Steve Mertl, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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AGASSIZ, B.C. - With its high, razor-wire-topped fences and guard towers, Kent federal maximum security prison doesn't look like a sieve where illicit drugs routinely reach inmates.

But guards at the prison and other federal institutions like it have been unsuccessful in choking off the drug supply.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day used the prison - which sits at the foot of a brooding, mist-shrouded mountain 130 kilometres east of Vancouver - to announce the Conservative government will spend up to $120 million over five years to back a zero-tolerance policy for drugs in prison.

"Approximately 80 per cent of offenders coming into the system have some type of substance-abuse problem," Day said Friday.

And inside prison, control of the drug trade brings power, he said.

"It helps the gangs that develop in the system - organized crime and the hierarchy develops," said Day, adding it also puts corrections staff at greater risk.

The plan, which includes more drug-sniffing dogs, better inside intelligence, more perimeter surveillance and putting visitors through futuristic-looking ion scanners as part of a stricter visiting policy, will help make it easier for inmates to come out of prison clean, said Day.

Many crimes are committed to feed a drug habit, leading inmates back to prison, he noted.

"So for the first time in their life, there's a possibility where they can actually be in a drug-free environment and actually break free of addictions that ruin the lives of so many people," Day said.

There were 800 drug seizures in federal prisons last year, which Day said represents only a fraction of the actual problem.

Tackling drugs was a key recommendation from a panel that looked into the operation of the Correctional Service of Canada last year.

Drugs reach inmates in a variety of ways, Day said, often smuggled by visitors, sometimes with children used as mules.

"It's child exploitation in a terrible form," he said.

Sometimes drugs are simply thrown over the wall hidden in a tennis ball or even attached to an arrow shot from outside, he said.

Day conceded there have been instances where guards have smuggled in drugs either for money or under coercion, but they will also be subject to tougher entry checks.

He noted the guards' union supports the government's new measures.

Gord Robertson, Pacific regional president of the Canadian Correctional Officers' Union, said the union has been consulting with Day's bureaucrats since January on the government's plan.

"We have brought up several of our concerns, which we see incorporated in this," he said. "It's good to see that they are actually taking the zero-tolerance stance very seriously."

Robertson said corrections officers are threatened quite often, but most "retain a very high level of professionalism," and smuggling by guards is "very, very rare."

Day said the government has already budgeted more money to enhance drug treatment for inmates, especially those whose drug habits are tied to mental challenges.

Two-thirds of the government's $64-million, anti-drug strategy a year ago went to programs for offenders, he said.

"We want to see those enhanced, but for those to be effective we have to stop the flow of drugs into the institution," said Day.

Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society, which lobbies for prisoners' rights, said the government has failed to make the connection between their inability to deal with drugs outside prison and the environment inside prisons.

He said the majority of drug users in prison are addicted when they enter.

"We're going to have a drug problem in prisons for as long as we persist in pursuing an unworkable drug-control strategy outside prisons," Jones said.

"It's a fallacy to think that we can successfully make prisons drug-free when 100 years of drug prohibition has not made Canadian society drug-free."

Harassing visitors will only make it harder for inmates to stay in touch with families, increasing the level of tension inside prisons, Jones said.

Robertson said he expects the crackdown could raise tensions within prison walls, which already happens after a major drug seizure.

"We still feel that's no reason to prevent us with proceeding with this plan," he said.