Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: ONE DRUG ARREST EVERY 19 SECONDS IN THE U.S.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: ONE DRUG ARREST EVERY 19 SECONDS IN THE U.S.

A Report on Stigma and Discrimination towards the Injecting Drug User Community

A Report on Stigma and Discrimination towards the Injecting Drug User Community

Metro - No end in sight for Occupy Vancouver

Metro - No end in sight for Occupy Vancouver These people get props for endurance.I'll bet the Mr.Conservative folks that are spitting and cursing at them wouldn't last a night.It's been cold and wet for an awful lot of this protest but the protesters are determined to stay for the long haul.People might think that there are more productive ways to spend your time but then they probably just don't get it anyhow.People are pissed and feel they don't have any voice in Harper's Canada.There is no doubt after three job actions have been legislated to an end and a huge game changing crime bill was rammed through with little or no debate.That democracy is dead in this country for the duration of the Harper dictatorship.By limiting debate to two days on a bill that crams 9 bills into one huge mess that appeals to no one but Harper and the advisors he uses.That would be the victims of violent crime.These people are just too angry to approach legislation with anything but a jaded view at best.At worst we get the bill we see in parliament today.A mish mash of conservative ideology,christian right severity and little or no complementary data.An unjustified shift to the right at a time when crime is at all time lows and being reduced every year.Of course the conservatives have all kinds of excuses to explain this away.Their excuses are as uninformed as they are.People do not sit out in the rain in protest of nothing at all.There are very good and valid reasons that the average Canadian feels he is powerless.Harper and his minority(in support)government ruling like a petty despot is only one.

Harper's number one priority

With the stock markets tanking and surging,for no apparent reason other than a complete lack of confidence in the state of the world economy,one would be forgiven for thinking that this countries government's primary concern would be in how to keep people working.Not so with the Government of Stephen Harper.Don't forget that this is the same Harper who prorogued parliament to save his own job when he totally misread the first economic collapse.The same Harper that insisted we harmonize our banking system with that of the US.Luckily,we were once smart enough in this country to know an idiot when we heard one speak.Now that the man has dictatorial power for a five year margin his first act is to take a bunch of already tried crime bills,bills that were so against the common good that they were dropped without a debate and jammed them in with a bunch of even worse bills and with the demand that this omnibus bill be passed in 100 days.Harper never listens to the statistics or to science or even to what is happening around the world.He is continually in court trying to close down insite,which is a program that has earned this country praise world wide.His hatred for cannabis is legend and his opposition to harm reduction based on personal morality,period.Why,with the world backing away from the disastrous prohibition that has seen a spreading of drug use around the planet that is unprecedented,would Harper want to expand the very laws that caused this plague in the first place?One can only surmise that it is yet another of the many foolhardy motions and statements that spring eternal from the evangelical right.Their placing of their personal beliefs above all else,above science,math,history,and common sense is against any known form of logic known to man.These terrible crime bills.Formed in consultation with the victims of violent crime and police chiefs,and we all know how impartial those groups are,these laws are aimed at the poorest people in the country.Oh,they call them organized crime bills and they might even be so deluded as to believe that that is who will suffer under these acts.I will guarantee,after 45 years of watching the local crime scene closely,that these bills will put a huge number of low level drug addicts in prison for serious lengths of time.People say that at least while they're in prison they're not out committing crimes.They are also not learning anything but how to be a better criminal and they come under the influence of the most sick and violent people in the country.They come out,and they all do come out as angrier,smarter and more hair triggered criminals than when they went in.Many will pick up serious drug habits.So it was,so it is and so it always will be.Canada,in the 60's and early 70's put away more people by population than any western democracy.More than even the US.Now we have another conservative government that wants to put more people in prison than any government before them.It seems to be a conservative badge of honor.It doesnt work.It costs a fortune for no return and it does nothing to resolve the underlying problems of poverty and drug abuse that have been at the root of crime since we crawled out of the sludge and began walking upright.You would think that we would learn from history.We don't.The election of Stephen Harper makes me wonder if we ever learn at all.

In Flanders Fields

The poppies blow.Has anyone told the RCMP?After reading about a poor immigrant who came here from Afghanistan with some poppy seeds and a habit for either the tea made from the pods or opium.He grew his poppies for 10 years,bothering no one and with no intention of ever sharing his treasure with anyone else.Then the Calgary police were tipped off and this serious felon was arrested and put through what must have been worse than hell,if he survived at all.The one thing this drug does that is bad is to addict the user and especially an opium eater will often succumb.Now we find out that the east Indian community has a weakness for the tea and the cops are crowing about their huge bust of poppy fields.Now,I confess that I had planned to move to the interior and plant a few hectares of poppies for medicinal purposes.Now it seems cannabis isn't the only wild growing plant that can get you arrested and tossed in jail.What about all those people with poppies in their yards?My mother always had a patch in the east end.We cannot allow our laws to be applied to only some.A single pot plant gives our Prime Minister nightmares.I call on the RCMP and every Provincial and city police department to get out there and arrest these felons.Inform them of their crime and arrest and imprison them,all of them.Either that or just knock this shit off.If I want to grow poppies and I interfere with no one else,why should anyone care?Why would the police actually arrest a man who is doing no harm?Prohibition.It's here and it makes as much sense now as it did in 1903 when opium was banned to :"keep the chinks in their place".The"chinks" had had the bad form of being beat up by a bunch of racists and having the gall to fight back to protect their property.That is why opium is agin the law here.All drug laws are either racist in origin or as the result of the war on drugs declared in 1971.I remember LSD becoming illegal in '68.Art Linkletter's daughter had done a swan dive off a roof so no one else was allowed to do it anymore.So,to Mr.Naturel out there who thinks pot is OK cause it's grown freely in nature.Leave me and my opiates alone.To everyone who knows so much better than me how I ought to live,piss off.To the police all over this country,if you bust a field in a mans yard you best be busting every poppy plant you see.A criminal is a criminal.What about the message you send when gramma skates?