OTTAWA CRACKS DOWN ON ILLEGAL DRUGS

Proposed Legislation Will Also Allow Judges To Impose Drug Treatment Over Jail

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

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 them 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 government also proposes to allow judges to exempt certain
offenders from mandatory prison terms on condition that they complete
drug treatment court programs.

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.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the changes in 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.

"Tougher penalties for people who produce and traffic drugs will only
scare the ma-and-pa producers, and organized crime will fill the
gap," says Eugene Oscapella, a criminal lawyer who teaches drug
policy at the University of Ottawa.

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

Simon Fraser University drug expert Neil Boyd said the changes will
only hike the price of drugs, including cannabis.

"It will make increased profitability," he said. "It will be good for
dealers, who will be able to pass their risks of doing business onto
consumers."

Mandatory jail terms increase the prison population, with the
accompanying cost to the taxpayers, he said. "We're going to spend a
lot more money putting people in jail, which doesn't make any sense,
because the drug is a whole lot less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco."

Greg DelBigio, a Vancouver lawyer who chairs the national criminal
justice section at the Canadian Bar Association, said the CBA
believes that "mandatory minimum sentences interfere with the
judicial discretion, which is necessary for ensuring that a sentence
is appropriate in all of the circumstances."

But Vancouver Civil City Commissioner Geoff Plant said the drug bill
is Ottawa's response "to a great sense of societal frustration."

"It's a very interesting innovation by introducing drug treatment
into this package as an option. It's too soon to say whether it'll work."

Barry McKnight, who heads the drug abuse committee at the Canadian
Association of Chiefs of Police, supports mandatory jail terms.

"In order to build safe and healthy communities we must deal with the
demand reduction as well as the supply management side of the drug
abuse equation," said McKnight.

The CACP drug policy, adopted in August, said police chiefs are
committed to smash the criminal infrastructure that keeps the
crime-cycle going and victimizes communities.

Vancouver police spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said at least 80 per
cent of the city's property crime is linked to drugs.

"Anything that is going to help reduce the drug problem in our city
we see as a good thing," said Fanning.