Pubdate: Wed, 02 Feb 2005
Source: North Shore News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 North Shore News
Contact:  http://www.nsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311
Author: Wallace Gilby Craig
Note: Craig is a retired judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia 
and author of "Short Pants to Striped Trousers". He is a North Shore resident.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

REMEMBERING THE CASE LOAD IN DRUG COURT

"YOU were even right to send me to jail."

That is the last sentence in a letter I received from a woman on Sept. 21, 
2004.

They are words that I never expected and that jolted me back to 1977 and 
1978 and a 15-month grind in drug court.

Drug court 1978: A zoo exhibiting human wreckage of addiction and 
trafficking; too small, poorly designed.

It often reeked of stale air and occasional clouds of cigarette smoke from 
adjacent holding cells.

At times it resembled a night court in New York: crowded, grotesque, 
incongruous. Addicts, traffickers, and their supporters coming and going or 
sitting in the stun of narcotics. There were always a few police officers, 
interpreters, Salvation Army, mental-patient and native court workers.

There were also regular court watchers and an endless stream of lawyers.

One after another in-custody defendants would slump out of the jail and 
into the prisoner's dock, six feet away from me.

Their eyes were befuddled and beseeching, slack-jawed words tumbling a 
constant refrain: "Please! Please let me out! I'm clean! I won't go back on 
the street!"

If a lawyer spoke for them it was the same refrain.

Almost invariably my response was, "No bail. You're locked up until your 
trial is over," or "No discharge, no suspended sentence, no fine. This time 
you're going to jail."

Twenty-five years later I was transfixed by this woman's words. She wrote, 
"I have read most of your book, but on this day I feel compelled to write 
to you. I must tell you that you and I have met before.

"In 1978, two days before my 18th birthday, I stood before you in a 
courtroom for possession of a narcotic, to wit heroin. I had been before 
you once before for soliciting. You looked sternly down your nose and 
stated to everyone in the courtroom 'You, young lady are on the wrong path 
in life.' And then you sentenced me to some time in jail.

"Trust me - when I saw the ad for your book I had no idea that it was 
written by the judge who sent me to jail. My God has a sense of humour. . . "

In 1977 and 1978 at least 1,500 young men and women stood before me for 
guilty plea, preliminary inquiry or trial.

Again and again, I read this woman's letter, but my mind's eye and memory 
failed me and I cannot single her out. She continued in her letter: "Today, 
25 years later and a long way from Davie and Granville streets I work in 
Skid Road trying to make a difference in the lives of people who are like I 
once was. Though I must say that 2004 is a lot different than the '70s and 
'80s. I would not survive out there if I had to do it again.

"Nothing is changing down here, sir. If anything it is getting worse. 
Tweedledee and Tweedledum's big idea will never change anything. You are 
right when you say that only money from the federal government will make a 
change.

"If there had been a safe injection site when I was an addict I never would 
have stopped using. The safe injection site is now the biggest enabler this 
city has.

"Crime has gone up. It is worse now than it ever was. Illegal immigrants 
rule our skid road. They still use young native girls to sell and hold 
their drugs. People are getting beaten and sometimes murdered over $5.

"And you are right on another thing. Our justice system is too soft, too 
lenient on criminals, criminals of any kind from drug dealers to murderers.

"Today, the governor general came for a little walk down here. I've never 
seen so many police. But a few weeks ago I watched a young man being beaten 
by another young man who was in psychosis. And where were the police then? 
It seems to be about what you are rather than that you are a human.

"The way you view the city and the people who run it - you are so right. 
You were even right to send me to jail."

I think that because of this woman and others like her, there is hope for 
Skid Road and its suffering addicts. I met with this woman just before 
Christmas. She is a special woman.
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MAP posted-by: Beth