Pubdate: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 Source: Comox Valley Record (CN BC) Copyright: 1999 Comox Valley Record Fax: 250-338-5568 Author: Karen Kwan, Record Staff Writer DRUG STAND IS PRAISED, PANNED Coun. Bob Melnuk's bombshell suggestion to legalize hard drugs has won some foes, as well as some friends. But Melnuk, who's running for mayor of Courtenay in Saturday's municipal election, says he's elated that his remarks have encouraged people to talk about the drug problem in the community. "I'm saying, 'Let's start talking about it,'" he says. "If I'm elected, the first town hall meeting I'd hold would be about what to do about drugs." Only the federal government, however, can legislate the decriminalization of narcotics. Melnuk first threw out the concept of legalization at an all- candidates' debate Monday evening, in response to an audience member's question on how to deal with drugs and crime in the community. His comment that "Maybe we need to look at legalizing drugs" came during a province-wide Drug Awareness Week. Throughout this week, events are being held in the community to promote drug awareness and resistance. "The sooner we take the profit out (of the drug trade), we can deal with the other issues," Melnuk says. Legalization of drugs such as heroin and cocaine would reduce crime, he says, as studies show that 85 per cent of crime stems from illegal drugs. Health care costs would also decrease, he says, if drugs were regulated and quality control were implemented. He points to Switzerland as a success story. The country has reduced crime by 50 per cent, by setting up clinics, staffed by health care workers, where heroin addicts can get a safe fix without the risk of an overdose or contracting diseases, he says. RCMP Const. Barrie Schneider, North and Central Island drug awareness coordinator says legalizing drugs is a simplistic answer to a very complex problem. However, he says he understands people are frustrated and are proposing legalization as a last resort. But "I think to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' I don't think is in the best interests of anybody," says Schneider, speaking from Vancouver, where he was at a meeting of the RCMP's drug awareness section. (Schneider was one of the people who fought to bring the anti-drug D.A.R.E. program to local schools as a pilot project this fall.) He notes that other countries have tried legalizing some drugs, only to find that it increased drug use dramatically, because it suggested that drugs were safe. Alcohol and tobacco are prime examples of legal drugs that are widely abused, he says. As for the theory that legalization would decrease crime, he points out, "If legalization was the answer, at the end of prohibition when we legalized alcohol, we should have wiped it organized crime, and our history has shown the opposite, that (criminals) simply filled other niches." It's not the law banning drugs that creates crime, Schneider says; it's the effects - physiological and emotional - of drugs on people that lead to crime. "Therefore, we have to reduce the use of these drugs to lessen the problem." School board trustee Len Morrow says adults must teach kids appropriate, safe behavior. "I mean if (drugs are) bad, it's bad. Let's try to stop it," he says. "Let's try to help the people who are hooked but let's try to stop it instead of rolling over and accepting that it's going to be somehow inevitable. "I have a very hard time getting my head around legalizing drugs in general, particularly hard drugs," he added. But the proposal has its fans too. Courtenay council candidate Dave Ferguson agrees that it's time to look at legalization as a solution. "It's got some rough edges but we need to examine the idea," he says. Courtenay resident Urban Wattinger, who is originally from Switzerland, also supports the proposal, if the drugs are available only through accredited family physicians, who would administer safe doses. "It's not the idea having a drug addict be able to go to the drugstore and buy a pound of heroin," he says. "The idea is to (permit) a doctor to give the patient - people who are hooked - a shot each day, or whenever they need it. So they wouldn't have to go steal, the crime rate would come down, the big drug dealers would be out of business," Wattinger says. Melnuk says he hasn't thought through about whether the proposed legalization would be a doctor-prescribed system, or an overall sanctioning. Victoria resident Eleanor Randell, who heard about Melnuk's idea from her daughter in Cumberland says he's "right on, he's 100 per cent correct." Banned substances take on a mystique, which intrigues kids, she says. Randell is a member and former president of the Victoria-based B.C. Anti-Prohibition League, which has about 100 subscribers to its newsletter. "We're making it forbidden fruit and making more attractive," says Randell, whose 19-year-old son died in 1993 after trying heroin for the first time. She suspects he died because the drug reacted with the alcohol in his system. "The end result is the prohibition killed our son," she says. "If it were legal, he would have been able to go to a drug store, buy it, know what he was getting, what dosage to take and when to take it," Randell says. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D