newgrowerNY

Police can't win the drug battle
04.16.07|Victoria Times Colonist

After years of opposing medical marijuana reform, Bob Barr decided that the government had gone too far in keeping patients from relief. The epiphany wasn't drug induced.
Full credit to Victoria police for a successful undercover operation aimed at disrupting a major local source of heroin and cocaine.

But don't expect "Project Plato," as the exercise was dubbed, to have any effect on problems on Victoria's streets in terms of making drugs harder to get or more expensive or curbing crime.

The five people charged will go through the legal process and, if convicted, will likely face prison time. Every dealer will likely be looking nervously over their shoulders for a while.

But removing one source of drugs, even a large one, will have no effect on the problems affecting life in the community. There are many others willing to step in and supply the market.

Police are still performing an important job with such efforts, which this time involved about 50 officers working for more than a month to gather evidence. Enforcement gets dealers off the street and provides at least some deterrent value for others considering the illegal trade. We expect police to take on the difficult challenge.

We should also recognize that it will make little or no difference in terms of the drug problems that affect community life and public safety. As long as there is strong demand for drugs, new suppliers will emerge to fill any gaps in the market.

Consider the results of one of the largest drug seizures in Canadian history. In 2000, police scored a stunning enforcement success. Officers in Vancouver grabbed 99 kilograms of heroin destined for the streets; at the same time police in Toronto seized 55 kilograms. The raids removed about six million doses in one decisive operation.

Coincidentally, University of British Columbia researchers were in the middle of a major project tracking 1,400 drug users on the Downtown Eastside. They were able to look at the seizures' effect on the streets and reported their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The seizures had absolutely no impact. Heroin was just as available. Prices actually dropped slightly following the seizures. Ten people had died of overdoses in the month before the raids; an average 13 a month died in the three months following the raids.

Police deserve credit for their success in this case and others like it. But our drug problems will not be fixed, or even reduced, by attacking the supply side. As long as demand exists and big profits are possible, drugs will be available.

Our efforts need to be on the demand side. Education, to keep people from starting drugs. Harm reduction, to help them manage their use. Treatment and support, to help them quit. Without a real commitment to those elements, enforcement efforts are doomed to fail.

Buzzby

The author of this article sounds very confused to me. He says, up front:This is the truth that law enforcement doesn't want people to know: as long as the drug trade is ultra-profitable there will always be people ready to step up and replace those taken out of the game.

Immediately after that he contradicts himself:The only "important job" they're performing is staying employed. He already said that their efforts have only a momentary effect on the drug market.

That's 50 man-months on the public tab to slow down the drug market for a few days.

The effect of law enforcement on drug dealers is the same as the effect of wolves on a herd of deer: natural selection. The slow, weak, and stupid are taken off the streets so the fast, strong, and smart won't have as much competition for customers.

We expect police to go through the same pointless motions over and over again at public expense while the purity of drugs goes up and the cost of drugs goes down. Considering price and purity, heroin costs 0.16% what it did thirty years ago.

Come on! Even an old hippie like me can see that you can't have it both ways!

They deserve credit for making the situation worse?

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Richi

A damn good point I've never heard before.

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