CRACKDOWN ON DRUGS BY VANCOUVER POLICE DESERVES FULL SUPPORT

There are those, including so-called experts, who say the Vancouver
police's latest crackdown on downtown drug use will do more harm than
good. We do not agree.

Allowing open drug-dealing and other public disorder is invariably
more harmful. It not only encourages illegal activity, it discourages
the legal activities of law-abiding citizens and brings our whole
system of law into disrepute. And that is what's been happening for
too long in the City of Vancouver.

It's created an upside-down world in which illegal drug users have
developed a sense of entitlement, believing it's their right to shoot
up wherever they like.

"We don't allow this for consuming alcohol, yet we allow it for
cocaine and heroin use," noted Insp. Bob Rolls last week. "This just
doesn't make any sense."

No, it doesn't.

After all, why should parents have to tolerate the presence of crack
pipes, used condoms and human feces on the front steps of their local
elementary school?

Why should businesspeople and their taxpaying customers have to
continue to feel threatened?

It is all very well for "experts" who live in safe neighbourhoods to
consider the consumption of illegal drugs as more of a health issue
than a criminal one.

But the fact is that it is both.

It is a disease requiring costly medical intervention. It is also the
lifeblood of a criminal enterprise that flourishes like a weed and
poisons any community where it takes root.