STUDY FINDS GANG VIOLENCE INCREASES AS LAW-ENFORCEMENT STEPS UP

TORONTO- In Canadian cities like Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and
Vancouver, one of the most pressing priorities for police is
combatting an illegal drug trade that has spawned a rash of gangland
violence in recent years.

A provocative new report from a B.C. HIV-research agency, however,
suggests that throwing more police resources at the problem will only
make the bloodshed worse, not bring peace to the streets.

The majority of studies conducted on the issue over the last 20 years
in the United States and elsewhere indicate that gang violence
increases as law-enforcement activity against the drug trade steps up,
says the report from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

The authors suggest the Conservative government's emphasis on
law-enforcement to confront drug addiction, and a proposed new bill
that would send more drug offenders to prison, are destined to
backfire. Arrests and long prison terms just set the groundwork for
feuding between rival gangs, said Dr. Evan Wood, a medical professor
at the University of British Columbia and the lead researcher.

"When you destabilize the market by taking key players out, violence
will ensue," he said.

Alternative measures are needed to lessen narcotics-linked murder and
mayhem, says the report, to be released Tuesday. For Wood, that means
changing the status of illicit drugs ranging from marijuana to heroin,
making them lawfully available to adults but under strictly regulated
access to minimize their use. That way, he said, there is less
incentive for criminal gangs to get involved in the trade, the way
organized crime took over alcohol sales when liquor was banned during
the Prohibition.

Police and drug experts who support criminalization of narcotics
questioned the report's conclusions, though.

Larry Molyneaux, a veteran Toronto police officer and president of the
Ontario Police Association, said his experience suggests police
enforcement is effective against the drug trade.

"When you start to take down and arrest people who are involved in the
drug war, I see the opposite," he said. "What in fact you do is, you
diminish crime because these people have been taken out of their element."

Police action against drug gangs may provoke some violence, but it is
only a temporary phenomenon, argued Jeannette Hay, a Toronto drug
consultant and spokeswoman for the Drug Prevention Network of Canada.

"If the criminals are left alone, then obviously there will be less
violence," she said. "If you go in and try to put justice there, there
will be a reaction from the other side . . . There will be an
escalation until things get more calmed down. That's a natural
phenomenon."

"If you allow criminals to just run rampant and you allow the drugs to
run rampant, there will be increased violence," Hay added.

Dr. Wood, head of the B.C. centre's Urban Research Initiative, and his
colleagues identified 15 studies between 1989 and 2006 that looked at
the connection between law enforcement and drug violence.

Of the 11 that analyzed real-world data - as opposed to creating
theoretical models - nine found that variables like more money being
spent on policing or an increase in drug arrests were associated with
increasing levels of violence.

A 2001 Florida study, for instance, found that boosting the rate of
drug busts was linked to a doubling in the risk of violence and
property crime, according to the report.

The phenomenon is illustrated less scientifically in places like
Colombia and Mexico, where drug violence escalated as governments made
aggressive attempts to attack the trade, Wood said.

For as long as some drugs remain illegal, he said he would not
recommend that police stop trying to enforce the law, or ignore drug
gangs. The only truly effective strategy, though, is to end the
criminal bans, he said.

"In the current situation of prohibition, which enriches organized
crime, we are powerless to reduce the availability of drugs and
meaningfully reduce violence," said Wood.

Stephen Easton, an economics professor at B.C.'s Simon Fraser
University who has called for legalization of marijuana, said the
report's findings should be heeded closely.

"I think this would certainly contribute to the debate in no uncertain
terms," he said. "I think it needs to be talked about . . . It's not a
question of whether you will have illegal drugs, it's a question of
who will make money off it."