It Is Better to Spend the Money Now Than Spend It Later on Prisons Law-and-order enthusiasts like members of the Harper government invariably end up tackling the problem of criminality at the wrong end. They want results, which to them means spending money on policing and prisons. They persuade themselves that automatic sentences of increasing severity will be dissuasive, even though there is little proof of this. Prevention, worth its weight in gold in crime-fighting, is somehow not muscular enough to take to the voters. And yet research continues to suggest that prevention is - dollar for dollar - the right way to go. [continues 648 words]
Exploring the Argument for Drugs As a Means of Spiritual Enlightenment Have you ever escaped the confines of time? Have you ever felt the presence of God in your living room? Have you ever had a moment of complete wholeness? How about a feeling peace with the universe and your role in it? Imagine hearing what you see, smelling what you touch or seeing what you taste. If you can do this without the aid of chemicals, consider yourself up there with the likes of Moses and monks. The rest of us generally have to cut corners and take mind-altering drugs to achieve anything conceivably "beyond this world." Without the aid of a tab of acid, a hit of DMT, a dose of mushrooms or the like, some of us would find the search for God impossible, or at least darn boring. [continues 877 words]
What is holding up the long-promised and much-delayed Quebec plan to deal with Montreal's escalating street-gang crime? After Montreal police chief Yvan Delorme said he'd "had it up to here" with waiting, and after Claude Dauphin, the Montreal executive committee's public-security man, backed him up, the Parti Quebecois and Action democratique du Quebec made it unanimous by also insisting loudly last week that Quebec finally produce the blueprint to eradicate that particular plague. Premier Jean Charest keeps saying the project will be ready by Christmas. We hope so, and we wonder why it has taken so long. [continues 396 words]
Accused of Assisting Hells Angels Drug Deals, Attorney Charged With Gangsterism It is not every day that lawyers sit in as spectators on trials in which they have no stake. But then, it is not every day one of their colleagues is defending himself against allegations of gangsterism and obstructing justice. Several lawyers took seats in a Montreal courtroom where closing arguments were heard yesterday in the Superior Court case against Benoit Cliche, 48, a lawyer charged with committing an offence to benefit a criminal organization. [continues 233 words]
For Those Ill From Drug Abuse Or Prostitution, Success Can Be Measured In Small Daily Events It is hard to imagine anyone who turns down the road toward drug addiction, prostitution or homelessness sees much light at the end of the tunnel. But thanks to funding received from Centraide of Greater Montreal, there is a place that helps brighten some otherwise dark situations. Spectre de rue, a community organization on Ontario St. E., began in 1994. Its mission is to intervene downtown to prevent troubled youth from ending up on the street, while reducing the risks associated with prostitution, drug abuse and homelessness. [continues 373 words]
Behind Closed Doors. International Conference Aims To Improve Strategies Street gang experts from around the world began arriving in Montreal yesterday for a three-day conference that will allow them to share intelligence and discuss the most effective strategies to combat gangs. About 462 delegates will attend the conference, which is being hosted by the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs. Montreal police chief Yvan Delorme is co-chairperson of the event. Several high-ranking members of the Montreal police department are to attend, along with police chiefs from across North America, academics, criminal justice agencies, government policy-makers and specialists in street gang intervention. [continues 160 words]
Canada's Provinces Promote The Deadliest Drug Of All A glossy brochure recently dropped out of my newspaper: "Discover your taste for whisky," it advised. As it happens, I discovered my taste for whisky long ago and so was not in need of this advice. But it struck me as surpassingly odd that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is spending a considerable amount of money to persuade the uninitiated to try potent forms of a psychoactive drug whose known risks include addiction, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders, liver cirrhosis, several types of cancer, fetal alcohol syndrome and fatal overdose. [continues 689 words]
Political opposition to drug harm reduction centres is nothing new. Insite-a supervised injection site located in the downtown eastside of Vancouver has encountered nothing but disdain from Stephen Harper's federal government, while the UN's International Narcotics Control Board routinely condemns various harm reduction centres abroad for violating international treaties concerning narcotic drugs. The U.S. government has also been an outspoken global critic of harm reduction projects that provide legal exemptions for drug use ever since Richard Nixon coined the term "war on drugs." Therefore, it should come as no surprise that early efforts by the San Francisco Department of Public Health to open America's first legal safe-injection site have been met by political stonewalling and moral indignation. [continues 812 words]
Dear Editor: People who think that Harper's "anti-drug strategy" is about winning the so-called war on drugs are sadly misinformed. He may be a fascist, but he's certainly not stupid. He knows that his plan will have no effect on reducing use of illegal drugs. No evidence is required beyond the blatant lies and deceptions he used in his speech. You commented on one example, his assertion that "illegal drugs are directly involved in the death of thousands of Canadian men and women." [continues 376 words]
Dear Editor, Lost in the debate over marijuana is the ugly truth behind marijuana prohibition. North America's marijuana laws are based on culture and xenophobia, not science. The first marijuana laws were a racist reaction to Mexican migration during the early 1900s. Writing under the pen name Janey Canuck, Emily Murphy first warned Canadians about the dread reefer and its association with non-white immigrants. The sensationalist yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst led to its criminalization in the United States. [continues 194 words]
Re: "Drug plan is good but has its flaws" (Editorial, Oct. 9). The federal government's proposed drug strategy simply won't work. It smacks of a strategy driven by hype, emotion and political expediency. It will do absolutely nothing to reduce the use of drugs in this country. Can we not learn something from our neighbours about a failed drug strategy, a strategy that dates to the 1970s. Or are we slow learners? Punitive, draconian drug laws have not stopped the flow into and the use of drugs in the United States. It's about time we start treating drug addiction for what it is, namely, a public health problem. Emile Therien Ottawa [end]
This week the Tories outlined their strategy for fighting the "war on drugs" here in Canada. This new policy is just one of many that makes me happy to have voted for the Liberals. Stephen Harper has emphasized how this new policy will focus on prevention as much as punishment, that there will be more resources made available to addicts, and tougher punishments for producers and traffickers. Harper has forgotten one important thing though: not all drugs, nor the people who use them, are the same. [continues 737 words]
Pleads guilty to marijuana dealing. Sharon Simon arrested in Project Cleopatra, alleged to be ringleader of smuggling plot Judging by the way she blew goodbye kisses toward her daughters, one could have mistaken Sharon Simon for someone about to head off to a Caribbean vacation instead of a federal penitentiary. The Kanesatake woman had just pleaded guilty in Quebec Court yesterday to participating in the activities of a criminal organization and weapons charges laid after Project Cleopatra, a joint police investigation into marijuana trafficking. [continues 499 words]
Francois Lemon, a nine-year Montreal police officer, and his wife, Patricia Lambert, a former Montreal police officer, were arraigned yesterday at the Joliette courthouse on charges of drug trafficking and drug possession. Lemon, 36, who worked at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, was not on duty when he was arrested April 11. Constable Raphael Bergeron, a Montreal police spokesperson, would not confirm a published report that Lemon's arrest resulted from a drug sting by undercover police buying the drug ecstacy at the Bal en blanc, an all-night dance party April 8-9 in Montreal. [end]
Re: "Drug plan is good but it has flaws" (Editorial, Oct. 9). Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The only way you can control an activity is to legalize it. Should these activities be legal, money generated by these services could be used to prevent abuses. The criminal bodies attached to these activities would vanish. I can think of a better use of our legal system and our law enforcement officers than drug offences. Can you? Drugs and prostitution will not disappear, so let's face reality. Let's do with drugs and prostitution what we are doing with cigarettes and alcohol. Gilles Girard Montreal [end]
The Conservative government's new $63.8-million, two-year drug strategy could be worse, but it could be better. Fully half the money will go toward beefing up treatment for addicts. Since health and social services are mainly a provincial responsibility, however, that money will go mainly to development of national benchmarking - so that evaluations can be consistent across the country - and extra programs for aboriginals. The main burden of helping addicts remains with the provinces. Another $10 million will go to prevention - ad campaigns and brochures to remind people, especially young people, how damaging addiction is. "Drugs are dangerous and destructive," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, unveiling the plan. "If drugs do get hold of you, there will be help to get you off them." [continues 130 words]
(CanWest News Service) - The federal government's new anti-drug strategy is not winning many friends in Quebec, which arguably has the most liberal attitude to recreational drug use in the country. The plan, announced Thursday, commits $64 million, two-thirds of which will be spent on treatment and prevention programs, the rest on beefing up drug law enforcement. Raymond Berger worries that a crackdown on drugs will mean problems for Montreal's Compassion Club, where he buys marijuana each week to help him deal with the effects of his chemotherapy and AIDS treatments. The club does not have a licence to sell medical marijuana. [continues 74 words]
As the Montreal Compassion Centre gets ready to celebrate the official opening of their new digs on 72 Rachel E. this Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 6 p.m., relations between the benevolent marijuana distribution organization and the bureaucrats running Health Canada's Medical Marijuana Access program remain as stilted as ever. "Sadly," says Montreal Compassion Centre president Marc-Boris St-Maurice, "Health Canada's program is not the product of social demand and medical necessity but a court-ordered directive, which they honour less than enthusiastically. Communicating with their office is cumbersome and, most times, futile. A simple phone call can take a week before it's answered-if it's answered at all. There are major delays processing things like applications and licence renewals. I mean, 18 months ago, we requested a supply of application forms that we still haven't received." [continues 64 words]
Just a few short years ago, Americans were getting mad at us because Canada was so close to decriminalizing pot, you could smell the skunk in the air. But this week, Stephen Harper's (still) New Government has announced plans to overhaul and toughen drug laws, bringing us ever-closer to the destructive, counter-productive and often idiotic American model. Drug offenders can expect stiffer penalties, anti-drug campaigns will be ramped up and border guards will get more money. But no cash is set aside for treatment or harm-reduction measures like safe injection sites. The plan's many critics-ranging from the federal Liberals to physicians to academics-say this is another example of pandering to people's fears, and of ideology trumping science. [end]
The founder of the Montreal Compassion Club wants Quebec to take over the administration of the federal Medical Marijuana Access program in the province. Marc-Boris St-Maurice said yesterday the program is "an embarrassing oxymoron." He complained about major delays processing applications, licence renewals and changes of address. "Eighteen months ago we requested a supply of application forms for our clients which we still have not received," he said. "There are also frequent disturbing reports of doctors being pressured by Health Canada bureaucrats to reduce their patients' recommended daily dosage." [continues 253 words]
Inside Quebec
