OTTAWA PROPOSES MANDATORY JAIL FOR GROWERS, DEALERS

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

Nicholson says the criminal production of drugs has increased and the
federal government needs to respond.

"Drug trafficking, grow-ops, a whole host of activities, have become
much worse in recent years, so we've got to stay up to date with the
laws of this country," he says. "I think this is a measured,
reasonable response to the challenges we face.

"I just want to catch up with the bad guys."