MPS WEIGH MANDATORY TREATMENT FOR FELONS HOOKED ON CRYSTAL
METH

Outside The Criminal Context, Several Provinces Look For Ways To Help Users
Of This Highly Addictive Drug

MPs want to examine whether the Criminal Code should be amended to force
treatment on crystal meth-addicted criminals as part of a bill Ottawa will
table to reform conditional sentences in the next few weeks.

Conservative justice critic Vic Toews said front-line street workers he met
with last week in North Vancouver and Surrey, B.C., implored him to press
the federal government for legislation to compel treatment for the growing
number of addicts sentenced to prison after committing serious crimes,
including homicide, while addled by the highly addictive chemical
methamphetamine.

"To me, as an ex-prosecutor, hearing people talking about mandatory drug
treatment is quite a radical suggestion because mandatory treatment was
never viewed as effective," Toews said.

"But when I hear street workers suggesting it, I think it's time for us to
at least consider it. What these individuals are saying is 'these
(meth-addicted) people think they are in control, but they are out of
control and there is absolutely no way you can reach these individuals
except by incarcerating them and then having mandatory treatment.' "

Toews stressed the brain damage caused by the synthetic stimulant makes it
a quite different problem from older drugs like heroin. "You are dealing
with people who are addicts and who are now mentally ill," Toews said.

Several provinces are looking at amending their mental health laws to deal
with crystal meth outside the criminal context. Alberta has enacted a law
to give families the right to ask a court to force their drug-addicted
children into treatment. Saskatchewan is considering following suit.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has said he intends to introduce a bill in
the next few weeks that will sharply limit the use of house arrest and
other conditional sentences in cases that involve sexual or serious violent
crimes. The bill will not deal with sentencing for crystal meth in particular.

But when it goes before the Commons justice committee for study, Windsor,
Ont., MP Joe Comartin, the NDP justice critic, said he would be willing to
look at the idea of forced treatment for meth addicts in prison.

Comartin stressed the evidence he has seen on forced treatment for heavy
users suggests it doesn't work.

"But we may have a different set of circumstances here for crystal meth ...
because that seems to have some of its own particular dynamics," he
observed. "Crystal meth will get you addicted sometimes with the first use
so the methodology of forced treatment may in fact work, simply because
it's not a long-term addiction."

MPs will have to consider whether it would be more appropriate to leave the
issue to be dealt with solely under provincial health legislation.

"Are you going to use a criminal punitive model to implement or are you
going to use a medical mental health model?" Comartin asked.

Department of Justice lawyer David Daubney, who oversees sentencing reforms
for the government, noted forcing treatment on those who commit crystal
meth-related crimes could run afoul of the addicts' charter rights to
liberty and security of the person and not to be subjected to cruel and
unusual punishment.