Cities and municipalities struggle to pay wages and benefits for needed policing services. Detox and treatment centres, such as Crossroads, which provides essential residential services for the whole of the Okanagan, struggle to exist. Is there a common cause here? Because of our policy that criminalizes the use of substances like marijuana we keep police costs up as they struggle to enforce what is unenforceable. Because current drug policy sets up a black market and gang warfare that drives up enforcement costs, we do not have enough funds for prevention, harm reduction and treatment of addictions, i.e. Crossroads in Kelowna. [continues 205 words]
Re: Cannabis and the need for policy reform. I have enclosed an editorial from a national newspaper which outlines the case for legal regulation, taxation, and management under a public health model for cannabis. I also note that Minister Aglukkaq is bringing in legislation to tighten up on the production facilities for medical marijuana. This seems a very good step forward. It will be important to utilize the knowledge of those already producing for the medical market. A frequent complaint is that the government-produced product is not the strength needed for proper control, and the user then goes elsewhere to the illegal supplier. [continues 281 words]
STANFORD, California -- The United States used to be a serious country. It was inhabited by engaged citizens and governed by authentic leaders who talked about weighty issues. But the current American political spectacle amounts to a decidedly unfunny bad joke. First we had a presidential sex scandal, a yearlong opera bouffe that paralyzed the entire political establishment, preoccupied the media and culminated in a full-dress impeachment proceeding that called into question our national reputation for common sense. Now the obsession with a candidate's alleged substance abuse a quarter-century ago threatens to distract us from matters of real substance in the here and now. We are poised once again to plunge into the goofy and politically irrelevant realm of salacious titillations and youthful peccadilloes. [continues 1154 words]
But Boston Proves Something Can Be Done BOSTON - There is something understandable about the spasm of instant prescription that has gripped the country since last month's school shootings in Littleton, Colo. Social ills from adolescent angst to national cultural issues have been held up for both diagnosis and treatment. But whatever the causes, it is fundamentally incorrect to suggest that the school shootings represent "youth violence." They have more in common with adult spree killings than with the youth gun violence that plagues America's inner cities. [continues 1130 words]
