DRUG CRIME RATE AT A 20-YEAR HIGH

Flourishing Grow Ops Contribute To Rise; Thunder Bay Drug-Offence Capital
Of Canada, New Statistics Show

VANCOUVER -- Police in British Columbia and Ontario recently seized
$4-million worth of marijuana being shipped by rail from Vancouver to
Toronto, three pistols and $1.3-million in cash. The 705-kilogram marijuana
crop had been grown indoors, mostly in single-family homes spread across
the Vancouver region.

However the marijuana bust barely caused a ripple in the
multimillion-dollar drug trade in Canada. The network of so-called grow ops
- - indoor marijuana-cultivation centres - is expanding faster than police
can close them down.

Canada's drug-crime rate, as reported by police, now stands at a 20-year
high, an increase of 42 per cent between 1992 and 2002, Statistics Canada
reported yesterday.

Much of the increase can be attributed to a rise in offences for possession
of cannabis, researchers Norm Desjardins and Tina Hotton found.

Police statistics show that cannabis offences increased by 81 per cent over
the decade, the researchers state in a report issue by the Canadian Centre
for Justice Statistics.

Yet, the more police do, the more they find.

Police across Canada have seized more than one million marijuana plants
annually for the past four years. Despite their effort, sites for
cultivation of marijuana grew sixfold from 1993 to 2001, spreading from
British Columbia to the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, the
researchers state.

But Criminologist Neil Boyd, who teaches at Simon Fraser University,
cautioned against jumping to conclusions about whether more Canadians are
smoking up.

The statistics raise issues about enforcement, not about marijuana use, he
said yesterday.

Surveys have found that the rates of marijuana use in Canada are not as
high as 25 years ago, Prof. Boyd said. "What has changed in 25 years is
that grass is now exported from Canada. Cocaine and heroin use are down.
What is up is prosecution for grow ops."

"It's not getting worse," Prof. Boyd said. "What we have is a crisis in how
to respond."

The worst thing about marijuana is the violence that is associated with the
drug trade, he said. "The trade is much more dangerous than the drug can
ever be," he said. And he urged the government to take the prospect of
profit out of drug deals and regulate trafficking.

Statistics Canada identified Thunder Bay as having the highest rate of drug
offences reported by the police, with 571 offences per 100,000 population.
The 15 municipalities in the Vancouver region were second, with 468
offences per 100,000. Montreal had 215; Toronto 211; Calgary 206; and
Winnipeg 200.

B.C. continues to have the highest rate of drug-related incidents, a
dubious record that the province has held for years. With 544 police
reports of drug crimes per 100,000, B.C. has about twice the national average.

Sergeant Doug Adam of the Thunder Bay police department said the drug
problem in the Ontario city was serious. "But it's a problem all over North
America," he said. "I don't think we are unique."

The police force dealt with 331 drug offences in 2001, compared with 222
only four years earlier, the department's annual report states. About
two-thirds of the offences involved marijuana.

Vancouver, which was the first city in Canada to have a unit designated to
dismantle grow ops, has been extremely successful, said Constable Sarah
Bloor, of the Vancouver Police Department. In the past year, the unit
closed down 378 grow ops. The drug unit arrested 744 people, leading to
more than 1,000 drug-related charges.

"Drugs are not going away, unfortunately, from our streets," Constable
Bloor said. "We continue to see that as an ongoing problem for us to deal
with."

Drugs And Crime

Rates of drug offences reported by police among census metropolitan areas
for 2002.

Thunder Bay: 571

Vancouver: 468

Victoria: 459

Trois-Rivieres: 364

St. Catherines-Niagara: 316

Saskatoon: 306

Gatineau*: 287

Sherbrooke: 280

London: 269

Quebec: 252

Halifax: 249

Hamilton: 245

Saint John: 241

Montreal: 215

Toronto: 211

Calgary: 206

Winnipeg: 200

Regina: 198

Ottawa: 188

Saguenay: 187

Windsor: 186

Sudbury: 180

St. John's: 174

Edmonton: 166

Kitchener: 151

- - * includes the Gatineau portion of the Ottawa-Gatineau CMA

- - includes the Ottawa portion of the Ottawa-Gatineau CMA

SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA