Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (Canada) Pubdate: Thur, 19 Nov 1998 Contact: David L. Staples FUNDING CUTS HAMSTRING WAR AGAINST DRUGS The recent arrest and seizure at Fanny Bay, B.C. of a fishing boat loaded with tonnes of hashish (worth millions of dollars on the street) belies the current state of drug enforcement in Canada. Most law enforcement officers agree that we are needlessly losing the war on drugs because our governments have never resolved to seriously fight that war. When the government of B.C. established the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit (CLEU) in 1972, local police departments were able to work alongside members of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police -Editor)on an equal financial footing. This made it possible for municipal police to travel internationally with RCMP in Joint Forces Operations (JFO) to pursue major drug investigations which were deemed to be at the heart of the CLEU mandate. The results were dramatically successful. Now, sadly, B.C. Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh has announced the dissolution of CLEU, essentially putting an end to JFOs in B.C. Two of the AG's considerations may have been that, despite the best efforts of AG officials over the years, CLEU had never been accepted nationally by the badge-carrying police intelligence community, nor had CLEU any actual hands-on control over the JFO investigation it once generously funded. The double whammy for drug enforcement, however, has been the curtailment of RCMP funding. Most of the recent publicity over this issue has focused on the cuts to money for provincial policing by RCMP. Very little mention has been made of the fact that enforcement by federal drug squads across Canada has virtually been wiped out by the cuts. Current investigations, many of which have involved many months of intensive work by the RCMP and their international colleagues, have been either wound down prematurely or abandoned altogether. No new investigations are being undertaken. Funding allocated for overtime, the purchase of information from confidential sources and the protection of witnesses has been cut off and the budget reassigned. Without the ability to protect and pay its sources and to pay its members overtime, drug squad commanders will be sending their men home. The squads, for all intents and purposes, will be out of business. The irony is that drug enforcement can be said to pay much of the cost of its own operations since the federal government benefits from the disposal of assets seized from drug criminals. The RCMP Proceeds of Crime units throughout Canada conduct investigations of money laundering of proceeds from designated drug offences, customs and exise offences and enterprise crime offences. Since Proceeds of Crime legislation was first passed in 1989 the RCMP have seized approximately $158 million worth of cash and assets, $50 million in 1994 alone. (Statistics for the past three years are not yet available because of the time involved in clearing the court system.) Most of those assets came from convicted drug traffickers, including a complete ski resort in eastern Canada. All of this money is turned over to Revenue Canada and goes into general revenue. Not a single penny is reinvested in stepping up the pressure on drug traffickers by providing the police with more manpower and better equipment. The profits realized by drug traffickers are staggering. For example, a marijuana trafficking case some time ago culminated in a raid on a farmhouse in the northeastern U.S. where eight rented high-cube Ryders trucks were seized, each loaded to the ceiling with cardboard boxes full of $100 bills. Meanwhile, our government has decided to fight this kind of problem by cutting off funding to its national police force. It is high time that assets seized as proceeds of crime are used to augment (not replace) the funding for drug enforcement as has been successfully done in the U.S. These additional resources should be shared between the RCMP and municipal forces that contribute to this important law enforcement role. David L. Staples is a retired RCMP inspector who lives in Victoria. - --- Checked-by: Don Beck