POT SHOTS

High Number Of Possession Busts Add Up To Waste Of Police Resources

With the predictable futility of a treadmill hamster, the wheels of
justice in the war on drugs just keep on spinning.

One need only peruse the latest Statistics Canada figures on the
unwinnable war to see more of the obvious.

In 2002, drug-related crime reached a 20-year high, rising 42% since
the early 1990s, the nation's police forces reported.

It's progress achieved after tens of billions of dollars spent on law
enforcement necessitated by drug prohibition.

Heightening the sense of squandered effort and futility is that nearly
two-thirds of the 93,000 "incidents" recorded two years ago involved
simple possession. This, as police forces complain endlessly of a lack
of resources in battling drugs -- and other crime.

We're reminded constantly of law enforcement's focus on production,
importation and trafficking, yet more than 60% of the charges filed
are for simple possession.

What's more, 75% of all drug cases centred around marijuana and of
those, 72% were for possession offences.

Of course, drug units will say many of those possession charges are
laid by regular police operations.

But it's not only the drug units that are crying poverty, it's police
forces as a whole, and Calgary's is one of them.

Members of our police forces have long downplayed the priority of
nabbing those possessing small amounts of drugs.

Yet we still see statistics showing the opposite.

At the same time, other StatsCan figures showed Ottawa's plan to
decriminalize marijuana possession would free up millions of dollars
and thousands of police hours.

But police, including those in Calgary, still argue vehemently against
any relaxation of laws that could ease the pressure on their
chronically-strained resources.

If anything, police have stepped up their efforts against marijuana,
even as public opinion and the political tide moves slowly against
decades of fruitless law enforcement policy.

They do so even after a spokesman representing Ontario police lamented
last year that efforts to combat marijuana grow operations were
failing to make a dent.

A spokesman for Calgary police said the situation here was similar. So
let's keep flogging a dead horse.

Even the right-wing Fraser Institute, in a 2001 report, assailed the
fossilized inertia that are Canada's drug policies.

"This thinking has only served to enrich organized crime, corrupt
governments and law enforcement officials, spread diseases such as
HIV, hinder health care, and feed into an ever-growing law enforcement
and penal industry," says Fred McMahon, director of the institute's
social affairs centre.

Our drug laws are held in such ingrained and casual contempt by so
many otherwise law-abiding citizens they seem little more than an
expensive parody.

As taxpayers, we should be demanding the dollars we pour into police
coffers be put to better use -- it might even curtail the annual, rote
increase to the Calgary force's budget.

City police also say the marijuana grow industry over the past decade
has been virtually hijacked by organized crime.

Take your pick of criminal groups, they say, many can be found
enjoying the fruits of this lucrative labour.

Images of Al Capone and other gangsters who thrived on prohibition are
instantly summoned.

Slashing dope prices by legalizing marijuana and other drugs would be
organized crime's worst nightmare.

According to StatsCan, 684 murders in Canada between 1992 and 2002
were drug-related, totalling 11% of homicides.

Crippling the dollar incentive would reduce the killings.

It can even be argued drug prohibition at home destabilizes developing
nations, such as those in Latin America, by creating lucrative markets
for drugs produced in those countries.

Relentless violence continues between armies, militias and terrorists
- -- much of it stoked by the drug trade. Government retailing of
now-illegal drugs may sound radical, but repeating what's failed is
insane.

A harm reduction approach, employing a medical rather than punitive
emphasis has shown some success in Europe.

When asked if the local war on drugs was ailing, Calgary Drug Unit
Staff-Sgt. Trevor Daroux responded by describing a recently-formed
city police-RCMP anti-marijuana team.

He might as well have been answering in the affirmative.