DRUG PROBLEM MORE THAN SELF-INFLICTED

The screaming headlines told us, as newspaper headlines often do, something
that we all already knew, or should have known - Vancouver and British
Columbia have a serious illegal drug problem.

Well, duh!

The statistics do not lie.

Drug charges across our country were up by more than 40 per cent in just 10
years (1992-2002); and with 544 charges per 100,000 people, our province
chalked up nearly twice the national average of 295.

What the statistics did not provide were the numbers of addicts and drug
dealers who had moved to British Columbia in that same period to take
advantage of the lax laws and weak-kneed judges who treat them as though
they were merely jaywalkers, rather than peddlers of death and despair to
our children.

No, we're not talking here about marijuana and the possession of a few joints.

While it is true that charges relating to marijuana represent fully
three-quarters of the volume of cases, with society as a whole "lightening
up" (and lighting up, I dare say); it is not surprising to see no harsh
treatment from the bench when pot is involved.

However, when reports persist that show repeat offenders who are selling
crack cocaine, heroin, crystal meth and other such poisons are also being
mollycoddled by the men and women in the high-falutin' robes, it is time to
call for an end to such insanity.

Being caught with a joint or two is one thing; spending a million dollars
(from money raised by selling illegal drugs, of course) to buy three
first-class homes in the high-rent district to set up an elaborate
marijuana grow-op or a crystal meth laboratory is quite another.

Yet our judges appear reluctant to make the distinction; and they appear to
be hesitant to make an example of the organized crime profiteers behind
this obscene exploitation and contamination of our society.

Far be it for this humble correspondent to suggest for a moment that some
judges may be indebted in any way to those same drug-peddling lowlifes, or
even to wonder if Hizhonor's new Mercedes or yacht or island cottage is
truly affordable, even on that lush taxpayer-funded salary.

Not surprisingly, it seems harder to find statistics that show just how
many more organized crime members have moved here to oversee their
operation of running the bulk of the illegal substances through B.C.,
including that supposedly innocuous marijuana being shipped internationally
daily by the ton.

Or one could ask who in Ottawa or Victoria was behind the insane decision
to end the need for Vancouver Port Police at a time when massive drug
shipments were increasing.

Who decided to let the inmates run the asylum, so to speak?

Don't hold your breath expecting any kind of answer to those questions.

After all, drug trafficking and drug smuggling are the biggest, most
lucrative cash businesses on the planet next to dealing in weapons, and
with so much cash and so little accountability, anyone in a position of
authority asking for those answers is likely to wind up either dead or wealthy.

Sadly, wealthy seems to have been the preferred option, all too often.

So take your statistics and your screaming headlines, roll them into a
Zig-Zag with a little B.C. Bud and smoke 'em. They are of no use for
anything else.