Pubdate: Wed, 18 Mar 2009
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

KENTON'S ACTIONS KEY TO THE DRUG PROBLEM

We Need To Stand Up To Ourselves And Just Say 'No More'

What an inspiring story in Monday's Province by reporter Kent 
Spencer. You know -- the one on Abbotsford student Kenton O'Donnell 
speaking out about having to live in a bizarre, Big-Brother-style, 
video-surveillance bubble down the street from the Bacon brothers . . 
. a.k.a. the prime beef of B.C. gang-shooting targets.

"How would you like to walk a day in my shoes?" the plucky 11-year-old asks.

How indeed? Well, that triggers a whole bunch of questions. But the 
main one is: Are we content to live in communities under constant 
watch by police and under endless siege by heavily armed 
gang-bangers? And if not, what are we going to do about it?

Civil libertarians say the solution is to legalize drugs. In fact, 
lawyer Kirk Tousaw, of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association's 
drug-policy committee, will be arguing that position tonight at 7:30 
p.m. in the Vancouver Public Library, during a debate put on by 
Langara College.

There's another way, though, and that is for Lower Mainland 
residents, or as many of them as possible, to just stop taking 
illegal drugs . . . to say sayonara to their scuzzy local supplier, 
to flush their own system and get a life.

Some will say that requires the self-discipline of a Buddhist monk. 
But if we can say no to bullying, no to drunk-driving, no to tobacco 
and even no to climate change, why can't we say no to drugs?

Don't listen to the usual pundits. They keep prattling on about 
George W. Bush and the war on drugs and how it's been a colossal 
failure. But what war exactly are they talking about? As former 
addict Barry Joneson points out, if you want to see what the drug war 
in Vancouver is really like, head on down to the Downtown Eastside 
combat zone. It's total surrender.

"I just walked down Hastings Street the other day and I watched a 
girl there, a skinny little girl, shooting drugs with blood running 
down her arm, and a police officer walking by," Joneson told me. "He 
looked at her for two seconds and he didn't even miss a beat with his 
feet, and he just kept walking. And I thought that's perfect, that's 
legalization."

Joneson, by the way, is the speaker who'll be taking on Tousaw in 
tonight's debate. And he agrees with me that what we need is not so 
much a war on drugs as a major citizens' campaign against them, 
backed by celebs, civic leaders and anybody else fed up with our 
region becoming a shooting gallery.

What we need is a relentless, public-information drive to make 
drug-taking as uncool and unacceptable as, well, bad breath and 
carbon overload.

We need to use Economics 101 to drive the dealers out of business by 
drastically reducing the demand for their services. If no one's 
buying drugs, no one's selling them.

We need to walk in Kenton's shoes . . . and say "no more."

It's all up to us.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom