PROHIBITION 'DOESN'T WORK'

An SFU criminology professor says police enforcement too often attempts the
impossible

Hardly anyone would disagree that crime in Canada is inextricably linked
with drugs and alcohol. What is difficult to pin down is exactly how that
works.

The raw numbers may be misleading. Of nearly 2.7 million criminal incidents
reported to police across Canada in 2001, just under 92,000 involved
possession, trafficking or importation of illegal drugs and just over 90,000
were for impaired driving.

That would suggest less than seven per cent of total crime is directly
involved with drugs and alcohol.

But police also recorded 309,000 violent crime incidents, and most officers
are convinced the majority of violent crimes are closely connected to the
use of alcohol.

Of the nearly 1.3 million reported property crimes, an unknown number --
again believed by police in cities like Vancouver to be a majority -- were
committed to raise money to feed drug addictions.

But according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, a federal
government funded, non-profit organization, no comprehensive Canadian
studies have been done to nail down the link.

Trying to fill the void, the CCSA conducted a study of federal and
provincial prisoners in 2000. It concluded that "alcohol and illicit drug
use were strongly related to the commission of crimes," but cautioned that
doesn't mean the crimes wouldn't have been committed anyway in the absence
of alcohol and drugs.

Researchers looked more closely at prisoners who said they would not have
committed the crimes had they not been under the influence, and at those who
were addicted and admitted they committed their crimes to obtain drugs or
alcohol.

After accounting for overlaps, they decided between 40 and 50 per cent of
crimes committed by the prisoners in the survey were attributable to the use
of drugs and alcohol.

They also concluded that 24 per cent of crimes were the result of
intoxication by alcohol or drugs, or of the need to stay intoxicated. And
they saw "indications" that up to 64 per cent of less serious offences, such
as minor thefts, were attributable to drugs and alcohol.

Meanwhile, some crime experts believe that despite the prominence of drugs
and drug addiction, alcohol is where the action will be in the years to
come.

In part, that's a simple matter of demographics. The biggest generation in
Canadian history, the baby boom, is nearing retirement, and that means an
increase in the kinds of crimes older folks tend to commit.

They include, among others, "crimes relating to alcohol or recreational drug
abuse, primarily alcohol abuse," says Robert Gordon, director of Simon
Fraser University's school of criminology. Tie in older people's preference
for hopping in the car over walking or cycling, and it looks like impaired
driving is the crime of the future.

There is already an indication that impaired driving may be increasing.

Statistics Canada reported that at 90,000-plus, the number of reported
impaired-driving incidents in 2001 was up by seven per cent from 2000, the
first increase in nearly 20 years.

The federal agency said part of the increase could be the result of a change
in record-keeping by the RCMP, which had been counting only incidents that
led to impaired-driving charges and began adding roadside suspensions to the
total in 2001.

However, non-RCMP police forces, which had been counting roadside
suspensions all along, still reported a five-per-cent rise in
impaired-driving incidents in 2001, and Statistics Canada said that points
to "a real increase."

When it comes to drugs, Statistics Canada said crime numbers have been
rising since 1994 but that might not mean much.

"It should be noted that police-reported drug statistics tend to reflect the
level of police enforcement more so than the actual demand on the street for
illegal drugs," Statistics Canada said.

That's a sore point with many people. Police priorities are such that in
2001, of the 91,920 reported drug offences in Canada, 70,624 involved
marijuana.

Gordon points out that in the history of crime, police efforts to eliminate
the supply of illegal goods and services have never been successful in the
long term.

In other words, prohibition doesn't work.

"But still there is a significant waste of resources trying to deal with
what is in effect an impossible task, which is to knock out the marijuana
industry," Gordon said.

"It could be said that if we didn't waste our time with the marijuana
industry and we focused instead on hard drugs and the dreadful impact that
has on society, and the trickle-down effect into crime, that we might start
to make a significant difference," he added.

But nobody's prepared to put the resources where the harm is, and Gordon
speculated it might take hard drugs taking hold among middle-class children
before that changes.

"So long as people can brush off (hard drug use) and dismiss it as merely
the activities of folks who hang around Oppenheimer Park, then who cares,
you know?

"The minute it penetrates Shaughnessy or West Point Grey, then things begin
to happen."