TRASHING RIGHTS WON'T STOP ORGANIZED CRIME

Legalizing drugs would remove the profit for criminals and the resulting
death and destruction. Taking away everyone's human rights to combat any
crimes is an untenable, panicked reaction.

There's a proverb that warns, "For every problem there is a simple solution
that will make things worse." The cold-blooded ambush Wednesday on Montreal
crime reporter Michel Auger has caused Quebec's Public Security Minister
Serge Menard to propose just that kind of bad idea: He is trying to
convince his colleagues in the provincial government to invoke the
notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This would allow the government to outlaw membership in specific groups,
namely the Hells Angels, Rock Machine and other motorcycle gangs.

Consider that for a moment -- the government, suspecting a particular group
or one like it to be party to a crime, strikes down freedom of association.
Mr. Auger' was shot five times, in the back, in the parking lot of his
paper, le Journal de Montreal, which the day before had printed his reports
of the deaths and disappearances (read: presumed deaths) of Mafiosi and
bikers warring in the city over drug territory. Solution, based on what may
be a good guess but is still circumstantial evidence: Outlaw motorcycle clubs.

But why stop there? Better outlaw the Sons of Italy, just in case. Or ask
the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act, successor to the
contentious War Measures Act, with which Quebecers are well acquainted.

Of course the Hells Angels will make the devious argument that if they
really are the drug kingpins and master criminals they're said to be, why
have the police had such a striking lack of success in successfully
charging their members? Of those charged, the Crown has an even lower
percentage of convictions.

Mr. Menard's answer is to do away with the necessity of proving a case
against someone by simply throwing out civil rights. (This, we've learned,
is an inherent problem with rights; they apply to everyone, even those we
don't much like. An irksome caveat indeed.)

His solution is simple in the worst sense, and downright chilling when
taken with RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli's bizarre warning last
week that he knew of criminal conspiracies to undermine the workings of
government but was keeping the details under his hat.

Suspicions based on secret evidence and the power to act on them -- it
might be comforting to have the Charter standing between us and the
commissioner. As the Pink Panther's Inspector Clousseau said, "Who do I
suspect? Everyone."

Here is an alternative to the wholesale trashing of rights, one more likely
to produce the desired effect: Legalize the drugs that are the source of
criminal wealth.

As reporter Dan Gardner illustrated in his series on the War on Drugs in
The Vancouver Sun, the parallels to modern drug prohibition and the United
States' failed ban on alcohol are undeniable. And the solution to the
problem is just as plainly evident.

In outlawing drugs we clearly did not remove the market for them, we only
increased the danger to users and created an unregulated, high-profit,
tax-free industry for criminals.

Remove the profit and you remove the profiteer. Legalize drugs, let the
bikers go back to selling stolen motorcycle parts to each other, let the
police go back to investigating crime and assembling evidence for the Crown
and leave the Charter in place. Simple.