IF JUDGES ENFORCED LAW, THINGS WOULD BE DIFFERENT

Editor: In response to your editorial of April 22, regarding Green
candidate Travis Erbacher's suggestion that the solution to the
epidemic of lawlessness around street gang activity would be to
legalize drugs, I must respond.

Anyone posing this suggestion must first ask themselves what would
the conditions in British Columbia actually look like if we did
legalize drugs? Because decriminalization advocates don't actually
know what's really going on, they make some mistaken assumptions.

The most important assumption is that "enforcement" of the existing
drug laws in Canada haven't worked. This assumption couldn't be
farther from the truth and let me explain why.

Presently, even though under our constitution our federal Parliament
is supposed to be supreme, B.C.'s judges have single-handedly and
arbitrarlily moved to the de facto decriminalization of not only the
possession of marijuana, but of the cultivation of marjiuana for the
purposes of trafficking too (grow-ops).

Here's why: In B.C., for every 100 grow-ops only three or four
persons caught actually get punished to the extent that they receive
a jail term. On average, that term is three months, and they receive
a fine of only $1,200. This is after stealing, on average, $1,800
worth of power to run the grow-op.

And let's not forget who takes our B.C. Bud south of the border to
launder money, trade for illegal handguns (that have killed innocent
Canadians), and trade for cocaine and heroin. It's organized crime.

Do the decriminalization advocates know that already the average
number of plants possessed by a person convicted of "possession" of
marjiuana in BC is 94. I bet not. That's a lot of doobies for personal use.

So getting back to my original question: what would it look like now
if we "legalized drugs." It would look alot like what what we are
currently experiencing.

What the decriminalization advocates don't realize is that Health
Canada does not endorse marijuana as a recreational drug for a good
reason; and there is no "business plan" involved in their
legalization solution.

Can you imagine, for example, this current government in Victoria
growing and selling marjiuana, when they wouldn't know a business
plan if they stepped on it, had it stick to the bottom of their shoe
and it stunk to high heaven?

And what would we do with all these law-breakers? If we legalized
drugs, somehow all those lawbreakers would reform themselves (only
B.C.'s judges believe that) and go work at McDonalds? I think not.

All it would do is drive those lawbreakers further underground. Would
we not have a nastier situation than we now have?

Sadly, the public have not been honestly informed either by the
police, the courts or the politicians as to what is actually going on
in B.C. That was a big surprise to me when I started to ask questions
and conduct research to find out answers.

Bet you didn't know that Canada's national annual crime statistics
conveniently leave out the B.C. numbers. Know why? Look at what's
going on in the streets, that's why.

I believe, before we have any debate on the decriminalization side,
we first must try enforcement to see if it actually works. After that
we'll talk.

But that would require judges who would actually enforce the laws of
Canada within a functioning justice system, with a lot more police.
But since B.C. doesn't have this, I certainly haven't figured that one out yet.

Steve Brown, Langley