Pubdate: Wed, 29 Nov 2006
Source: Golden Star (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 The Golden Star
Contact:  http://www.thegoldenstar.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2144
Author: Tom Fletcher

HOW TO CUT THE CRIME RATE: LEGALIZE DRUGS

VICTORIA -- 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, which encompasses 
the Kootenays, Okanagan and Cariboo.

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 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 despite improvements in recent years, 
B.C. still ranks in the top third of Canadian provinces in all 
categories of major crime. We also have more property crime per 
capita than the neighbouring states of Washington and Oregon.

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.

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 would likely only support 
increased drug penalties.

(As a small-L libertarian myself, I disagree with that approach, but 
it's preferable to the previous government, which repeatedly promised 
to decriminalize pot but never followed through, while opening its 
own low-grade grow-op in an abandoned mine.)

The criminologists argue 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 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 are themselves so often committed in a fog of intoxication.

The report warns 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, which combines 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.

Tom Fletcher

B.C. Views
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MAP posted-by: Elaine