Pubdate: Wed, 01 May 2002 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Page A9 Copyright: 2002, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Author: Erin Anderssen Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) STATS CONFIRM KEY ROLE ALCOHOL PLAYS IN CRIME Close the liquor stores. Ban those predinner cocktails. The federal government has proved it: It's the drunks, not the druggies, who should really scare us. A new study confirming the link between substance abuse and crime has found that the real demon lurking behind the homicides and violent assaults in this country is the one drug Ottawa lets us buy. Pot, cocaine and heroin may make us steal. But alcohol makes us kill. "Everybody's scared of drug-crazed people slitting their throats in the street. It's more likely to be a good old-fashioned drunk," said Richard Garlick, a spokesman for the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and the author of the report. The three-year, $250,000 study found that drugs and alcohol were major contributing factors in up to half of the examined crimes. But the line was clearly drawn: Drugs were the leading weakness for people convicted of economic crimes such as theft and shoplifting. Alcoholics were twice as likely as drug takers to have committed violent crimes. Drinking too much alcohol, the report says, was the main contributing factor to one-third of homicides and assaults studied -- suggesting that these crimes would likely not have occurred at all if the killers had stayed sober. This number jumps another 20 per cent when alcohol is combined with drugs. Drug use alone, on the other hand, was the main factor in only 7 per cent of homicides. "If you look at this study, the first thing you would do is prohibit alcohol," Mr. Garlick said. "The thing that's really causing the most serious crime is the drug that's readily available to anyone at any time." Experts have always linked substance abuse to crime, but this is the first Canadian study to produce statistics to substantiate the claim that drugs and alcohol cause crime. To complete the report, the centre conducted in-depth interviews with nearly 700 provincial and federal inmates and surveyed another 10,000 prisoners and individuals under arrest. Slightly more than half of federal inmates told researchers that they were under the influence of either alcohol or drugs (most often cocaine) when they committed their most serious crime. They reported addictions at a much higher rate than the rest of the Canadian population, and drug abusers in particular were more likely to rob or shoplift simply to feed their habit. Addiction itself leads to more frequent crime generally: Inmates dependent on drugs or alcohol averaged about seven crimes a week, mostly drug offences, but more than three times the rate for inmates without addictions. The question of what to do about substance abuse in Canada is currently the domain of two parliamentary committees charged with looking into such issues as the economic costs of drug use, the consequences of legalizing marijuana and how to balance enforcement with treatment. Liberal MP Derek Lee, a member of one of the committees studying the problem, says it will now have to look at the hard numbers on alcohol abuse. "Members of Parliament are going to have to wake up to this reality," Mr. Lee said. "It's clear that tobacco is the big killing drug. And it's clear that the big expensive drug is alcohol." Cocktail for violence A federal Solicitor-General report shows the relationship between crime and substance abuse. The main findings indicate that violent crimes were more ofter associated with the use of alcohol while crimes such as theft and robbery tended to have a stronger link to illegal drugs. ..................Alcohol...Illicit drugs...Alcohol and only only drugs Assault 39% 9% 24% Homicide 34% 7% 21% Attempted murder 30% 9% 24% - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager