JUSTICE MINISTER ALISON REDFORD ISN'T MINCING ANY WORDS WHEN IT COMES
TO DRUGS AS SHE REALLY HAS ONLY ONE THING TO SAY: DON'T BUY'EM

If there's a new war on drugs, this is the sound of the
artillery.

Yesterday, at a big gabfest on how to go after gangs, the province's
justice minister sized drug users up in no uncertain terms and
Calgary's police chief threw in some of his own grief for good measure.

We're talking about the imbibers of everything from pot to crack and
they're being painted as a very big part of the gang problem and not
any part of the solution.

And, while the tides may be shifting somewhat elsewhere, at least when
it comes to looking more loosely at marijuana, they're nowhere near
Alberta, where any official talk of going easy on weed is not happening.

"People should stop buying drugs. Period. Gangs are in the business of
making money and the way they do that is by selling illegal drugs.
Customers feed the machine of crime, violence and gangs," says Alison
Redford, the justice boss not known for playing soft with the
syllables and fully electric this day.

"It doesn't matter if the customer is someone who is vulnerable or
someone sitting in a middle-class neighbourhood or someone with a lot
of money, a customer is a customer. They're giving money to gangs.
They are fuelling criminal business in this province."

Pot, cocaine, name the drug. It's all there.

"It's not as if some drugs are less dangerous than others," continues
Redford.

"We know from the way gangs do business, a kilo of marijuana from
Canada is equivalent in the drug trade to a kilo of cocaine from
Colombia. It's important not to think some drugs are innocent and
aren't dangerous and don't contribute to the gang problem in the same
way. They all do. Equally."

Redford is on a roll, speaking, as top cop Fred Lindsay did last
September, of those in the professional and business crowd who do drugs.

"The assumption is perhaps some of these people, if they are doing
drugs, they can 'handle it.' They can 'afford it.' But, at the end of
the day, it all leads to the same decline," she says.

The justice minister also takes on any do-your-own-thing libertarians
scanning the page.

"People say they want to be able to make personal choices in their
lives. This isn't about an individual making a personal choice that
doesn't impact anybody except them," she says.

"When they buy drugs, they are giving money to organizations trying to
get more turf and customer share and these people have guns and
armoured vehicles and they are prepared to kill."

"We have to talk about this stuff. I remember when I was young we used
to talk an awful lot more about how drugs were bad, how they got you
addicted and, when you got addicted, you committed crimes and, when
you committed crimes, you didn't have a lot of good choices to make in
your life. We need to talk about that again."

Yes, in a government where some on the benches are all over the map,
Redford is pitching the fastball right over the plate and you can take
it or leave it.

"I go to a lot of high schools and talk to kids and there's the very
earnest group who talk about it and know it. There are some who are
kind of flip about it and it's Yah, ha, ha. I call them to task. It's
not funny. It is not funny and just because you're under 18 doesn't
mean if you get involved in the drug lifestyle in any way you're not
going to end up having made an impact on your life you're not going to
want to make."

"So don't do it. We have to talk about why drugs are bad for your
health and how they contribute to criminal activity on our streets."
Redford wants no part of tossing out laws on marijuana.

"The public discussion is if we just legalized marijuana we wouldn't
have the problem. As I've said, in the drug trade, marijuana is equal
to cocaine."

"I think if you start taking that approach, of legalizing, it's a
slippery slope. You still have the next level of intoxicants that are
illegal. You're still going to have gang activity, you're still going
to have the police trying to enforce the law. You're not solving the
problem. The problem is gangs will make the money selling the illegal
items, whatever they might be, unless nothing is illegal."

Then she goes after those who say marijuana is no more harmful than
booze.

"It is more harmful and whether you're talking about an addiction to
marijuana or alcohol it's having a tremendous impact on people."

Later, Calgary police chief Rick Hanson turns up the heat and takes
aim at those who shake their heads over gangs, wonder what the cops
are doing and then go out and buy a quarter ounce of coke.

"These people are hypocrites. It's time they look inward and decide
what they want more. Do they want a safe community or are they going
to contribute to the problem themselves?" says Hanson. "That's going
to take some soul-searching."

If a soul could be taken by the scruff of the neck, I think it just
happened.