CRACK: DRUG FUELS CRIME WAVE

It is a scourge on our city, what cops say is the driving force
behind most petty and property crimes and a common factor among
numerous murders on our streets. It is estimated to cost Alberta
millions annually in related health care expenditures, loss of
productivity and stolen property - from the bike scooped out of your
neighbour's garage to thousands of dollars worth of high-end gear
lifted each week from Calgary merchants.

In a three-part series, reporter Michael Wood explores the true cost
of crack cocaine.

Chances are if you've ever had a bike stolen or your home, car or
business burglarized, there is a crackhead to blame.

Addiction, whether it be alcohol, methamphetamine, opiates or
cocaine, is behind an estimated four out of every five crimes that
make their way into Calgary courts.

All of them menace our social order, but only one stands out above
the rest as a fiendish motivator that propels users to scavenge our
neighbourhoods seeking a score to finance their next high.

As Det. Mark Hatchette of the Dist. 4 investigation team said,
"Calgary is a coke city."

In his estimate, as well as other law enforcement, judicial and drug
agency officials, crack cocaine accounts for anywhere between 80% and
90% of the crimes in Calgary.

Its proximity to Vancouver - one of Canada's major imported drug
arteries - as well as Edmonton, has turned Calgary into a waypoint
for the lucrative narcotic. By Calgary drug unit detective Doug
Hudacin's best guess, more than 400 kg. pass through Calgary in an
average year. "I think quite easily," he said.

While much of that ultimately leaves the city, the rest stays here,
spawning and feeding countless addicts along the way. And crack
incidents are on the rise, according to the latest statistics
released by Calgary police, which show the drug is nearly neck and
neck with marijuana incidents.

In a statistical report from 2009, cops counted 906 crack arrests
compared with 916 related to weed. Its effect is being felt by cops
throughout the city.

"Property crimes, crimes of violence, break-ins, car thefts, damage
to property, assaults, there have been homicides with drug components
to them - it covers all the spectrum," Hudacin said.

Provincial court judge Jim Ogle said most cases that come before him
and his peers have, at their base, an addiction. Of those, crack
cocaine reigns supreme.

"It is shockingly high the number of cases before the courts that
have at their bases an addiction specifically to crack cocaine," said
Ogle, who presides over the Calgary Drug Treatment Court.

The treatment court, one of only 10 in Canada, began under Ogle's
direction in 2007 as a tool to aid the increasing number of addicts
and ultimately curb their criminal recidivism.

All of the 14 participants currently enrolled in the program are
former crack addicts who at one time turned to crime to feed habits
that Calgary police data estimated in 2008 to be upwards of $3,000 a week.

Given the rock-bottom sale prices for stolen goods sold on the
street, the true cost of stolen property and damage runs into several
thousand dollars.

That's just the work of one crack-addled offender in one week, Ogle
said. "When a person looks at it from that point of view, one can see
the costs to society are literally staggering for a heavily addicted
crack cocaine user of the type we bring into this program," he said.

"It is a very pervasive problem and the drug court has arisen out of
the realization that traditional sentence methods have simply not
worked with the crack offender." Drug addicts are not just denizens
of Calgary's underbelly, but a wide spectrum of blue- and white-collar workers.

Everyone from club-goers to top executives, truck drivers to oil
patch workers are lining up at local treatment centres for help in
their battles with crack addiction.

Bob Unsworth of 1835 House, a recovery centre for men, receives
corporate referrals from industries across the spectrum, including
many from black gold country: Fort McMurray.

"It's more prevalent in Fort McMurray because there's more money up
there, and the drugs follow the money."

Dr. Perry Sirota, founder of Serenity House, counts bankers, doctors
and lawyers among those seeking treatment at his private facility.
"The whole spectrum," he said.

"Professionals who just happen to be in a situation where they're
exposed to it . a lot of people who just have money to spend."