HOW TO CUT THE CRIME RATE: LEGALIZE DRUGS

VICTORIA - Last week's column touched on crime rates around the
province, which the B.C. government tracks by health region.

If you look at violent crime, serious property crime and non-cannabis
drug crime, the safest place to live in B.C. is Vancouver Island.
Next best is the Interior region, which encompasses the Kootenays,
Okanagan and Cariboo.

In the middle of the pack is the Fraser region, the largest in the
province by population, extending from Burnaby through the Fraser
Valley to Hope.

Second worst is the vast Northern region, which includes roughly the
top two thirds of the province. And the highest serious crime rates
are in Vancouver Coastal, which includes Vancouver, Richmond, the
North Shore and Sunshine Coast.

The good news is the rate of serious crime has been going down in
most parts of the province, the exception being the North, where
serious crime went up by more than eight per cent from 2001 to 2004.

The bad news, as I'm reminded by a new discussion paper just released
by the B.C. Progress Board, is despite improvements in recent years,
B.C. still ranks in the top third of Canadian provinces in all
categories of major crime. We also have more property crime per
capita than the neighbouring states of Washington and Oregon.

The discussion paper, prepared by Simon Fraser University criminology
professors Robert Gordon and Bryan Kinney, contains some provocative
suggestions. When it comes to illegal drugs, for example, the
professors conclude B.C. has only three choices:

1. Lobby the federal government to legalize the drug trade,
controlling it as tobacco and alcohol are regulated today.

2. Eliminate the organized criminal drug trade by way of a major
expenditure in new police teams, legislation targeting money
laundering and proceeds of crime, increased penalties and
construction of new jails.

3. Combine options one and two, with a crackdown on organized crime
followed by a phased-in decriminalization and legalization.

Of course the Conservative government in Ottawa will embrace
legalization about the same time Hell opens for public skating.

Stephen Harper is reputed to be a libertarian at heart, but his
justice and public safety posse, Vic Teows and Stock Day, are
hang-'em high "social conservatives" who were appointed to play to
the party's older support base, and would likely only support
increased drug penalties.

The criminologists argue legalizing drugs isn't likely to increase
demand much more. If people want drugs in today's society they will
find a way to get them, or manufacture even worse substitutes.

Nearly all the street crime, the car and house break-ins that
ordinary people are all too familiar with, is perpetrated in the
pursuit of drugs.

The report warns there is a fourth option, which is to maintain the
status quo. For B.C. that means continuing to have Canada's most
lenient courts, which combines with a relatively benign climate to
make B.C. the destination of choice for Canada's sophisticated criminals.

As things stand, B.C. currently has twice the rate of drug crime as
any other province. And since legalization is currently not a viable
option politically, the practical choice would be to increase
sentences for major drug crime.

The 'four pillars'

The SFU report endorses what has become known as the "four pillars"
approach to drugs, those pillars being education, treatment,
enforcement and harm reduction.

Regular readers will know what I think of pretend "needle exchange"
programs where dirty needles are thrown on the street, or unsafe
"safe injection sites" where dirty street junk is injected with
nursing supervision.

The prescription heroin trial that's currently going on in Vancouver
offers more potential.

That program is the closest this country is going to get to
legalization in the near future, and it can be done without the
national and international political backlash that would kill a bolder program.