DRUG RAID SIGNS MISS THE MARK

Given the magnitude of the illicit drug trade and the obvious inability of
prosecutors to shut it down, it is not surprising that law enforcement
agencies should look to increasingly imaginative devices with which to make
life difficult for the crooks and profiteers among us.

Two new wrinkles, one of them dangerous, the other potentially so, have
recently appeared on the scene.

Last week, the Guelph Police-Wellington OPP joint drug squad demonstrated
how one of them works. As a raid was being carried out on Victoria Road
house whose inhabitants were suspected of dealing in crack cocaine, a sign
was erected on the boulevard in front.

Police maintain the sign was for the benefit of any neighbours who might
have wondered what was going on inside. But the Crime Stoppers production,
which notes that "This address was raided by the Ontario Provincial Police
and/or Guelph City Police", is more than that. It is a way of stigmatizing
the inhabitants should they fail to draw a conviction in court.

Though no malice may be intended, this is dangerous stuff. It almost
presumes guilt, not innocence. It is a way of announcing to the world that
this is a place where crime happens and where a noisy raid has been
necessary to put an end to it.

It may not be that way at all. As letter-writer Wayne Phillips of Hamilton
notes opposite, mistakes do happen. Innocent people are sometimes arrested.
Wrong houses have been singled out.

A sign out front, brazenly announcing that this is a den of iniquity, can
mark both the domicile and its inhabitants for life. And to what good
purpose? Keeping the nosey neighbours informed?

Surely Crime Stoppers can do better than that.

The second wrinkle, a resolution calling for a national drug strategy, was
passed last week at the annual general meeting of the Canadian Association
of Police Boards. The organization wants governments, judges, prosecutors
and law enforcement agencies to crack down harder and in a more concerted
fashion on the drug trade. It has also called for stiffer prison terms for
the illegal cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

True, the drug business is a danger to us all. Addictions ruin lives. And
if smoking marijuana is not in the same class as using crack cocaine, home
growing operations hardly represent the work of honest rebel farmers.
Across Ontario, it is estimated that growers steal some $500 million worth
of electricity each year. Regular Ontario hydro users pay this price.

Such thefts are already illegal, and marijuana busts have become common
occurances in most Canadian jurisdictions. Personnel are arrested and
jailed and organizations such as CAPB raise the spectre of organized crime
and ask for expanded law-enforcement powers and larger budgets.

Perhaps they should push instead for more competent prosecutors and
smarter, better-informed police officers.