thu, 23 Nov 2006
Source: North Island Gazette (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 North Island Gazette
Contact:  http://www.northislandgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2783
Author: Tom Fletcher

CUT CRIME RATE: LEGALIZE DRUGS

VICTORIA -- Last week's column touched on crime rates around the 
province, which the B.C. government tracks by health region.

If you look at violent crime, serious property crime and non-cannabis 
drug crime, the safest place to live in B.C. is Vancouver Island. 
Next best is the Interior region.

In the middle of the pack is the Fraser region, the largest in the 
province by population, extending from Burnaby through the Fraser 
Valley to Hope.

Second worst is the vast Northern region, which includes roughly the 
top two thirds of the province. And the highest serious crime rates 
are in Vancouver Coastal, which includes Vancouver, Richmond, the 
North Shore and Sunshine Coast.

The good news is that the rate of serious crime has been going down 
in most parts of the province, the exception being the North, where 
serious crime went up by more than eight per cent from 2001 to 2004.

The bad news, as I'm reminded by a new discussion paper just released 
by the B.C. Progress Board, is that B.C. still ranks in the top third 
of Canadian provinces in all categories of major crime.

The discussion paper, prepared by Simon Fraser University criminology 
professors Robert Gordon and Bryan Kinney, contains some provocative 
suggestions. When it comes to illegal drugs, for example, the 
professors conclude that B.C. has only three choices:

1. Lobby the federal government to legalize the drug trade, 
controlling it as tobacco and alcohol are regulated today.

2. Eliminate the organized criminal drug trade by way of a major 
expenditure in new police teams, legislation targeting money 
laundering and proceeds of crime, increased penalties and 
construction of new jails.

3. Combine options one and two, with a crackdown on organized crime 
followed by a phased-in decriminalization and legalization.

Of course the Conservative government in Ottawa will embrace 
legalization about the same time Hell opens for public skating. 
Stephen Harper is reputed to be a libertarian at heart, but his 
justice and public safety posse, Vic Teows and Stock Day, are 
hang-'em high "social conservatives" who were appointed to play to 
the party's older support base, and only support increased drug penalties.

The criminologists argue that legalizing drugs isn't likely to 
increase demand much more. If people want drugs in today's society 
they will find a way to get them, or manufacture even worse 
substitutes like crystal meth.

Nearly all the street crime, the car and house break-ins that 
ordinary people are all too familiar with, is perpetrated in the 
pursuit of drugs. As for violent crime, if you take away the 
drug-related shootings and stabbings, you're left mainly with those 
crimes of passion that so often committed in a fog of intoxication.

The report warns that there is a fourth option, which is to maintain 
the status quo. For B.C. that means continuing to have Canada's most 
lenient courts, combined with a relatively benign climate to make 
B.C. the destination of choice for Canada's sophisticated criminals.

As things stand, B.C. currently has twice the rate of drug crime as 
any other province. And since legalization is currently not a viable 
option politically, the practical choice would be to increase 
sentences for major drug crime.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman