DRUG PROFITS AND THE BIG PICTURE

Winnipeg Sun columnist Robert Marshall's Valentine's Day column was
almost worth a news story.

Because in that column, Marshall, a retired and highly respected
veteran of the Winnipeg Police Service, added his name to the growing
list of credible cops from across North America who are arguing that
the war against drugs is a folly of monumental proportions.

How monumental?

How does $400 billion a year sound?

That's the estimated annual profit to organized crime from the drug
trade worldwide. That means each year, as long as drug prohibition
continues to be enforced as the law of the land, organized crime
grows $400 billion richer, $400 billion stronger.

Law enforcement can't compete with that kind of money stacked up
against it. The only way society can win this war is to remove those
profits. And, as Marshall wrote, "that can only be done by legalizing
drugs. By making it a governmental responsibility to regulate,
control and most importantly to keep them out of the hands of children."

It's the same conclusion reached by the Fraser Institute in a
ground-breaking report several years ago, yet it's one the
Conservative party of Stephen Harper seems to stubbornly and
emphatically ignore.

Many Conservative voters see drug legalization as another left-wing
cause that would erode Canada's social fabric -- and Harper's
unequivocal position no doubt reflects that thinking.

Legalization, however, does not mean condoning drug use. It means,
first of all, striking the hardest blow possible against organized crime.

Isn't that the theme of Harper's "law and order" stance?

Second, it means taking control over a substance far too dangerous to
leave in the hands of criminals. In his column, Marshall cited
retired Lieut. Jack Cole of the New Jersey State Police, a former
undercover officer who says drug prohibition "has given criminals the
opportunity to supply drugs and to decide which ones. It's then left
to the criminal to say how they'll be produced, how potent they'll
be, what age levels they'll sell to and where they're going to sell.

"If they decide to sell to 10-year-olds on our playgrounds then
that's where they'll be sold," Cole says.

Finally, legalization will shift drug abuse from a criminal to a
clinical matter. As Marshall put it so well, "In Winnipeg, if an
addict needing a fix could turn to Health Canada instead of the Hells
Angels, violence and crime would plummet."

There are also fringe benefits, including huge tax revenues that
would help pay for medical services and billions of policing dollars
that could be diverted into more worthwhile forms of crime fighting.

But the big reason is to hit organized crime where it hurts most --
in the pocketbook.

It must be extremely difficult for veteran cops like Marshall to
condemn the war against drugs. All their training, all their years on
the streets go against it. But they see the big picture. They know
who the good guys and bad guys are and they know who is winning the real war.

If the Conservatives want to make the kind of dent in crime that they
claim to, they can no longer afford to ignore this option.