HOME-GROWN DRUG SOLUTION

Sending Addicts Out Of Town For Treatment Isn't Working, Says
Ottawa's New Police Chief

Boosting residential drug treatment programs in Ottawa is one answer
to reducing addiction-fuelled property crimes in the city, Chief
Vernon White said yesterday.

"The challenge we have in the city is we don't have an in-house
treatment program," White told the Sun's editorial board. "We're
sending people all over the province and beyond for 28-day and 40-day
programs. To truly be successful, you want to get people in treatment
within a day of them being involved with police or other agencies,
not within a month or two months."

White, only seven weeks into his five-year contract with the Ottawa
Police Service, said he's already hounding provincial officials to
help pony up the cash for building such a treatment facility in the
city. He's optimistic that city officials are behind a new facility,
but they need help from higher levels of government.

"I think we have to influence public policy enough so they understand
the importance of this in the nation's capital to have an in-house
program," White said during the editorial board meeting, which
covered a slate of issues ranging from police recruitment to Ottawa's
street gangs.

NO EASY SOLUTION

On the issue of drugs, White said people need to understand that
simply tossing addicts in jail isn't the easy solution to erasing the
crimes associated with narcotics.

Drying out from a drug dependency can be a hellish experience for
addicts, he said.

"I don't know if you separate tough love from this," White said. "I
think this is tough. For people to go into treatment is extremely difficult."

Added White: "Most of these people wouldn't be criminals if it wasn't
for their addiction. That $5 they need to buy a (crack cocaine) rock
becomes the only thing they're thinking about that day."

White wants the city to start thinking differently about how it
tackles criminal behaviour, whether it be by increasing drug
treatment programs or engaging community groups to take up the fight
against street gangs.

When police arrest a gang member, the community needs to help fill
the void with positive influences for its young people, White said.

Police alone can't change the attitudes in neighbourhoods where
street gangs thrive, he added.

"Some of these communities know gang members as the most powerful
people they've ever known," White said. "If you don't replace them
with something else, then someone else will fill that void for them.
Those kids in there will look to the next king who will rise."