DRUG STAND IS PRAISED, PANNED

Coun. Bob Melnuk's bombshell suggestion to legalize hard drugs has won some
foes, as well as some friends.

But Melnuk, who's running for mayor of Courtenay in Saturday's municipal
election, says he's elated that his remarks have encouraged people to talk
about the drug problem in the community.

"I'm saying, 'Let's start talking about it,'" he says.

"If I'm elected, the first town hall meeting I'd hold would be about what
to do about drugs."

Only the federal government, however, can legislate the decriminalization
of narcotics.

Melnuk first threw out the concept of legalization at an all- candidates'
debate Monday evening, in response to an audience member's question on how
to deal with drugs and crime in the community.

His comment that "Maybe we need to look at legalizing drugs" came during a
province-wide Drug Awareness Week. Throughout this week, events are being
held in the community to promote drug awareness and resistance.

"The sooner we take the profit out (of the drug trade), we can deal with
the other issues," Melnuk says.

Legalization of drugs such as heroin and cocaine would reduce crime, he
says, as studies show that 85 per cent of crime stems from illegal drugs.
Health care costs would also decrease, he says, if drugs were regulated and
quality control were implemented.

He points to Switzerland as a success story. The country has reduced crime
by 50 per cent, by setting up clinics, staffed by health care workers,
where heroin addicts can get a safe fix without the risk of an overdose or
contracting diseases, he says.

RCMP Const. Barrie Schneider, North and Central Island drug awareness
coordinator says legalizing drugs is a simplistic answer to a very complex
problem. However, he says he understands people are frustrated and are
proposing legalization as a last resort.

But "I think to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Well, if you can't
beat 'em, join 'em,' I don't think is in the best interests of anybody,"
says Schneider, speaking from Vancouver, where he was at a meeting of the
RCMP's drug awareness section. (Schneider was one of the people who fought
to bring the anti-drug D.A.R.E. program to local schools as a pilot project
this fall.)

He notes that other countries have tried legalizing some drugs, only to
find that it increased drug use dramatically, because it suggested that
drugs were safe. Alcohol and tobacco are prime examples of legal drugs that
are widely abused, he says.

As for the theory that legalization would decrease crime, he points out,
"If legalization was the answer, at the end of prohibition when we
legalized alcohol, we should have wiped it organized crime, and our history
has shown the opposite, that (criminals) simply filled other niches."

It's not the law banning drugs that creates crime, Schneider says; it's the
effects - physiological and emotional - of drugs on people that lead to crime.

"Therefore, we have to reduce the use of these drugs to lessen the problem."

School board trustee Len Morrow says adults must teach kids appropriate,
safe behavior.

"I mean if (drugs are) bad, it's bad. Let's try to stop it," he says.

"Let's try to help the people who are hooked but let's try to stop it
instead of rolling over and accepting that it's going to be somehow
inevitable.

"I have a very hard time getting my head around legalizing drugs in
general, particularly hard drugs," he added.

But the proposal has its fans too.

Courtenay council candidate Dave Ferguson agrees that it's time to look at
legalization as a solution.

"It's got some rough edges but we need to examine the idea," he says.

Courtenay resident Urban Wattinger, who is originally from Switzerland,
also supports the proposal, if the drugs are available only through
accredited family physicians, who would administer safe doses.

"It's not the idea having a drug addict be able to go to the drugstore and
buy a pound of heroin," he says.

"The idea is to (permit) a doctor to give the patient - people who are
hooked - a shot each day, or whenever they need it. So they wouldn't have
to go steal, the crime rate would come down, the big drug dealers would be
out of business," Wattinger says.

Melnuk says he hasn't thought through about whether the proposed
legalization would be a doctor-prescribed system, or an overall sanctioning.

Victoria resident Eleanor Randell, who heard about Melnuk's idea from her
daughter in Cumberland says he's "right on, he's 100 per cent correct."

Banned substances take on a mystique, which intrigues kids, she says.

Randell is a member and former president of the Victoria-based B.C.
Anti-Prohibition League, which has about 100 subscribers to its newsletter.

"We're making it forbidden fruit and making more attractive," says Randell,
whose 19-year-old son died in 1993 after trying heroin for the first time.
She suspects he died because the drug reacted with the alcohol in his system.

"The end result is the prohibition killed our son," she says.

"If it were legal, he would have been able to go to a drug store, buy it,
know what he was getting, what dosage to take and when to take it," Randell
says.