COURTS PUSHING LESS JAIL TIME FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS

Police spend a huge chunk of taxpayer-funded time hounding B.C.'s drug
pushers but, lo and behold, sentencing reports in my hands indicate
their best efforts don't pay off.

Statistics Canada and federal corrections numbers show fewer and fewer
drug traffickers and dealers are being sent to jail, despite a growing
number of offenders being charged by police.

Indeed, the majority of B.C.'s heavies, those who do business selling
and importing heroin, cocaine and pot, do soft time. A pathetically
low one per cent of those charged in 2000 actually served federal time
(two years or more).

The rest either paid a fine or cooled their heels for a few months in
a provincial prison.

But before continuing, I need to come clean -- I see no value in
turning casual adult marijuana users into criminal stats. And for
adults silly enough to inject heroin or smoke crack at home -- it's
their destruction.

But the scum who flog their junk in schoolyards and alleys, targeting
our children and other vulnerables, are a different matter.

And yet, what's the point collaring these drug offenders at a cost of
millions when their court-imposed punishments are a joke -- as every
dealer and pusher knows too well.

If we Canadians believe possession, cultivation and trafficking of
this evil junk is a serious criminal offence, then why aren't the
judges dishing out serious time?

Furthermore, I'd like to provide more extensive statistics pertinent
to B.C. -- but I can't because the province still refuses to submit
data to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a branch of
StatsCan. All other provinces, with the exception of Manitoba and New
Brunswick, co-operate. It's something the B.C. Liberals ought to
reverse as quickly as possible.

Until then, we'll have to make do with national figures. But keep in
mind that B.C. has the lowest charge rate in the country for drug
offences, while its citizens live in the country's epicentre of
drug-related crime.

The fact is, just over 50 per cent of those convicted in Canada of a
drug-related offence never see the inside of a cell. The most they get
is a fine -- the cost of doing business. A quarter of convicted
offenders get probation, while the remainder are sent to jail, albeit
usually for a provincial term.

Indeed, the average Canadian sentenced for trafficking in drugs in the
years 1999 to 2000 served less than three months. While the offender
convicted of possessing drugs was sent away for no more than 15 days.

If your brain cells can take it, here's more, closer to home.

Just because you're caught with drugs in B.C. doesn't mean you'll be
charged. For example, someone nabbed for possessing illegal substances
has a meagre one in three chance of being charged.

If caught trafficking, growing or importing pot, the chances of a
charge slip to one in four.

Caught possessing the plant and the chance of going to court drops to
one in five.

Speaking of the weed, B.C. is the grow-op capital. The number, size
and value of the grow operations continue to exceed the GrowBusters
squad's ability to shut them down: cops visited 380 grows in 2000,
with a street value estimated at $72 million. Contrast that to a
decade ago when they canvassed 31 operations valued at $2 million.

And yet, the cash crop doesn't stop a lot of them from collecting
publicly funded welfare.

A case study of 161 growers found 25 per cent on the dole.