TARGET THE ROOTS OF CRIME

Re: Minimum drug sentences proposed Nov. 21

Long mandatory sentences for marijuana cultivation now proposed by
the Conservative government are a cruel joke. After more than three
decades of investigating organized crime for many books, articles and
documentary films, I have learned that the people who run
organized-crime groups often use disposable people to run their
marijuana grow-ops and to sell the illicit stuff on the street. The
government is once again appearing to do something about the drug
problem while actually doing nothing.

The sad reality is that the "war on drugs" helps to fuel organized
crime rather than suppress it. As long as drugs such as pot and
ecstasy are desired and even demanded in our society, there will be a
major increase in organized-crime activity - even if people were
given a life sentence for trafficking.

If I have learned anything in researching organized crime, it is that
the only way to really end the drug problem is to legalize most soft
and hard drugs in North America, and put the billions wasted in
prohibition efforts into better rehabilitation and education programs
- - not prohibition armies and meaningless mandatory jail terms.

The new government proposals are empty rhetoric that may fill our
jails but will do nothing to solve our drug or organized-crime problems.

James Dubro, Toronto