Pubdate: Tue, 21 Jun 2005
Source: Maple Ridge Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc
Contact:  http://www.mrtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1372

TOUGHEN PENALTIES FOR METH

A bait-car video released last week is indeed chilling. It shows a truck 
thief speeding down residential streets in Langley and Abbotsford - going 
as fast as 140 km/h, smashing into three vehicles and narrowly missing a 
head-on collision with a police car.

During the rampage, the man pulls out a handgun and tries 14 times to fire 
it out the passenger-side window. Fortunately, it doesn't go off.

Cpl. Tim Shields, spokesperson for the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto 
Crime Task Force, said the footage is "the most chilling bait-car video 
that auto theft investigators from around the world have ever seen." He 
also said the thief is a meth addict.

Friday, North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said at a conference 
- - designed to get western provinces and territories talking about solutions 
to the crystal meth problem - that his state is overrun with meth users.

He said B.C. faces a flood of criminals looking for products used to make 
the drug, unless it clamps down on the sale of ingredients like some U.S. 
states are doing.

North Dakota has doubled its prison budget during the past seven years, and 
a shocking 60 per cent of male inmates there are meth addicts.

Both the video and warning are signs that it's time for B.C. to take swift 
action. We've got enough problems with grow ops. We don't need more meth 
madness.

As for the federal government, it's time for them to take some action.

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows MP Randy Kamp has proposed that the feds declare 
meth a more dangerous drug than it is currently considered.

Doing so would make legal penalties far more serious, leading to longer 
jail sentences for people who produce the drug.

So far, the federal government has only said it will "study" the crystal 
meth situation. But what exactly do they have to study?

There is ample evidence of the damage meth is doing to our society, and 
criminals are making huge amounts of money making this cheap drug. The time 
for studying the issue is over, it's time to take action.
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MAP posted-by: Beth