Pubdate: Thu, 25 Aug 2005
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2005 Calgary Herald
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

MISERY-DEALER NEEDS NO BREAK

If heroin trafficker Nicholas Cypui Chan can't get vegetarian meals in 
prison, then Queen's Bench Justice Peter McIntyre should have ordered the 
prison to supply the meals, not to release Chan before his term is up.

Chan, 27, was initially sentenced to 7 1/2 years for selling $7,000 worth 
of heroin. After serving a little more than two years, he now can get out 
in less than a year, with a paltry three years of probation substituting 
for the remainder of the time he was to spend behind bars.

His vegetarianism was one reason for reducing his term; McIntyre also noted 
that Chan had an "exceptionally hard time" in jail, including undergoing 
strip searches, being forced to wear restrictive clothing, and being 
subjected to a "long and difficult" trip to Peace River for a medical opinion.

Of course, Corrections officials don't perform strip searches or make an 
inmate wear restrictive clothing just for a lark. They do it because the 
inmate is behaving like one bad dude. Nor is it clear how a trip to Peace 
River in a prison van counts as arduous enough that the prisoner deserves 
to be compensated for it with a get-out-of-jail-free card. Surely, Chan 
didn't jounce there in a Red River cart.

Heroin trafficking is a very serious offence because of the drug's 
dangerously addictive nature and the potential for a trafficker to destroy 
youthful lives through its commerce. Society must be protected from those 
who deliberately seek to unravel its fabric.

Sadly, the only message this ruling sends is that the failure of the prison 
system to provide an inmate with the lifestyle to which he'd like to become 
accustomed takes precedence over deterrence, public safety and the gravity 
of the crime. The justice system seems to have forgotten it is the 
criminals who owe a debt to society, not the other way around.
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