MANDATORY PRISON TERMS PROPOSED FOR DRUG GROWERS AND DEALERS

Move Is Latest Front In Harper Government's War On Crime

The Conservative government unveiled historic legislation Tuesday to
create the first mandatory prison terms in Canada for people
convicted of trafficking illicit drugs.

The proposed changes are the newest chapter in the Harper
government's sweeping crackdown on crime, which includes bills before
Parliament to toughen rules for repeat violent offenders, to keep
accused young offenders in jail before their trials and now to impose
automatic prison penalties on serious drug offenders.

Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act currently contains no
mandatory prison sentences for anyone convicted under the act. Judges
use their own discretion about whether to send drug pushers and
growers to jail.

However, the new bill proposes:

- - a one-year mandatory jail term for dealing drugs while using a
weapon, or for dealing drugs in support of organized crime;

- - a two-year mandatory term for dealing cocaine, heroin or
methamphetamines to young people, or for dealing near a school or any
place young people are known to frequent;

- - a mandatory six-month sentence for growing as little as one
marijuana plant, for the purposes of trafficking;

- - a two-year mandatory term for running a marijuana grow operation of
at least 500 plants;

- - a doubling of the maximum prison term for cannabis production from
seven to 14 years.

The Conservatives are also proposing to allow judges to exempt
certain offenders from mandatory prison terms, on condition that they
complete drug treatment court programs.

Drug treatment courts are designed to help non-violent offenders who
have trafficked in small amounts of drugs in order to support their
addictions to overcome their drug habits.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Tuesday the changes in the
sentencing provisions are designed to target the people the
government considers at the root of the drug supply problem:
large-scale growers and traffickers, organized crime groups that
finance their operations through drugs, and people who push drugs on
children and teenagers.

"We've made it very clear that those individuals who are in the
business of exploiting other people through organized crime and other
aggravating factors -- through this bill, we want to get serious with
those individuals and send the right message to them ... you will be
doing jail time," he said. "We want to put organized crime out of
business in this country."

But one expert said the changes will only help organized crime groups
do more business in Canada.

"Tougher penalties for people who produce and traffic drugs will only
scare the ma-and-pa producers, and organized crime will fill the
gap," said Eugene Oscapella, a criminal lawyer who teaches drug
policy at the University of Ottawa and once advised the Law Reform
Commission of Canada on the issue.

"Organized crime doesn't care about the law. With these changes, this
government is doing a service for organized crime."

Oscapella said decades of experience with tough, mandatory penalties
in the United States have proven that the threat of prison terms does
not deter drug traffickers or growers, just as similar policies never
deterred organized criminals and illegal bootleggers during the U.S.
prohibition on alcohol.

Oscapella said a better way to tackle the drug problem is to treat it
as a health issue, and deal with the social factors behind people's addictions.

Nicholson said the government is doing exactly that, alongside its
law-and-order changes.