FREE DRUGS FOR ADDICTS WOULD BE KWAN'S FOLLY

Judging from a brief sojourn into the world of television news last week,
it now seems apparent that Jenny Kwan, NDP Minister of Municipal Affairs,
has decided the only way to stop junkies from keeling over in their fetid
mess is to provide them with safe injection sites and free drugs.

Such is the measure of enlightenment emanating from Victoria. Drugs are the
poison killing them, so let's give them easier access to the drugs.

Kwan was out parading around last week, fresh from her recent brush with
the law, a Minister of the Crown engaging in a little trivial graffiti
during yet another protest, on that occasion demanding the property of
others be given to those who haven't earned it.

The "skids" in Vancouver, an area which used to be a few blocks along East
Hastings, has now grown to include much of Chinatown, Gastown and beyond.

Euphemistically called the "Downtown Eastside" for those eschewing the
reality of "Skid Road," it has long been populated by the poor, the
besotted, fallen whores and those who prey on those less able to protect
themselves.

But, what was once an area where omnipresent drug dealers used to hide from
the enforcement actions of the police, it has now become a veritable
downtown drug emporium. A street flea market for every type of mind
altering substance imaginable, home to a battalion of Honduran crack
dealers and Asian street thugs, not to mention our own homegrown white
trash, the "Skids" has evolved into a bubbling cauldron displaying the
futility of a justice system gone wrong and a government that just doesn't
get it.

On any given day, at any given hour, in any given alley, you can see the
results of the permissive society tying up a bicep while spanking a
withered arm trying desperately to coax a metal fatigued vein out of its
slumber just one more time.

Kwan's answer is to give them free drugs because that will somehow stop the
dying and the despair in the poorest neighbourhood of the best country in
the world to live in.

What's next? Perhaps she'll order up a "safe drinking" house and give the
winos she stepped over to get to her little protest, a bottle of the best
B.C. wine. After all, they're dying down there too, drinking Chinese
cooking wine and poking holes into cans of Lysol to "shoot" the contents
(an act colloquially known as a Proctor & Gamble cocktail).

The NDP have, for the nearly 10 years they have held power in Pitiful B.C.,
largely ignored these people, the very citizens of Kwan's own riding. There
are so few treatment beds, that even if a junkie wanted to escape the
needle, there's precious little in available resources.

These people need help, not more drugs. They need places with warm beds and
warmer hearts to help them escape the hell they are in. They sure as hell
do not need a benevolent government adding to their life's misery by making
it easier for them to get the poison that is destroying their lives and
killing them by the hundreds.

What is it with this lot? Do they somehow think they would be a better
class of drug dealer?

Drugs, whether the weekend pot smoker believes it or not, are killing our
country. And, at the same time, are providing untold billions into the
pockets of organized crime. Good God, marijuana cultivation has become the
third largest industry in a natural resource rich province.

No, I don't want to hear from the aging hippies who think it is a harmless
drug. It isn't the drug of their youth. Not any more. The percentage of THC
content in the hydroponic crop produced in this province outstrips the
Woodstock version by over 600%.

No one reading this would condone someone getting smashed on booze then
driving a car. Well, why is it somehow acceptable with marijuana? Is the
person they hit any less dead? Most women wouldn't think of having a drink
while pregnant, but somehow the occasional toke is still okay?

The argument for legalized drugs doesn't hold water at any level. The
shallow thinker, or perhaps those who conduct their thought analysis while
sucking on a "bong," believe that to make drugs legal will eliminate the
ravages of organized crime. Really?

Once legalized, are we going to allow a 14 or 15 year old kid to buy
marijuana? Heroin? Crack cocaine? What about a little speed to get them
through exams? Hell, we won't even allow them to buy cigarettes, which
however unhealthy, is at least not mind-altering. Where a prohibition
exists, so will a black market. This isn't rocket science.

What about the U.S. or Europe, or South America, China, Korea, Japan? Are
all these places going to jump on the legalization bandwagon as well? Or
will B.C. Bud, produced illegally, still be the global toke of choice?

I refuse to accept the arguments portrayed saying that we are criminalizing
people for innocent activity. Talk to any police officer and ask them the
last time they made an arrest for simple possession of marijuana. It just
isn't done and hasn't for many years, unless the individual is such a
belligerent yahoo they practically scream out to be arrested for something,
anything. The truth is that the simple possession of so-called soft drugs
has been decriminalized for all intents and purposes for the past 10 or 15
years.

No, despite what the pro-druggies say, the police do not target the users.
They are after the dealers. And the organized crime teams and drug squads
are after the bigger fish, those who make millions trading in human misery.

We have portrayed drugs and the drug culture as somehow harmless. Trust me,
it isn't. Look at ecstasy. The media call it a "designer" drug as if it's
haute couture. Ecstasy, or MDMA is, essentially, a vile chemical cocktail
of LSD and methamphetamine. Great, you get to hallucinate at high speed.
That sound you hear at raves is not music, it is the collected noise of
neurons popping in kids' brains.

This government is trying to outlaw tobacco and, at the same time, looking
for ways to accommodate drug use all the while ignoring their
responsibility to provide treatment for those whose addictions are leading
them to the morgue.

Maybe the lunacy of drugs will never end. Maybe the war against drugs
cannot be won. But surely, for the sake of our kids, surrender is not an
option.