POT IN SHORT SUPPLY, ACTIVIST SAYS

He Worries That People Will Turn To Harder Drugs As A Result

The weed supply is waning.

"Marijuana (has been in short supply) four or five times in the last
year," said Ron Fitzpatrick of Turnings, a community organization
that helps drug addicts turn their lives around.

Fitzpatrick said the paucity of pot is due, in part, to a police
crackdown on drugs - several recent high-yielding drug busts have
included a lot of marijuana.

He said young police recruits are hip and smart and the drug force is
"fantastic."

"Police, especially the RNC, are getting . good at cracking down on
the drugs, nailing drug dealers, finding stashes and grow-ops,"
Fitzpatrick said. " They are doing great work. They're doing more
busts and drying up the streets."

Another reason for the shortage is that weed is a popular, more
socially acceptable drug.

" You can almost count on one hand the number of people who don't
smoke marijuana. It's supply and demand. There's more demand than
(the dealers) can handle," Fitzpatrick said.

But because marijuana is harder to find, people may be trying harder
drugs like cocaine, ecstasy or even putting PCP (angel dust) on
cigarettes, he said.

"Angel dust will make you high as kite and keep you up four or five
hours," Fitzpatrick said.

He said someone might offer a disappointed marijuana user a couple of
lines of coke in consolation.

"That's how it starts. Next thing you say, ' Who needs weed? This is
great,'" Fitzpatrick said.

He said people should be wary of cheap coke - rumoured to be around
$60 per gram.

"That will almost tell you it's not good - it's coke mixed with God
knows what," Fitzpatrick said.

He said no matter how many drugs are taken off the street, people
will still find ways to get high, just like with the beer strike in
the 1980s where people bought cases and cases of weak American beer
in the interim.

"They will make do with whatever they can," he said.

" You're liable to see them trying embalming fluid."

Fitzpatrick contends that society should be proactive by spending
more money on treatment.

He said experts around the world are saying what he's been saying for
three years - that drug addiction must be treated as an illness.

Currently, people are waiting months to get into treatment programs,
he said, and there should be more funding for groups like Turnings,
that can help.

Fitzpatrick has been on his own at Turnings since January due to a
lack of funding and has been working mostly with sex offenders, but
he said he still gets calls every day from people desperate to get
into drug treatment programs.

He said people don't turn to prostitution and armed robberies out of
anything other than desperation. He keeps a file on armed robberies
and other likely drug-related crimes that are reported in The
Telegram, and said last year that file was a foot high.

Fitzpatrick said he believes marijuana is a gateway drug that has
ruined lives and marriages.

" Wouldn't it be better to help somebody like that?" he said.