FANTINO URGES DECRIMINALIZING OF MARIJUANA

Force Should Return To Core Function Of Crime Prevention, Police Chief Says

Toronto -- The possession and use of small amounts of cannabis should be
decriminalized as part of a revamped national drug strategy, Toronto's new
police chief believes.

"But we're stuck with the laws that we have," Julian Fantino said during a
question-and-answer exchange with The Globe and Mail's editorial board. "I
don't think every case involving a minute amount of marijuana needs to go
through the criminal-justice system. However, I'm not prepared to sanction
marijuana smoking until the law's changed."

Mr. Fantino, who took the reins of Canada's largest municipal police force
on March 6 and has since spoken up about drug excesses at Toronto's
flourishing rave scene, is not the first senior police officer to suggest
small-scale marijuana and hashish use be decriminalized.

The national Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is on record as
urging such a change, in favour of a multipronged approach to drug abuse
that emphasizes health care and prevention as much as law enforcement.

As well, plenty of street-level police commonly disregard small-scale pot
possession and under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, a suspect
found with less than 30 grams no longer has to be fingerprinted.

In 1998, nonetheless, there was a 6-per-cent rise in the number of
cannabis-related charges laid in Canada compared to 1997 -- a total of
almost 50,000 charges -- even as crime over all that year hit a 19-year low.

For Chief Fantino, whose first weeks in office have been marked by a
blizzard of speeches, interviews and photo-opportunities at community
events, the main reason for rethinking the pursuit of cannabis users is the
police and judicial resources that get eaten up.

The city's 7,000-member force is stretched thin on other fronts, he said.

"Everyone who doesn't know who to give a job to -- we get it." He said
these tasks include transporting prisoners, providing court security and
school crossing guards, and officers wasting time needlessly in court.

"Without [those tasks], we could retreat to our core function and be more
efficient."

That core function should be crime prevention, he said.

"We need to go back to walking the beat, working with the community and
having more officers in school to work with our youth and lend support."

Nor should the current decline in reported crime, seen in many Western
countries, become a recipe for reducing the police budget (currently at a
record $534-million), Chief Fantino maintains.

Echoing the view of demographers who see the drop in crime as reflecting a
temporarily diminished pool of the at-risk group of young people aged 18 to
30, he predicts that "the worst is yet to come. Once we get through this
cycle, we're going to get to a different milieu and things are expected to
percolate again."

Chief Fantino's ascent to the top floor of police headquarters at 40
College St. was circuitous. He spent most of his 31-year career with the
Toronto Police Service, before taking charge of the London force and then
York Regional Police.

On returning to Toronto, Chief Fantino inherited from departing police
chief David Boothby a flurry of criminal and internal charges laid against
some veteran police officers. Five officers were charged recently because
of events on the night in August, 1998, when Detective Constable Bill
Hancox was murdered. Two were charged with drinking on the job and three
with trying to cover up their behaviour.

Two other officers face hundreds of criminal and internal charges for
allegedly pocketing cash intended for informants.

Chief Fantino says he is speeding up the process of pursuing miscreants,
where warranted, because he wants to get on with the business of policing.

"I think I have tolerance and understanding and charity for honest
mistakes, but I have no tolerance whatsoever for errant behaviour that
brings into question the integrity of the police."

Another legacy he inherited was the militant police union's controversial
True Blue fundraising campaign, which stirred widespread public criticism
before it was shut down in February.

The militancy stemmed from frustration, suggests Chief Fantino, and was
"not healthy. . . .

"If we lose public trust, then everything is lost. . . . I've tried to be a
peacemaker and I think things are not bad now."

On other issues, he identified aggressive driving on Toronto's
traffic-clogged streets as a major growing problem for city police and said
a new strategy to combat it is in the works.

Illegal, U.S.-made handguns, too, are "a very difficult issue for us."

The battle against organized crime, meanwhile, needs some serious help,
through the creation of a national agency, Chief Fantino said.

"The problem for us is that we're still in silos and compartments. . . .
This issue transcends borders and jurisdictions and so a lot of this has to
be dealt with at a very high national level.

As for the biggest risk he sees in the years ahead, he does not hesitate --
"losing the public trust."

In part, Chief Fantino agrees, that trust could be eroded by further scandal.