HELL, A HANDBASKET AND TOUGHER DRUG LAWS

Eugene Oscapella is a criminologist who teaches at the University of
Ottawa. He dresses like a modern academic hipster: short leather
jacket, blue shirt, dark tie, grey strides. He is also a lawyer who
is sharp on the subject of drug policy. He was in town recently,
speaking to front-line health and harm-reduction workers about the
perils of the government's proposed crime legislation.

Let me give you a tip. If Bill C-26 is enacted into law, and you own
stock in companies that build jails, you stand to make a killing;
prison is about to become a growth industry in Canada.

Oscapella began his talk with a slide showing a handbasket and
another showing an inferno, noting that hell is where we're heading
in the handbasket if the new drug legislation passes. Laughter was
general, if rueful, in the room.

What followed was a series of trenchant remarks and bullet points.
Oscapella asked, rhetorically, why people produce and sell drugs. He
answered his own question by noting that a kilo of opium, worth $90
at the farm gate in Pakistan, is worth $290,000 by the time it hits
the streets of North America - a 3,200 per cent increase in value,
and a killer of a return.

His figures may be 10 years old, but the scale of the equation has
not changed. And perhaps this explains why the United States, which
has the toughest drug laws on the planet, can't stem the flow of
drugs; tougher laws merely make dealers richer by artificially
manipulating the supply and driving up the price.

What does Bill C-26 do?

Among many other things, it provides mandatory minimum sentences of a
year in jail for people who deal drugs on behalf of organized crime,
or who use weapons or violence; two years minimum for people dealing
coke, heroin or meth to kids, or for dealing drugs near schools or
other places frequented by kids; and two years minimum for anyone
growing at least 500 marijuana plants, with a maximum of 14 years,
instead of the current seven.

Oh. I see. Who sells dope near schools? Schoolkids. Has your little
Johnny or Janey ever bought or sold a joint after class? Have you
ever hidden a file in a cake?

Speaking of the increase in penalties for running a marijuana
grow-op, Oscapella was genial but withering:

"Most grow-ops are mom and pop operations, and they are generally
non-violent. Mom and pop might be scared off by tougher legislation,
but organized crime is not dissuaded. If mom and pop go out of
business, organized crime will leap into the vacuum, and organized
crime is violent and dangerous."

In other words, the threat of increased punishment actually makes
things worse; call it the law of unintended consequences.

Bill C-26 also adds "aggravating factors" in the consideration of
sentencing: among these are whether the crime was committed in a
prison. This provoked scorn from Oscapella: "If we can't prevent the
sale of drugs in prison, how can we prevent the sale of drugs in open society?"

I ask myself that all the time.

And I don't know about you, but I don't want Steven Harper or his
secular mullahs sending me to jail; I'd rather throw myself on the
mercy of the court; alas, mandatory minimums strain the quality of
mercy available to judges.

Finally, Oscapella said this about harm reduction and help for drug
addicts: "We don't have enough treatment for people who want it; why
criminalize people before they have a chance to get treatment?"

Why, indeed?

If it were me, I'd spend millions to provide drug treatment on demand
before I spend a lousy nickel on enforcing bad laws.