HARD DRUGS BUCK CRIME STATISTICS

While Windsor's crime rate is on the decline, drug offences,
especially those for hard drugs such as crack cocaine, are on the rise.

According to a Statistics Canada report released Thursday, the
national crime rate dropped in 2007 for the third straight year.
"We're following the same trend as the national stats," said Windsor
police Staff Sgt. Ed McNorton.

But while nationally drug offences increased by four per cent last
year, in Windsor they increased more than 12 per cent.

What's remarkable, say police and prosecutors, are the kinds of drugs
and the ever-increasing quantities.

"The trend is the increase in grow houses," said McNorton. Large grow
ops linked to organized crime are popping up in quiet Windsor
subdivisions. And, said McNorton, "We're seeing a lot more hard drugs
on the street."

While the national statistics show the drug offence increases are
mainly because of an increase in marijuana possession charges,
charges for possession of small quantities of marijuana are not on
the rise here, McNorton said.

"We still lay those charges, but usually it's when we arrest someone
for something else and they've got drugs on them," McNorton said.

Federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock said the increase in drug
offences is attributable to cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana grow ops.

Busts are turning up drugs in larger quantities than ever before,
Pollock said. In 2007, there were 13 seizures by the Canada Border
Services Agency and RCMP at the border of cocaine in excess of 20
kilograms. In 2006 there was one.

For five months in 2003, police in the province stopped laying
charges for possessing marijuana in quantities for personal use. A
Windsor judge had ruled there was no law prohibiting the possession
of less than 30 grams of marijuana as a result of a July 2000 ruling
by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The province's high court found that
the blanket prohibition against marijuana possession was unconstitutional.

The government closed the legal loophole but no charges were laid
retroactively.