U.S. WAR ON DRUGS CRUSADER GETS POLICE LIFT

Once you understand just who that Vancouver cop was supposed to be
chauffeuring to the IDEAS drug conference in a "nice unmarked police car,"
you'll be able to figure out the size of the problem we have on our hands.

The cop is Const. Chris Graham. He is a member of the Odd Squad, a small
group of Vancouver cops who made a name for themselves shooting an NFB film
about junkies on the Downtown Eastside. The two senior members of the Odd
Squad are constables Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton.

It's no secret that Hinton and Arsenault, along with the rest of this gang,
have worked to undermine harm reduction, a key part of the drug policy
supported by Mayor Philip Owen, city council, the Vancouver police
department, the provincial and federal governments and the general public.

Arsenault and Hinton were key organizers of the IDEAS conference, along
with wealthy Vancouver War On Drugs crusaders Lynda and Bob Bentall. The
two cops and the Bentalls are the only members of IDEAS. The Odd Squad
provided logistical support at the conference.

It's just the most recent effort by the Odd Squad and its supporters to
attack a made-in-Vancouver public policy that calls for the end of the
American-inspired War on Drugs and the beginning of a balanced approach to
drug addiction now succeeding in Europe.

Graham was scheduled to pick up Betty S. Sembler. She is the mother of all
War on Drugs crusaders. Betty and her husband Mel started the Drug Free
America Foundation Inc. and its earlier incarnation, STRAIGHT Inc.

STRAIGHT Inc. grew from The Seed, which applied a forced treatment approach
to children-an approach the U.S. Senate denounced as similar to
brainwashing methods used by North Korea.

Betty's Florida-based foundation first inspired, then sponsored and helped
fund the IDEAS conference. Bob Bentall told me that Arsenault and Hinton
took a trip to foundation headquarters in Florida and came back with a plan
that became the conference.

For decades, the Semblers have raised major money for the Republican Party.
The include among their friends Ronald and Nancy "Just Say No To Drugs"
Reagan and George and Barbara Bush. Both Ron and George made commercials
for the Semblers' various foundations.

Mel Sembler dumped so much money into Republican coffers, George Bush
rewarded him with an ambassadorship to Australia. Between Betty's work as a
zero-tolerance drug warrior and the cash she kicked into the campaign to
elect George Bush's son Jeb governor of Florida, it's no wonder Jeb
declared August 8, 2000 Betty Sembler Day in his state.

The War on Drugs has accomplished a number of things, including putting at
least two million young, mostly black and Hispanic, Americans in prison.
Meanwhile, drug addiction and related diseases have increased everywhere
the war has been waged, including Canada.

Private citizens like the Bentalls and the Semblers are free to have
whatever conference they want to advance any failed ideas they choose. They
can even screen and exclude certain journalists at their own peril.

But when members of the Vancouver Police force actively organize these
large-scale events to undermine public policy, it's unacceptable,
regardless of whose cars they use. When these cops tie themselves to a
foreign political machine with an agenda detrimental to our own-which is
what the Odd Squad has done-it's time to stop them.

Police Chief Terry Blythe has known what these "cowboys," as he calls them,
are up to for some time and has done nothing. Whether these most recent
revelations will push him into action during the last few lethargic weeks
before his retirement is debatable.

But this should not go away just because he does.