Drugs still a problem in Ottawa: police chief

Ottawa'spolice chiefsaiddrugs in the city are still a"huge problem,"a day afterMayor Larry O'Briensaid drug dealing and panhandling inthe Byward Market area has greatly improved during his time in office.

"I think the problem has diminished dramatically in the last three years," O'Brien told the CBC in an interview earlier this week. "I couldn't walk my little dog Remi around the market without being approached 15 times by panhandlers, and that was strictly a drug issue. I would have no hesitation of walking through the market at any hour of the day or night now."

O'Brien, who lives in theByward neighbourhood,said police have produced positive results by going after dealers, in some cases getting court orders banning them from the market area.

Vern White, the city's chief of police since 2007,said thatdrug trafficking in the market isn't as "in-your-face as it was three years ago," but drug addictionremains a major issue.

"Drugs are still a huge problem in this city and they still feed a lot of our criminal activity," White said. "The drug problem that I see is less about dealers look at the number of addicts that we still have roaming around the city."

White, who became police chief about one year after O'Brien was elected mayor, said he's seen a rise in the abuse of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Staff members at Harvest House, a residential treatment facility in the city, recently told CBC that OxyContin has overtaken crack-cocaine as the most commonly abused drug.

White said the police want to focus less on arresting drug dealers and more on providing drug counseling and prevention programs, especially for younger people.

"We'll continue doing the enforcement piece, but I think we as police, we don't want to arrest more drug dealers. We want to see less drugs."