COAST APATHY FEEDING LOCAL DRUG TRADE

Community Meeting: Information Forum In Sechelt Poorly Attended By Residents

The West Sechelt Community Association expressed deep disappointment over
the lack of young people at a drug information forum April 29.

"It must be quality attendance instead of quantity," the association's Mike
Shanks told a handful of the largely senior audience before giving the
floor over to Sechelt RCMP Staff Sgt. Linton Robinson.

"It was surprising two-and-a-half years ago how little information was
coming in about drugs," Robinson said. "Now, we are inundated with it."

---------------------
"To me, harm reduction
means reducing harm to
the citizens of our
community who are being
victimized by criminals."
-- RCMP Cpl. Bob Hall
- ------------------------

He pointed to the recent drug sting that saw 13 people charged,
predominantly for cocaine offences. LSD is also making a comeback.

"Heroin is a big, big problem on the Sunshine Coast," Robinson said, adding
that at least 100 people are now using the local needle exchange program.

Cpl. Bob Hall, one of a staff of four in a government-funded project in
drug enforcement covering the entire Lower Mainland also addressed the
forum. Slamming the surfacing slogan, "harm reduction," among drug users,
he described the fiery death of two small children in Maple Ridge whose
father had been making weed-oil at home. When perceived risk is lowered, he
said, the increase grows.

"Harm reduction?" he asked, pausing a moment to allow the implications to
sink in. "To me, harm reduction means reducing harm to the citizens of our
community who are being victimized by criminals."

He rattled off the alarming number of carcinogens in marijuana, and the
little known fact that HIV-positive people who smoke marijuana progress
twice as fast to those with full-blown AIDS.

"If we're so bent against cigarettes, why not against marijuana?"

According to Hall, Canada has now been targeted by the US as a "supply
country" for marijuana. He made reference to the case of a man caught with
417 marijuana plants who was sentenced to four months incarceration but
served only two weeks of it behind bars, followed by eight weeks at home on
an electronic monitoring device.

Everywhere, there are grow operations, he said, and that is especially
true, he warned, on the Sunshine Coast. It is the lack of perceived risk
and the over-lenience with substance abuse which have contributed to a
problem that is now rampantly out of control. People are no longer growing
outside, said Hall -- grow operations are all indoors, some even
underground in trailers, undetectable from the surface.

And the drugs have changed too. In the 70s, the level of THC, the active
ingredient in marijuana, averaged a half to two per cent in strength, but
due to cloning the average has increased to a whopping 15 to 30 per cent.
Marijuana stays in the blood system for more than 24 hours and can still
affect judgement beyond that time. Hall referred to tests done with airline
pilots who simulated flights and "crashed" even as late as the day after.

"If you're going to decriminalize it, it has to be the same for everybody.
Do you want it for police officers, and airline pilots, or just for the
addicts?" Again, he paused. "That really scares me," he said.

Hall also talked at some length about all forms of drugs and their toll on
the community but kept coming back to his maine theme, being the cripping
apathy of our justice system and the lack of concern at the community
level.

Checked-by: Richard Lake