WHATEVER YOUR VALUES, REDFORD IS WAY OFF BASE

Forget the talk that might lump me in with the most hardcore of the
freedom fighters.

Forget trying to rationalize that the sole reason there is violence
around the drug trade is because drugs are illegal and the dealers are
competing for a market share.

Forget the argument alcohol was once the subject of violent organized
crime clashes, during a time when it was prohibited.

Legalize drugs? What have you been smoking? Those arguments don't take
well in Alberta.

Oh, and nix the line about marijuana being less harmful, and drug
users more apt to be a harm to themselves rather than to others.

Despite all that, gangs are bad and if you want to smoke a spliff come
Saturday, you're with the gangsters, according to our top law enforcers.

I'm no fancy big-city lawyer like Justice Minister Alison Redford, but
if hers is what qualifies as a reasoned argument, I guess I saved
money by not going to law school.

I'm all for laying the boots to the gangsters, and making it hard for
them to make life unsafe for average Albertans.

I've written that vehicle and property seizure laws aren't all that
bad in trying to put and keep gangsters behind bars, if that's the
system under which we're going to be working.

But all the tough talk about telling people not to do drugs as an
anti-gang strategy rings hollow at best.

It makes no sense for the province to tell us that users are just as
culpable as the gangsters and then allow addicts to be treated with
the kind of kid gloves they've previously held up as an ill of the
justice system.

Not to give Alison Redford and Solicitor General Fred Lindsay any
ideas, but if users are so harmful and a party to the violence, then
they can't possibly condone the operation of two drug courts in this
province.

If users are truly to blame for the drug war in our midst then the
province should, under no circumstances, be coughing up money to let
addicts who turn to crime off of the hook.

Who cares if it's proven that programs that divert people from the
jail system and into treatment actually save us money in the long run?

And why draw the line at reverse onus at bail hearings for drug
traffickers, as Redford is proposing?

Why not force everyone popped for possession to prove why they're not
a danger to public safety, if that's how our cabinet minister views
us?

Because it's not true.

This kind of talk is especially troubling in a province that takes in
hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the sale of tobacco and
alcohol, which Redford lumped in with marijuana as being equally harmful.

They're either bad or they're not. But it's time to stop pretending
one is worse for society because it's illegal.

She's right, if marijuana were made legal, there would still be a
market for other illegal drugs, but as reason for prohibition, it is
the most faulty kind of logic. We may as well reinstitute alcohol
prohibition.

And Redford should remember that as more and more people find
themselves comfortable in admitting they are recreational drug users,
especially pot smokers, the more she risks alienating a large number
of people who identify themselves as Tory voters.

In a war to win the hearts and minds of Albertans, Redford is likely
hitting the right notes for the choir, but will do little to sway the
congregation.