DRUG PROBLEMS BEGIN AT HOME

EDMONTON - For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. A few
weeks ago, the news was full of stories about the success of Afghanistan's
Taliban government in eradicating that country's huge opium crop. Afghani
poppy growers had been supplying three-quarters of the world's supply of
opium and its byproduct, heroin. But last year, the Taliban declared the
growing of opium to be contrary to Islam, and banned the practice with its
typical righteous ferocity.

The Taliban's brutal methods didn't thrill civil libertarians, but in
wiping out the poppy crop, Afghanistan's leaders did win the grudging
praise of both the United Nations and the United States. But the market
abhors a vacuum. According to a recent report in the Far Eastern Economic
Review, another rogue nation, Burma, is proving more than happy to step
into the heroin market void created by the Taliban crackdown. The magazine
reports that Burma's heroin producers will more than double this year -
with the full connivance of the Burmese authorities.

The Review cites reports from Burma that a government-backed militia, the
United Wa State Army, has forcibly resettled thousands of poppy-growing
hill-farmers away from the mountains on Burma's border with China, closer
to Thailand, where the soil and climate are better, and access to western
markets is easier. The profits will enrich, not just the tribal drug lords,
but the cash-strapped Burmese government, which lacks more orthodox sources
of foreign trade and foreign currency.

The moral of this story? You can't wipe out the world heroin trade, unless
you wipe out demand. Stopping heroin production is like battling the Hydra:
cut off one head, and two more sprout. The war on drugs can't be won in
Afghanistan or Burma. It can be won only by changing social and economic
conditions on the home front - an infinitely harder battle.

The Hydra metaphor repeats, on the streets of Edmonton. Ask Staff Sgt.
James Templeton, in charge of the drug control section for the Edmonton
Police Service. He doubts events in Afghanistan will have much impact in
Edmonton - or Vancouver, where heroin is a much bigger problem.

"It's like any other product. What determines the price of things is supply
and demand," he said.

"Recently, the price of heroin has decreased. If it becomes harder to get,
that will make it pricier. What will usually happen is that drug users
switch to alternate drugs."

There are plenty available, he says: cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, and
the combo of Talwin and Ritalin.

"It's like us arresting these little guys we call 'dial-a-dopers.' We get
them off the street, but by the time we get one guy processed, someone else
is out there selling, driving his car and using his cellphone. This is a
big money business, and there's a big demand," says Templeton.

For Templeton, the drug problem is a law enforcement issue. For Cameron
Wild, it's a health crisis.

Wild is an assistant professor in the Centre for Health Promotion Studies
and the Department of Public Health Sciences, at the University of Alberta.
For the past two years, he's been studying the habits of Edmonton drug
users, particularly people who inject their drugs.

With funding from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research and
the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Wild's been investigating what
illegal drugs Edmontonians use and how they use them. The aim is to find
new strategies to get people into treatment, and new ways to improve the
health of injection-drug users.

"There's such a huge over-emphasis in North America, in the way the 'war on
drugs' tends to focus on issues of supply," says Wild. "Understanding the
broader social context that creates demand, and providing more treatment,
those are also important parts of the equation."

Drying up heroin supplies and forcing injection-drug users to switch to
cocaine would solve very little.

What's the solution? Templeton favours tougher prison sentences for
dealers, and better anti-drug education in schools.

Wild wants more resources for addiction treatment, and more programs, like
needle exchanges, to reduce health risks for users. But it isn't easy, he
says, to find support for such initiatives, given the legal and moral
stigma around injection-drug use.

No one he says, should expect simple, Talibanesque solutions to the drug
problem.

"It's a complex intertwining of factors like poverty, unemployment,
homelessness, mental health issues."