Editorial

THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Focusing Drug Enforcement Efforts On All Drug Use May Not Be The Best Use
Of Police Resources

The three police forces operating in Sudbury are collaborating to "do what
it takes" to fight the war against drugs. Called Project Digger, the RCMP,
the Ontario Provincial Police and the Greater Sudbury Police Service plan
to crack down on drug producers, dealers and users in the Sudbury area,
promises Sudbury Police Chief Alex McCauley.

Officials for all three police services said the increasing role of
organized crime in the local drug trade has made it necessary for police to
step up the level of enforcement. This means working more closely together
to do in combination what it is harder to do separately.

Keeping those in organized crime "looking over their shoulders at all
times," as Marty VanDoren, the RCMP's deputy criminal investigations
officer for Ontario Region, called it, will be the new priority. The growth
of organized crime in Sudbury links much of the local drug trade to groups
outside of Sudbury, and it only makes sense that local police should work
shoulder to shoulder with police in wider jurisdictions as well.

Not everyone out there, though, is a big-time "player" on the drug scene.
While the combination of drug abuse and organized crime has been linked to
other, often more serious, crimes -- theft, assault, burglary, prostitution
- -- that does not characterize all drug use.

Drug use is limited to a small minority of the population, McCauley said.
Really? If that is so, why have the police come across so many marijuana
growing operations in northeastern Ontario? The indoor marijuana industry
has become the province's third-largest agricultural sector, eclipsed only
by dairy and beef producers. Clearly there is significant demand for it,
even here in Sudbury, and much of it is recreational.

On its face, Project Digger seems worthy. But how effective it will be will
depend on how police balance the war against drugs with the war against
organized crime.

There's been a steady, low-key push for the decriminalization of "soft
drugs" in Canada for several years now. That doesn't mean legalization --
it simply means the possession of small quantities of marijuana for
personal use becomes a misdemeanour, akin to getting a traffic ticket. Even
the Canadian Medical Association has called for marijuana to be taken out
of the Criminal Code and made subject only to a small fine.

Certainly, a lot of marijuana smokers in Sudbury would fall into this
category. Using police resources to chase after them does not seem like a
productive use of their time. Not all drug use can be traced back to
organized crime. Focusing on both, with as broad a net as McCauley
suggests, will not be easy. This is certainly true considering the
financial constraints McCauley has recently claimed local police work under.

Crimes against people and property seem to be more pressing matters today.
And certainly, fighting organized crime as it entrenches itself in Sudbury
is laudable, too. But to declare an all-out war on drugs seems problematic,
as has been the case everywhere else it's been tried.