WHERE ALL THE MONEY GOES

That Hole In Vancouver's Arm Costs A Lot, whether it's measured in
wasted lives, skyrocketing social-services costs or out-of-control
property crime.

Many of the costs of Vancouver's drug problem cannot be accounted for.
It is hard to put a price on a life lost to drug addiction, difficult
to determine the true measure of lost opportunities and broken dreams.
But it is clear that managing this city's drug problem is becoming
expensive. The money spent on paramedics when a junkie overdoses.
Salaries for the beat cops who try to keep some semblance of order on
the Downtown Eastside. Detox centres, methadone programs,
needle-exchange programs and HIV treatment.

In 1998, a study by then-provincial health officer Dr. John Millar
estimated B.C. spends about $96 million a year on problems related to
injection drug use. The bulk of that, $78.7 million, is for
law-enforcement costs such as police, courts and jails. Another $17
million is for health care, including $5 million a year for
hospitalization of addicts and $4.8 million for residential care.

In 1992, using a broader definition of cost that included lost
productivity, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse concluded illicit
drugs cost B.C.'s economy $207 million a year. That gives B.C. the
highest per-capita costs for drug abuse in the country at $60
(Newfoundland was the lowest at $31).

The drug-policy discussion paper released by the City of Vancouver
earlier this month estimated an untreated heroin addict costs society
about $30,000 per year and each new case of HIV costs the health care
system $140,000.

The costs of Vancouver's addiction problem include:

B.C.'s ministry for children and families spends $9.9 million a year
on addiction services in the Vancouver/Richmond health region alone.

The ministry of health spends $14.7 million on methadone
programs.

In 1998, there were 1,053 ambulance calls to the Downtown Eastside for
drug and alcohol overdoses at an estimated cost of about half a
million dollars.

Services to treat a drug-overdose victim in intensive care run as high
as $3,555 a day.

Illicit drug use in B.C. is estimated to cause 2,600 hospitalizations
and 16,000 days of hospital care a year, at a cost of $7.5 million.

Another major cost associated with drug addiction is property crime.
It is widely believed that a large proportion of break-ins and
robberies in Vancouver are connected to the drug trade -- that the
city's drug market is financed by thousands of stolen stereos and TVs.
"I would say that a huge amount of the property crime that takes place
[in Vancouver] is drug-related," confirms detective Rob McLaren of the
Vancouver police drug squad.

Police have said in the past that they believe a small group of repeat
offenders they dub "the four-per-centers" -- most of whom are drug
addicts -- are responsible for more than half of the property crime in
the city. But gaining a true sense of the link between drug addiction
and property crime is difficult. Researchers in the United States have
tried to answer the question by giving urinalysis drug tests to people
after they're arrested by police.

A study released last year by the U.S. National Institute of Justice
found about 60 per cent of all those arrested in the U.S. tested
positive for drugs, with one in three of those arrested testing
positive for cocaine. But the study found wide variation depending on
the city. Only 50 per cent of arrestees in San Antonio tested
positive, compared to 77 per cent in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, research of this nature is problematic. The studies were
unable to say whether crimes committed by those on drugs were done to
support a drug habit or if the drug use was incidental to the crime.
For example, the most common drug found in those arrested was marijuana.

Given the relative low cost of pot, it is unlikely those crimes were
committed to finance a drug habit. More likely, the person just
happened to be high when they committed the offence.

As well, rather than showing that most criminals are drug users, the
studies may only prove that drug addicts are more likely to get
caught. Heroin, cocaine and marijuana can distort judgment and
drug-addicted offenders are often so desperate for cash they do not
take even basic steps to cover their tracks like using gloves so they
don't leave fingerprints.

Anecdotally, some European cities that have introduced prescription
heroin programs or safe-injection sites record significant drops in
property crime rates. After Frankfurt introduced its harm-reduction
programs, theft from autos went down by 36 per cent and break-ins
declined by 13 per cent.

But while the specific size of the problem is unclear, criminologists
agree that there is a strong link between property crime and drugs --
especially in cities with a large hard-core drug culture, like
Vancouver. And even if drug addicts make up a small proportion of all
offenders, their need to feed their habit means they will usually
commit far more offences than a non-addicted burglar.