Various stakeholders were in Prince Albert last week for a meeting on the city’s drug problem.
Representatives from the RCMP, Métis Addictions Council of Saskatchewan and the city’s Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods unit were on hand for the meeting hosted by the Prince Albert Grand Council.
Provincial Court Judge Earl Kalenith was one of those in attendance at the meeting.
Kalenith said those charged with drug offences are all too commonplace in the city’s courtrooms.
“There has been a significant growth in drug-related charges and property offences and increasingly in connection with the drug offences, use of guns,” he said. “And that’s a very common problem and a very frequent charge that is seen in court.”
Kalenith said he heard a number of helpful ideas put forward at the meeting and that it is often the case that the most successful solutions to drug-related offences are not court-mandated.
“Treatment is most successful when it isn’t actually court-mandated. It isn’t mandated treatment but treatment the person is motivated to go do themselves. So, I think that where they’re not a public safety concern, giving them the opportunity to access that treatment if there’s a motivation to do it, will be more successful than simply sentencing them to jail.”
The meeting was held at Parkland Hall.