JAIL TIME IS NO CURE

The federal government's plan to set up drug courts in all major Canadian
cities by 2004 is a humane, practical approach to a problem that is
plaguing cities throughout the world.

Based on a 2-year-old pilot project in Toronto, the plan would send
non-violent drug offenders into mandatory treatment rather than to prison.
This would mark a welcome departure from sentencing addicts to prison where
little if any attention is paid to their addiction, even though research
shows that the addiction is the reason they are in prison. Ignoring the
addiction is ignoring the root cause of the person's troubles.

In England last year, a survey done by the British health department - the
New Treatment Outcome Research Study - questioned 1,000 drug addicts. It
found that 700 among them had committed an astonishing 70,000 crimes in the
three months before entering treatment for addiction. Following their
treatment program, their crime rate fell in half.

In the United States, a number of drug-treatment programs have been tried
inside the prison system and resulted in a decrease in the rate of repeat
crime. A program at a San Diego prison found that among inmates who
completed treatment in prison and then went through an after-care program
in the community, only 27 per cent were returned to prison after three
years. By comparison, out of a second group of inmates who had no treatment
or after-care program, 75 per cent ended up back in prison.

In Canada, the problem of drug addicts turning to crime to fund their
addiction has worsened in the past several years. Youth drug abuse has shot
back up to the levels of the early 1970s. Government studies have found
that about 70 per cent of Canadian inmates are in prison for drug-related
offences.

Experience from other countries shows that treatment is the road to
successful crime prevention. Yet governments of all political persuasions
remain reluctant to spend in the one area that seems to have a chance of
paying positive dividends - both for the individual and his family and for
society at large. In the United Kingdom, for example, the government
continues to spend 62 per cent of its anti-drug budget on arrests and
enforcing the law, but only 13 per cent on treatment for drug addicts.

Justice Minister Anne McLellan must be prepared to insist that her
initiatives be properly funded. As she herself pointed out, "The costs are
infinitesimal compared to what you can save if you can actually treat these
people and turn them into productive citizens."

In its pre-election Red Book 3, the Liberal Party promised to devote $420
million over the next four years to a national drug strategy. The bulk of
those funds should be devoted to treatment and prevention.

The status quo is not working. Addicts are not treated or rehabilitated and
communities feel less secure, not more. This is an initiative that is long
overdue.