Vancouver Police Inspector Also Says Most Street Traffickers Have Previous Records For Drug Offences

Vancouver residents should stop blaming Central American immigrants for drug trafficking in the city and realize it's a homegrown problem that can't be deported or arrested away, said Kash Heed, a Vancouver police department inspector and author of a groundbreaking new study on street-level drug trafficking. 

Conducted as part of his masters degree studies at Simon Fraser University, Heed's study paints a picture of the average drug dealer on the Downtown Eastside as a Canadian-born man between the ages of 23 and 45, and a repeat criminal offender who supplements his drug income with a welfare cheque. 

Heed said his findings debunk the popular image of the Vancouver street-level drug dealer as a Honduran "millionaire."

It is the first in-depth study of Downtown Eastside dealers.  Heed, formerly head of VPD's drug section and a police officer with 27 years' experience, said he pursued the topic because he wanted a better understanding of who was dealing drugs in the city, and why they were involved in trafficking. 

For 18 months, Heed profiled 600 street-level drug dealers arrested on the Downtown Eastside between 2001 and 2002. 

"Of the 600 people arrested, no less than 469 were actually Canadian citizens -- a finding that runs contrary to public belief," Heed reports in his study. 

In an interview, Heed said the findings will come as a surprise to many "who, at that time, were saying, 'It's not our problem -- we inherited it from outside of Canada'."

According to the study, Central American immigrants, fingered for much of Vancouver's street dealing over the past decade, made up only 12 per cent of dealers involved in Heed's study. 

"So, yes, the drugs come from outside of Canada, but the traffickers are our problem.  They are Canadian-born individuals," Heed said. 

In his research, Heed also found the majority of men in the study group ( 73.5 per cent ) had previous arrests for drug offences.  Almost 50 per cent of the group had at least 10 prior convictions, with 14.5 per cent recording more than 31 prior arrests. 

Cocaine was by far the traffickers' drug of choice. 

Heed said the results show that simply jailing offenders is not the solution.  Based on his research, Heed supports instead the four-pillars plan of prevention, enforcement, harm reduction and treatment. 

"We cannot arrest our way out of this problem," he said. 

Heed is also pushing for decriminalization of certain street drugs, based on his findings which show the current model of prohibition is not working. 

"We've inflated the price of drugs by making them illegal.  The criminal organizations are attracted to the illegality of that," he said. 

The study has drawn rave reviews from Heed's thesis examiners at SFU, who include high-profile criminologists Paul and Patricia Brantingham and Neil Boyd.  Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell also sat on the examination committee. 

Campbell called it "a groundbreaking paper," which should provoke drug policy discussion. 

"People should really take a look at it and realize that the problem is much bigger than, 'Oh well, if we get rid of all of these Hondurans, things will be just fine.' That's simply not the case," Campbell said. 

The results are also encouraging for Central American advocates, such as Byron Cruz, a Downtown Eastside health-care worker.  Cruz said the negative perception of Central Americans has made it difficult for immigrants from that part of the world to find housing or even get a job. 

"Guys are not finding housing anymore because people say, 'Oh no, it's a Latino guy.  He must be a drug dealer,' " Cruz said. 

He said social programs aimed at helping Latin American drug addicts kick the habit have resulted in fewer of them dealing on the streets, particularly around Oppenheimer Park. 

"The main purpose of their drug dealing was because they needed to cope with their habit," Cruz said. 

But not everyone had such a positive reaction to Heed's study results.  Rob Johnson, enforcement director for Canadian Border Services Agency, said the study could serve to undermine an ongoing and severe problem at Canada's borders. 

"There is a foreign criminal problem in Vancouver, no doubt," Johnson said. 

According to Johnson, there has been a big increase in deportation of immigrants involved in criminal activity over the past three years -- the result, he said, of increased immigration enforcement.  Johnson said changes in immigration laws in 2002 -- including suspending refugee applications if the applicant is criminally charged -- have weeded out would-be foreign criminals. 

But former mayor Philip Owen said many criminals are still slipping through the cracks. 

Latin American drug dealers may not be on the Downtown Eastside, he said, but he has seen them openly selling in the 500-block of Seymour Street. 

"It just drives me crazy.  They're all standing around there, whistling Dixie, thumbing their noses at us -- you and I, the Canadian government and immigration.  It's ridiculous."

Owen said they should be deported. 

Campbell agreed. 

"There has to be recognition that you can't come to Canada, traffic in drugs, be convicted, be released and there's no penalty to pay for it," he said. 

"It really besmirches all of the 99 per cent of people who come here for legitimate reasons."