Editorial: Drug laws fuel gangs' growth

TIMES COLONIST Editorial

Jonathan Bacon surely knew the risks that came with his chosen profession. He knew his life would end violently; it had been threatened many times. The only question was when he would be gunned down.

Bacon's death on Sunday - in a flurry of bullets from automatic weapons outside a casino in Kelowna - should not have surprised anyone familiar with the gangster life.

His younger brothers, Jarrod and Jamie, must understand their days are numbered as well. Their friends and associates and family cannot ignore the cold reality that gang activity usually ends with prison or death.

Yet, despite the inescapable danger, more British Columbians are choosing to join gangs. They put family members at risk while accepting - whether they admit it or not - the odds of an early demise. And even more people choose to associate with gang members.

It's an exciting lifestyle, offering money and nice cars, and a chance to hang with a select group. It's obviously enough to tempt more youths every year. Every time a gangster is killed or jailed, another arrives to take his place.

Gangs hurt countless British Columbians. They are involved in a wide variety of criminal activities, including money laundering, prostitution, vehicle thefts, extortion and importing and selling illegal weapons. Some gang activities have been so well integrated into everyday life that they are effectively invisible.

What fuels these gangs is drugs. If we could substantially reduce the huge profits in the drug trade, we would be able to make gangs less appealing.

And to do that, there is really only one choice: We need to take another look at the legality and control of drugs.

Making marijuana legal, for example, would reduce the value of the plants in the estimated 13,000 indoor commercial grow operations. Marijuana is a huge cash crop that has seriously skewed our economy and enriched criminal gangs, and there is little to show for decades of enforcement efforts.

British Columbians still grow marijuana, and still use it. Legalizing a drug that has widespread support would not cause chaos - but it would help to take some of the financial incentive away from gangs, although there would still be production aimed at export markets.

Heroin could also be controlled, with confirmed addicts getting substitutes or prescribed heroin, an approach that has proved positive in other countries.

Of course, curbing the illegal drug trade would not 0bring an end to gangs, or the killings. As long as there is crime, people will organize into gangs because there is strength in numbers.

But drugs are the single most important factor driving many of B.C.'s gangs. Reducing the profits from drugs will reduce the amount of money flowing into these gangs, and that in turn will take away some of the allure of becoming a gangster.

The attack in Kelowna, which resulted in Bacon's death and serious injuries to a friend who is a member of the Hells Angels, has raised fears of retribution. Gang members might try to settle scores by killing rivals, or seek to expand their reach. The violence will continue.

And yet, as long as there is easy money to be made, gangs will attract more young men.

Some will get out alive. But for too many, their lives will end on country roads, in shopping centre parking lots, in front of their homes, or even on sunny summer days in downtown Kelowna.

These people have chosen a career that too often leads to a violent end. They can't say they weren't warned.