By Michael Goodliffe

Criminal addiction: Pragmatic solutions vs. Conservative strategies

I was a drug dealer throughout the ’90s–a big one. I trafficked marijuana in small and large quantities across Canada and south of the border. Now I am a reformed, honest, taxpaying student with concerns about the drug-control policies of the Conservative Party. Having financially sustained myself for more than a decade within the narcotics industry, I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the economics involved. I therefore feel it necessary to warn those who voted for the Conservative Party–those who believe Harper’s drug-prohibition stance will work–that his policies will have the opposite effect intended.

Please don’t immediately write this argument off as more liberal-biased rhetoric. I would like nothing more than to see drugs off our streets and the criminals that market them locked away from society. I am no bleeding-heart liberal when it comes to dealing with what has quickly become the most pressing and persistent societal crisis in Western culture: addiction. One good look at the circumstances facing business owners, health-care workers, the police, courts, and individuals who live and work in our inner cities will tell you that this is certainly a crisis that needs to be addressed in an aggressive fashion. Realistic and pragmatic solutions based on empirical evidence must be pursued wholeheartedly. Populist strategies based on fear, as well as reified, antiquated initiatives only exacerbate the problem and waste more precious tax dollars.

Now, a little lesson in the economics of the drug industry: the more drugs cost, the more money there is to be made, and the more organized and aggressive drug dealers become. As with any commodity, the price of drugs is based on supply and demand. When it is harder to supply drugs, the cost goes up proportionally. If the sentences and risks associated with dealing drugs increase, the drugs become more valuable, and when drugs cost more, addicts are forced to engage in more lucrative criminal activities. Rather than begging for change throughout the day to get $20 to buy enough heroin for the night, addicts will pursue methods of acquiring larger amounts of cash, such as shoplifting, vehicle theft, drug dealing, prostitution, and breaking and entering. If the heroin costs $40 instead of $20, addicts will get $40. If the heroin costs $200, they will get that amount of money by any means possible. Regardless of the cost of drugs, the risk of incarceration, or the damage done to society, addicts will find a way to get high. I guarantee it.

But if knee-jerk, reactionary policies based on fear and outdated punitive paradigms fail us, then what is the answer? There are a few. First of all, our provincial prisons have become a breeding ground for criminal culture. The longer the sentences given to criminals, the more likely they are to reoffend. That is a fact. The reason for this? When we lock up addicts for periods of two years less a day, they go to the provincial correctional system. Almost all drug convictions fall into this category of sentencing. Once the prisoner enters the provincial prison system, they are cut off from almost all contact with any pro-social support they may have had. To communicate with their families from prison, inmates must call collect, talk in front of other inmates, and be quick about it, as a long line of people waits impatiently to make their own phone calls. Moreover, the recipient of the collect call must pay rates far higher than the usual long-distance rates offered by regular phone companies. Even if the call is local, it will cost around 80 cents per minute. This situation isolates inmates from the people they need the most–their families. Just when a person is the most susceptible to hearing from loved ones what is needed to change their life around, communication becomes limited and unreasonably expensive for the people trying to help. Instead of talking to family and finding comfort and wisdom, inmates then turn to the criminal community that surrounds them.

Inmates are socialized by prison culture to be tough, violent, and subversive to authority, and they are expected to embrace the criminal life and drug subculture that landed them in prison. Any sign of rejecting these ideals is viewed with suspicion and it is most often reacted to with violence, extortion, and coercion. For inmates cut off from any significant pro-social entities and embedded in an unforgiving criminal culture, rehabilitation becomes nearly impossible. Moreover, in our provincial prison systems there are no addiction programs. You have to commit a crime that gets you at least three years before you stand a chance at seeking help through counselling. By the time long sentences for drug offences are handed down, it is often too late for mandated drug-treatment programs to have any effect: the initial shock of going to prison has long worn off and relationships have developed with fellow inmates that displace any potential relationships with drug counsellors. And if we increase the sentences of first-time offenders to federal sentences, the already stretched resources that provide drug-treatment programs will collapse; furthermore, an overcrowded prison will diminish the effects of treatment.

The real answer to this problem must be implemented in stages. The first stage is to separate drug dealers in our criminal justice system from their customers, the addicts. Those suffering from addiction need to be treated as victims of a disease–locked away from society where they can do no harm–but treated as medical patients nonetheless. It should be the mandate of the criminal justice system to fortify pro-social connections of inmates. Once it has carefully been established that a family member or friend is not involved in criminal activity, every effort should be made to provide an environment where positive interactions between inmates and loved ones can occur. Sometimes a person needs to relearn how and why we care about our community; someone they respect who already does can be the best teacher. If a good person cares enough to try to positively affect the life of an inmate, it will have more effect than any government-mandated program ever could. Allow someone to care about them and they will learn to care about themselves.

The next step is to devalue the currency of criminal organizations. Legalize drugs and make them accessible and free to those who are mildly and hopelessly addicted to them. Provide housing, food, and drugs to addicts, who would normally get them through criminal actions. Do this in a manner whereby the addict becomes licensed by the government to receive the narcotics they require. The licensing will come with obligations, such as drug treatment, police interviews, and time spent weekly with social workers who can implement recovery plans based on the unique situation of the individual involved. If addicts will risk years of freedom and their very lives to engage in criminal activity to acquire drugs, surely they will agree to licensing obligations to get drugs for free. Implement this plan and the illegal narcotics economies that flourish in our inner cities will begin to collapse. With no one left to buy the drugs, criminal organizations will set their sights on other countries still pursuing prohibition-style strategies where drugs are more valuable. It’s as simple as that.

It would be naive to believe that any strategy will completely eradicate the addiction problem in our culture. Legal drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, and sugar still lead the pack in lives damaged by consumed substances. But, if we are pragmatic, realistic, and willing to adapt to the wisdom espoused by academic communities that have studied this phenomenon for decades, we are not helpless. If we resign ourselves to fear and the ideas outlined by the Conservative Party in the $63.8-million National Anti-Drug Strategy, we will remain powerless and demonstrate that we have learned nothing from decades of combating a drug-fuelled, criminal economy.

Michael Goodliffe is a third year student at the University of British Columbia working on a double major in English literature and international relations.