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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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CN: Column: Even Some Police Want To Abandon War On Pot
Parker Barss Donham Halifax Daily News (CN NS)
Sunday 23 Jul 2000 Subject: CN: Column: Even Some Police Want To Abandon War On Pot Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 Source: Halifax Daily News (CN NS) Author: Parker Barss Donham EVEN SOME POLICE WANT TO ABANDON WAR ON POT Alliance party leader Stockwell Day picked a poor day to attack the Liberals for mollycoddling criminals. While Day busied himself whipping up middle class fear of criminals run amok, Statistics Canada reported yet another drop in the crime rate - the eighth in eight years. Politicians wishing to nurture the crime-wave bugaboo could find little comfort in the latest Uniform Crime Reporting numbers. Violent crime fell by two per cent in 1999, property offences by six per cent, and the total number of crimes reported fell by five per cent. Even that favourite of fear mongers, youth crime, dropped by seven per cent. Statscan's crime figures come from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Police across Canada report incidents that come to their attention according to a nationally approved set of common scoring rules, categories and definitions. Of course, many crimes go unreported, but reporting rates are probably not declining, so the figures form the basis for a reasonably confident assessment of crime trends. Crime rates are still significantly higher than 20 years ago, but they have been falling steadily since 1991, when most categories of crime peaked. What hasn't declined is public perception of crime. Events like the lurid string of assaults that ricocheted through a north-end Halifax neighborhood Thurs-day night - two stabbings, one execution-style shooting, a swarming attack with a steel pipe - generates news coverage that lodge in the mind far more firmly than dry statistics. The popularity of crime-oriented TV shows has encouraged more traditional news outlets to place more emphasis on mayhem. On the day Statscan released the latest crime figures, the Toronto Star asked readers if they felt safe in Canada's largest city. Most simply didn't believe the crime figures. As a politician, Day is more concerned with perception than reality. Facts needn't interfere with his effort to win seats by fanning fears that have little basis in reality. It's always dicey to speculate on the cause of a change in crime stats, but a couple of obvious factors suggest themselves - neither having anything to do with mollycoddling or getting tough on hoodlums. Canada's population is aging, so fewer of us fall into the 15- to 24-year-old cohort, the group most prone to committing serious crimes. Throughout the '90s, the economy boomed in most parts of the country, and rising prosperity generally accompanies a decline in crime. There is one glaring exception to the nearly uniform drop in crime rates: a 12-per-cent increase in drug offences. Except that, even drug offences didn't increase across the board. Heroin arrests fell by one per cent, cocaine arrests by three per cent. The overall rate of drug arrests increased only because of a whopping 16-per-cent jump in arrests for possession or cultivation of marijuana. Two-thirds of those arrests involved simple possession only. Sensible police officials, including Toronto Chief Julian Fantino, have urged the decriminalization of marijuana because pursuing these victimless crimes amounts to a colossal waste of police resources. Lamentably, such common sense has not yet filtered down to HRM police officials who, earlier this year, squandered six weeks of a police constable's time on an unseemly sting operation at Dartmouth High School. The attractive young female constable suckered nine boys into procuring what police themselves describe as "small, personal-use quantities" of marijuana for her. Police charged them with dealing. If their cases ever come to trial, it will be interesting to see whether the evidence shows they were guilty of anything more than currying favour with a comely classmate. Their cases probably won't come to trial, because the courts typically deal with minor marijuana busts through diversion programs, whereby defendants avoid a criminal record by completing a period of community service. In addition to the waste of police time, the boys will all lose a school year, having been expelled for their so-called crimes. What an incredibly stupid outcome for an activity that is utterly commonplace in all walks of life. This is one police operation that brought discredit to the HRM police, to the school principal who invited them in, and to the school board that countenanced the whole, sleazy scenario. Although apparently booming as a component of crime, simple marijuana possession is almost certainly among the most underreported offences in Canada. In sensible jurisdictions, police routinely confiscate small quantities of marijuana with a warning - and without laying charges. If we weren't squandering millions of dollars tracking down and punishing tens of thousands of harmless marijuana users, perhaps we could spend that money on home care, AIDS education, school lunch programs, prenatal care, or teachers' aides for special needs students. What a concept.
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