DOPE HURTS LOTS OF PEOPLE IN IGLOOLIK

This letter is in reference to the article that was featured on July
28, regarding the leader of the Nunavut Marijuana Party, who lives in
my hometown of Igloolik.

He openly taunted community members and authorities about his very
successful business as a drug dealer in the community and how he is
serving the good of the community, in the sense that pot is
therapeutic. He then goes on to say how he is contributing to our
welfare town by buying carvings in exchange for cash or pot.

I remember a previous incident in Baffin Island about a man who ran a
booze can, and who went as far as wanting cession from Canada, defying
all that we hold dear in our laws, which are in place to protect us as
Canadians.

How we put up with such arrogance, I don't understand. Although I am
told by the elders who suffer the consequences in silence and shame
that natural justice always prevails. I am too impatient, and want
things dealt with as they occur within the law, whether western or
traditional. (Banishment perhaps?)

I can understand that if he is monolingual and his clientele is
limited to the younger Inuit who use pot that he doesn't, or refuses
to see, how his dealings affect the community at large. Has he seen
what I have seen, and witnessed very unhealthy situations, which are
just a few of the ripple effects of his making?

I have seen the pain and the helplessness of the elder-victims, who
could certainly benefit from a few therapists' sessions, so they can
cope with the vicious cycle of drug addictions, and the violence
induced by the need for drugs in their own homes.

Elders, who thought they hid their old age pension cash in a safe
place for the night, but discover it taken by any of their grown
children in the middle of the night, while they slept. They know who
took it but are afraid to tackle the thief because when the thief
needs a fix, he or she is agitated, quick to anger, which can become a
violent situation within the home.

So the elders suffer in silence and shame, worrying about how they
will survive the rest of the month until the next pension cheque. Keep
in mind that they have to feed their grandchildren and the grown
children who stole the cash, since not all dope-heads in Igloolik are
exceptionally good carvers. This cycle repeats itself endlessly.

I have seen children with nothing to eat, while their parents were off
selling their few possessions for a toke. I have heard younger women
openly talk about sex in exchange for drugs.

I have spoken with elders going out on medical leave who are asked to
carry packages to their destination. It's the children and the elders
who are victimized by drugs. I can't see how their lives are being
improved by drugs.

So I fail to see how this man is providing pain relief to the children
and the elders. I also see the partners of drug dealers who are
helplessly trapped in drug-dealing activities inside their own homes.

Long after the perpetrators are gone, the women may have taken the
fall for their partner, served time in jail, and now having a criminal
record, their employability becomes limited and their reputation
tarnished. I consider these the worst-off victims, along with their
children. They suffer the long-term effects and for the moment, are
not living in safe homes. Since when is a drug house a safe home?

Tolerance for drug dealing is also bought and paid for at a price.
In-laws are bought the equipment and vehicles they could never afford
so the drug dealer buys a sense of belonging and protection in the
community.

And occasionally one can become a perpetrator such as myself, simply
by getting on a plane and the (community mule or middleman dealers)
partner comes rushing to the airport with an urgent package, just as
you are boarding.

If you are a woman, familiar with spousal violence, and you see the
fear in her eyes, you take it to spare her another beating. It further
personalizes it if she is a relative and you know that she and her
children often spend time at the women's shelter.

Then you become part of the problem, if you carry it. You have been
told that the partner of the head drug dealer will be at the airport
to pick it up. With this one personal experience, the female partners
of the drug dealers were doing all the dirty work and risk-taking,
which tells me clearly that the dealers aren't men enough to do their
own dirty work.

If this activity were taking place anywhere else but Igloolik, I would
suggest that citizens' advocacy groups work to clean-up their towns,
which can be done jointly with the RCMP, but since I am from this town
I assume the passive approach will be banishment, which further defers
taking real action.

Out of sight, out of mind, making room for the next drug dealer to
move in.

I wish to have my name withheld as I have mentioned a specific
incident that could further jeopardize abused women caught up in this
activity.

(Name withheld by request) Igloolik