Ottawa drug problem visible to all but the politicians.

Another blog by sicntiredIt came as a surprise that the drug scene in Ottawa was similar to the one in Vancouver.Crack cocaine was the drug of choice and up until the appointment of a new police chief it was out in the open as police had come to terms with the fact that it made no sense to seize drugs or paraphernalia as it just caused either the sharing of same or new crime to replace the seized drugs.Then the new police chief changed all that and began arresting the very addict traffickers that it had been decided over years of policy changes that it made no sense to chase.I'm sure the new policy put a lot of addicted people in prison for a while and drove the drug scene under cover.The simple fact is that there is currently a situation in this country in which harm reduction measures have been brought to a halt and are being fought against by a conservative government that has no time for studies,research or empathy.They want people arrested,jailed and kept in prison for as long as possible.The fact that we have been there already means nothing to Harper and friends.Vancouver,which had the first heroin maintenance program in North America,saw that project ended.The safe injection site has had to submit paper after paper after paper and all for naught as this government has no time for addicts,the homeless or the poor.We have seen the drug scene explode everywhere and the gang problem grow from nothing to where there are so many the police can't keep track.Marijuana could have been legal in this country if the then conservatives,led by Brian Mulroney,hadn't seen to it that the bill died on the floor of the house of commons.There was also no shortage of pressure from the US.Now it is the number one cash crop in the country and it is run by gangsters instead of being taxed and regulated by our government.Look at any drug in this country and it is a worse problem today in spite of efforts to control,eradicate or interdict it.Canada is now named by the UN as a source country for drugs like methamphetamine and ecstasy.This in spite of the millions of our tax dollars that have been and continue to be spent on a US led War on Drugs.No one can take a sane look at this situation and say we are making progress or even holding the line.Things continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate and with every step taken there are unintended consequences that just seem to cause things to get worse.It is time to call a halt to the madness and end prohibition in this country now.The US seems to be coming around to this position but so very slowly.There is no reason that we in this country should have to wait for them to make the changes necessary.There is too much to lose by continuing down the road we have been on for almost 100 years.

Some people are just plain scary

Another blog by sicntired        Being somewhat of a paranoid,I like to watch certain political viewpoint shows.Especially when the Queen bitch of surrey takes the stage.Ms Watts,as anyone that's followed her career for 5 minuits knows,never saw a camers she didn't like.She took to the air on Vaughn Palmer's Voice of B.C.(Vaughn was on holiday),last week and it didn't take long before she showed her true colors.On a talk about heralth care and I'm paraphrasing here,she let it slip thaty in her opinion people who have made bad choices at one point in their lives,should have to pay in some way for those bad decisions.Most politico's have the sense to measure their words and attempt to mitigate the effects of their personal prejudices.Not so with Ms.Watts.It might be refreshing if she wasn't so intolerant and didn't have such a twisted hatred of those in society who have ,for whatever reason,fallen into the trap of addiction.What Ms.Watts was saying and I say this after years of listening to her rants about addicts and addiction,was that people with addictions shouldn't have the same access to health care as others as they have self inflicted wounds.Project this onto a fat person with type 2 diabetes,a failed suicide,a drunk with a bad liver.I'm not saying that this politician would include all of those,she probably doesn't even see the corelation.This woman went to Europe with a pre conceived vision and came back saying that her vision was correct.She went to one country,Italy,which has been long noted for it's failures and brutal repression of addicts,and assured everyone that she had found the perfect solution.You have to forgive prohibitionists as they are fighting against 100 years of failed policy and are still shouting as loud as they can that we just have to try harder.Einstein defined such strategy as insanity.I'll leave that up to dear reader to decide.The fact is,there are still people out there who are in positions of power who are projecting their own personal agendas on everyone else in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

Failure to learn from history.

Another blog  It's something that makes one wonder ;should I laugh or cry.The United States passed the 19th ammendment and caused the expansion and growth of a mafia that was a tiny problem that mainly existed in the Italian sections of major cities.By the time they passed the 22nd it was a world wide criminal enterprize with enough money and influence to effect the second world war,elect presidents and to send one of their sons to be president.Drug lords have already offered to write off the entire debt of a South American country and the largest state in the union.Marijuana growing is one of if not the major business in B.C.Like with alcohol prohibition,there will always be times when disagreements will cause violent outbreaks amongst gangster groups.The worst of these always come after a major player is removed from the scene.Police never do anything in a planned action but,rather react to situations in which they have at best faulty information.Is a gangster cooperating to reduce the opposition?To eliminate a powerful adversary?The police are so far behind in this city because they denied the problem for so long.They reacted with ire when outside help was offered.Now we have a bunch of politicians chasing their tails because people are angry.People are always angry.Thats why we have a seperate and Indapendant judiciary.People experienced with the law and it's applications.It's always easiest to make tough speeches and toughen laws.All that ever does is take rights away from us all with no effect on those who opperate beyond the law.It's sad that with another failed and unpopular prohibition just 90 years back that our politicians seem oblivious to it's consequences.I could point to claims and speeches that these same politicians were making just 10 years ago that had this problem under control.Don't blame the judges.They have seen abuses on both sides of the law.If the laws prohibiting drugs from adult p[ossession were ended tomorrow,these gangs would move somewhere else where fools still think a drug free world is a possibility.Prohibition is a lie propagated by people making billions off of it.Heroin,like alcohol is a disease.All these problems have answers.Prohibition is the absolute worse approach possible.It won't get any better.You don't fight something that will grow almost anywhere by passing a law.Opium is thousands of years old.Even the police know this.they're just scared to say it out loud.