DRUG BILL FILLS GANG COFFERS

Dear Editor,

The gang problem will continue unless we stop subsidizing gangs
[Fighting gangs in Langley, May 7, Langley Advance].

The Conservative federal government is subsidizing gangs. It even has
a gang bailout bill that will cost the taxpayers $10 billion per year!

Isn't that great? Your tax dollars are being used to artificially
inflate the price of drugs so that gangsters can buy more flashy
things and attract your kid.

Maybe they will have so much money that they can even buy bigger guns.

The bill is called S-10. Before, it was called C-15. It brings in
mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

This might sound like it will hurt gangs, but it won't. The people
who get caught for drug crimes the most are college kids, medical
marijuana providers and patients, and small-scale dealers - in other
words, the people who provide competition to the gangs. Mom and pot
operations, if you will.

When you make the sentences tougher for drug crimes, it raises the
price of drugs.

Therefore the bill will both jail the only competition to the big
gangs, and make the drug trade more lucrative for those not getting caught.

Prohibition is a subsidy for organized crime. Bill S-10 is the Gang
Bailout and Recruitment Bill of 2010.

Which politicians stand to gain from increased violent crime? Would
it happen to be the "tough on crime" party?

Those who claim to be "tough on crime" need crime. Otherwise they
appear as they are: dumb on crime.

Travis Erbacher,

Langley