Kelowna identified as a hot spot for drugs – but police say stats can be deceiving.

RCMP Superintendent Nick Romanchuk:

“This isn’t about targeting the recreational marijuana user. This is about targeting criminals,”- “It’s about targeting the people in the community who are causing the most harm…., such as prolific offenders who frequent our crime hot spots. Drug enforcement is a tool to deal with those individuals.”

The more drug enforcement that a police force conducts, the higher the rate is going to be,” said Romanchuk.

“I could flip the switch and have no drug enforcement and we’d have the lowest rate. I could reduce the stats easily, but that would be superficial.”