Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

(Source: Parliament of Canada - 37th Parliament, 1st Session)

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, April 22, 2002

Detective Superintendent Jim Hutchinson (Ontario Provincial Police): I'll start with your first question in regard to decriminalization, the police message and the message to young people in regard to decriminalization. I think to a certain extent there are mixed messages out there already on decriminalization and legalization. There's been enough in the papers that the young people are reading and listening to, and certainly that comes back to us all the time. The image out there is that marijuana is a soft drug, a harmless drug, and certainly anything to do with criminalization would only pass on that message. Decriminalization or legalization is not going to change the trafficking of cannabis.

    Currently, all organized crime get their main revenue from drug trafficking, and marijuana and the organized grows are one of the main areas. Decriminalization or legalization is not going to change this. As we've seen in the tobacco and liquor industries, they'll just move on to something else, and they'll be involved in the trade.

    Certainly, we're trying to get the point across to young people that marijuana is not a good drug. We look upon it as being a drug. And whether you want to call it a gateway drug or not, it does lead to other drug use. Surveys have shown that people who are involved in the use of cocaine--children--are many times more liable to use cocaine and other drugs if they have used marijuana. I'll equate that to alcohol. If you're sitting around with a group of guys drinking beer and somebody has a bottle of tequila, it's pretty easy to take a shot of tequila. And I guess if you're sitting around smoking pot and somebody has Ecstasy, it's very easy to make that next move.

    As far as harm reduction and safe injection sites are concerned, I understand we're just getting started with some trials on those. We police rural Ontario, and I'll say right now it's my belief that rural Ontario is not ready for safe injection sites. We have supported and been involved in the needle exchange program in various communities in Ontario. Those programs have been very successful, and we certainly have those types of drugs in Ontario. We have crack cocaine in Kenora; we have cocaine in Moose Factory; and there are injections around the province. Needle exchange programs are various and across the province.

    There are issues around safe injection sites. I know this committee is going to Europe and will have a chance to look at sites that have been in place for several years. I suggest to you, please, take the police perspective in those areas, because they've been dealing with that enforcement. We have to deal with where the drugs come from, the types of drugs, whether there are going to be more traffickers around these safe injection sites, the quality, the civil liability. At the same time, we do agree that anything that will cut down on the spreading of HIV or other disease is something we have to look at in terms of harm reduction. Other than that, we are looking at drug reduction. That's what our main job is in enforcement, and it's a multi-tasked agency force to do that.