Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jan 2003
Source: Peterborough Examiner, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003 Osprey Media Group Inc.
Contact: 
http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/contact.asp?catname=Cont
Website: http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2616

COCAINE BINGE

Action Required

Editorials - The signs that cocaine use was on the rise were out there. It 
appears we just weren't paying attention.

Or, as city police Sgt. Tim Farquharson more bluntly puts it, most people 
just don't have a clue.

Now we do. The first clue came this week the medical officer of health, Dr. 
Garry Humphreys, asked the board of health to more than quadruple its 
donation to a needle exchange program. Instead of $1,500, the program 
needed $6,600.

The increase, Humphreys said, reflects a high demand for needles by users 
injecting cocaine into their veins.

"It would appear we're having a real problem with cocaine here in our 
community," he told the health board.

Police officers like Farquharson, a former member of the Kawartha Combined 
Drug Forces Unit, and city police drug investigator Det. Chris Robertson, 
have seen the problem developing over the past few years. They say cocaine 
is now widely available and relatively cheap. Anyone with an interest can 
buy enough to get high for $40 to $60.

Current statistics on cocaine use are difficult to come by. The most recent 
United Nations report on world drug use estimates that 0.7 per cent of 
Canadians are users. That figure also appears in much of the most recent 
literature, which tends to use statistics from the late 1990s.

However, one of the longest running and most complete Canadian surveys 
measures drug use by Ontario students. The Ontario Student Drug Use survey 
has been conducted biannually by the Centre for Addiction and Mental 
Health. It shows that cocaine use by students in grades 7 through 13 peaked 
in 1979 at 5.1 per cent, then fell slowly but steadily to 1.5 per cent in 
1993. Since then the trend has been higher and higher. In 2001, 3.8 per 
cent of students were using cocaine.

Based on local police observations and the fact that the number of visits 
to the needle exchange jumped to 1,827 last year from 493 in 2000, it is 
fair to say the student trend is also reflected in the general population.

So what to do about it?

Combating drug use is difficult, and never wholly successful. The 
popularity of any one drug tends to run in cycles (cocaine was the drug of 
choice of high rollers in the late 1970s and early 1980s) which means it 
eventually declines on its own. However, something as addictive and 
destructive as cocaine can do far too much damage in a short period for 
society to simply wait it out.

The war on cocaine - as declared by successive U.S. administrations - has 
been particularly frustrating. Cocaine use in the U.S. was nearly five 
times as prevalent as in Canada in 1999, according the the UN's World Drug 
Report, so the Americans have a vested interest in breaking the cycle. But 
as fast as they curtail the supply in one area it is replaced in another. 
Potential production from the coca harvest in Peru dropped from 421 tonnes 
in 1994 to 175 tonnes in 1999; during the same time Colombian output 
increased to 520 tonnes from 201.

The recent change in Colombia's government may have a positive effect, but 
Canada would be further ahead to focus more effort on cutting off the 
supply chain that feeds the drug to this country - primarily organized 
crime and motorcycle gangs.

The RCMP should also be devoting more resources to anti-cocaine operations 
in smaller communities like Peterborough, working with local police.

Programs in elementary and high schools, and at Fleming College and Trent 
University that make clear the dangers of cocaine use may also help. One 
reason drug use is cyclical is that once enough recreational users reach 
the addiction stage, stories about how their lives fall apart circulate on 
the streets and in the media. Those horror stories help make the party 
crowd think twice about stepping up to harder drugs like cocaine.

If that message gets across in the schools before we return to the Miami 
Vice era, perhaps the trip can be derailed.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom