Pubdate: Wed, 21 Oct 2009
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2009 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Joe Fiorito
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

HOW TO FIX CRACK-HOUSE CONUNDRUM

As you know from previous columns, there are a handful  of crack
houses in Parkdale, and maybe there are one or  two in your
neighbourhood as well.

What to do?

The answers are not as obvious or as immediate as you  might think.
Here's what I think:

The first thing, let's license all the landlords.  Because this is how
easy it is to turn an apartment  building or a rooming house into a
hellhole:

If you're a dealer, find somebody living on a two-bit  pension in a
part of town where you want to do  business, and offer him a hundred
bucks a week for the  use of his room during the day. Bingo -- all of
a  sudden you have a base from which to deal.

After all, a hundred bucks a week is peanuts to a  pusher, but it is
hard to turn down 20 per cent of your  monthly income, tax free, no
questions asked, if you  are on assistance of some kind.

This is a particularly easy deal to make with someone  who is weak or
easily intimidated.

Once a dealer moves in, here comes a long line of the  hard, the
desperate, the weak and the miserable, and  there goes the building.

But too many landlords -- the guy who owns the crack  house on Wilson
Park Rd. is a prime example -- don't  give a damn about what goes on,
and they don't support  their superintendents -- if they even have
supers -- as  long as the rent money keeps flowing.

But if landlords were licensed ... well, either you get  this picture
or you don't.

The second thing, let's give the cops useful tools. Not  the ones you
might think.

If enforcement was an answer to the drug problem, our  streets would
have been swept clean long ago, because  we have pretty good
enforcement here.

Alas, when the cops sweep up, the drug mess simply  moves -- from
Seaton St. to Bloor and Lansdowne, and  from there to Parkdale, and
then over to Etobicoke.

And back again.

There is another problem, particularly vexing, with  successful
enforcement: when a drug bust nets a major  haul, the law of supply
and demand kicks in -- drug  prices rise, and the dealers get even
richer.

And then there is the problem within the problem: when  pot is hard to
find, certain dealers offer crack at  introductory rates -- try this,
it will get you higher  faster, it's cheap, the first hit's on me.

As for the little fish in this festering pond, jail is  no deterrent.
Arrests only work if there is help and  encouragement for users. We do
have a superlative drug  treatment court in Toronto, where addicts are
offered a  chance to dry up and clean up in lieu of jail.

But we need to expand the program.

At the moment, there are precious few treatment beds in  Toronto. Use
your rational mind: what's the better  solution -- building more and
bigger jails, or helping  people quit?

Here's another part of the solution: Harm reduction.

For serious addicts, there is a limited range of  outcomes. Death is
one. Long-term disease is another.  Dead people offer us nothing. And
addicts who pick up  serious diseases before they quit require major
lifelong health care.

And so harm reduction is in our interests socially. But  it is also in
our interests financially, which ought to  be enough to make
conservatives hold their noses and  support harm reduction.

One final thing.

There is a municipal election on the horizon. Ask  candidates in your
ward where they stand on the  licensing of landlords, on drug
treatment programs, and  on harm reduction. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D