A recent report on British Columbia crime trends shows the number of marijuana possession charges continues to climb, despite the fact many British Columbians want to see marijuana decriminalized.

The crime trends report, released in late October by the police services division of the B.C. Ministry of Justice, showed an 88-per-cent increase in possession charges over the last decade: to 3,774 charges last year from 2,004 charges in 2002.

“In an environment where a majority of British Columbians, we now know from recent polling, support legalizing cannabis, in an era in which our teenagers report cannabis is easier to obtain than alcohol despite our prohibition-based enforcement, what are we doing continuing to waste very scarce and shrinking prosecutorial and judicial resources going after marijuana offenders?” asked Kirk Tousaw, a lawyer who represents people charged with drug offences and executive director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation.

“The public doesn’t want it. The taxpayers don’t want it. The question always left in my mind is, who does want it?”

About three-quarters of the population believe the province would be better off taxing and regulating marijuana, said an Angus Reid opinion poll conducted for Stop the Violence BC, an advocacy coalition of doctors, lawyers, academics, politicians and police officers seeking the end of marijuana prohibition.

Only 13 per cent of respondents in Metro Vancouver and eight per cent on Vancouver Island said possession of a joint should lead to a criminal record.

The poll, released in October, surveyed 799 British Columbians and is accurate within 3.5 percentage points.

Tousaw and Dana Larsen, former editor of Cannabis Culture magazine and longtime drug policy reform activist, co-wrote the Sensible Policing Act, which would stop police in the province from “spending any time or resources on searching, seizing or arresting anyone for simple cannabis possession.” Larsen said. He’s pursuing its implementation through a referendum.

The RCMP said Friday it was unable to comment on the increase in charges.

It was not immediately known what geographic region experienced the most increase, or why some communities might have more police activity than others.

But Simon Fraser University criminology professor Neil Boyd, who recently signed on to support the Sensible BC campaign to call for non-criminal controls for marijuana consumption, said the increase is not coming from Vancouver.

As part of his research, he asked Vancouver Police to reveal the number of marijuana-related charges in previous years. The number of simple possession charges recommended by the Vancouver police department, which places a low priority on pot possession, is declining and in the majority of cases, charges arise in connection to other more serious incidents.

Charges recommended by Vancouver police for possession alone and not in conjunction with other drug charges have dropped from 34 in 2006 to just six in 2010.

There are more charges stemming from drug-related incidents on TransLink line, according to the transit authority’s recent crime survey. Last year there were 565 incidents — such as smoking a joint on the platform — recorded by Transit police resulting in 69 charges.

Boyd said he doesn’t believe prosecutors act as “gatekeepers” but proceed on charges brought by police, especially RCMP.

“It’s a police-driven agenda much more than a prosecution-driven agenda, it appears to me,” he said.

The B.C. justice ministry said the figures in the crime trends report come from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey conducted yearly by Statistics Canada.

All drug offences are considered violations of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and are prosecuted by the federal Crown.

zmcknight@vancouversun.com