ABBOTSFORD LENDS HAND TO CRIMINALS

Yet more proof that the powers-that-be, from the mayor in Abbotsford
to the solicitor general in Victoria to the RCMP commissioner in
Ottawa, remain stuck in a fantasy world where "getting tough" on
marijuana growers will eventually eradicate B.C.'s number one industry.

Abbotsford has jumped on the failed war on drugs bandwagon whole-hog,
forwarding a resolution to the annual Union of B.C.

Municipalities convention that will do absolutely nothing to put a
dent in the number of pot growing operations in the city.

Coupled with this useless resolution - one that calls for stiffer
sentences for those growing and selling weed - comes the argument from
Abbotsford Mayor Mary Reeves that boggles the mind for the fact it
makes no sense whatsoever.

Reeves says she is not in favour of decriminalization or legalization
of marijuana or any other drug.

"At the end of the day, this is all about organized crime," Reeves
tells this newspaper in a story that will appear in Saturday's
edition. "You can decriminalize until the cows come home, but it's an
epidemic."

Actually, if you decriminalize - or better yet, legalize - marijuana,
you immediately cut out organized crime from that crop, a crop from
which criminals have been profiting since pot was first banned in the
1923 Opium and Drug Act.

On the other hand, a certain way to ensure organized crime remains in
business is to follow the futility espoused by Reeves, Solicitor
General Rich Coleman and RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, which
is to emulate the long-failed U.S. 'war on drugs" approach and
continue to foolishly apply it to the benign plant.

It's simple supply and demand. Regardless of the law, demand will
remain strong, just as it has for the past century. Cut into the
supply via millions wasted on more cops busting more grow-ops and more
court dates and more "criminals" going behind bars, and the gig gets
more and more lucrative.

Every so often police brass will hold press conferences - as they did
this week in Vancouver with the not-so-new news that, surprise, Hells
Angels and other organized crime groups are involved in grow-ops -
claiming there is a crisis and demanding tougher legislation and
longer jail sentences for those caught growing pot.

Apparently, it escapes these prohibitionist dinosaurs that the very
laws in place, the laws they are calling for to be strengthened, are
the very reason the pockets of the Hells Angels and others are bulging.

It is utterly astounding that B.C. has a solicitor general who does
not know his history, who is apparently ignorant of the lessons
learned during alcohol prohibition of last century, who mindlessly
mouths the widely ridiculed "war on drugs" mantra that has been such a
flop in the U.S.

It is equally maddening that we have a mayor opposed to any
progressive change with respect to marijuana laws, a mayor who also
sits as chairwoman of the Abbotsford Police board, a mayor who, when
asked by this newspaper last year how much the local cop force spends
on marijuana enforcement, did not know.

Well, we know. It's more than a million a year, and growing faster
than the plants that are found in virtually every second house in
town. And could it be this incomprehensible, backwards approach that
is behind the staggering increase in the police department's budget
year after year?

It just might be, because it certainly cannot be attributed to a rise
in crime.

According to the provincial attorney general's ministry, Abbotsford's
crime rate in 2002 was identical to the city's crime rate in 1993. In
other words, despite an increase in population from 98,000 in 1993 to
126,000 in 2002, Abbotsford's crime rate remained unchanged, at 114
criminal offences per 100,000 population.

(This is not to be confused with recent news claiming "Abbotsford's"
crime rate is among the highest in Canada. That refers to the census
metropolitan area of Greater Abbotsford, which includes Mission and
Agassiz, two communities whose crime rate in 2002 was far higher -
Mission at 165; Agassiz at 141 - than the City of Abbotsford's).

There is the argument that the stagnant crime rate could be attributed
to the increase in the police budget over the past decade; the more
cops equal less crime philosophy.

However, when the police department's budget has increased to the
point where, today, it comprises 24 per cent of the entire city's
operating budget, one must question what percentage of the annual tax
increases facing property owners is funding the army of cops waging
the costly, pointless and ultimately ineffective daily raids to rid a
house of some marijuana plants.

Granted, Reeves, Coleman and others of that generation are plagued by
the misinformation doled out in their day; alleged "facts" that today
are seen by rationale folk as the folly that are - more of the Reefer
Madness nonsense.

What Reeves, Coleman and other deluded prohibitionists need to do is
read a copy of the 1972 Le Dain Commission Report, the 2002 Senate
Special Committee on Illegal Drugs Report and various other studies
that have consistently called for the legal regulation of the
so-called evil weed.

Of course, the absurdity of this entire farce is that is creates
strange bedfellows indeed; for it can be argued that prohibition is
the preferred choice of criminals and cops alike. Why society cannot
see this remains a mystery.