Backed by 1,600 hours of research, the city's crime report does a pretty good job making sense of a pretty bad situation. Donald Clairmont was visibly enjoying himself as hepresented his massive report on crime, violence and public safety to city council last Friday. The gregarious 69-year-old retired sociology professor said he spent about 1,600 hours over the last year-and-a-half on research and writing. "I could have been drinking beer and watching Captain Kangaroo," he joked, "but I loved talking to people, I like the idea of multiple realities." To come up with his 64 recommendations, Clairmont interviewed scores of experts, politicians and activists. [continues 633 words]
One of the most dangerous men in America zipped across the Canadian border last week to deliver a speech in Ottawa. John Walters, chief propagandist for the disastrous US war on drugs, praised Stephen Harper's plan to put more drug offenders in jail. He also lauded George Bush for pushing random drug testing in American schools. As Walters spoke, US police continued to round up drug users. In the land of the free, someone is arrested on drug charges every 20 seconds. [continues 537 words]
Bill Shakespeare nailed it right on when he wrote, "the evil that men do lives after them." Take that prick Dick Nixon. He set up the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Thirty-two years later the DEA is still busting heads and tossing people into the hellholes that Americans call prisons. More than two million convicts, many of them low-level drug offenders, languish in US jails. Figures from the US Bureau of Justice show that one out of every 37 adults living in the US is in prison or has served time there. [continues 603 words]
To the editor: It was kind of you to mention my speech at the Cannabis Day Picnic in the July 4 Martello Tower. I'm extremely sorry that a couple of your Daily News agents had to endure my "tired screed" when they "just wanted to hear another band." But the Cannabis Day picnic is not only about bands. It's also about changing unjust drug laws that infringe on civil liberties. I hope The Daily News agents weren't too upset at having to listen to speeches from people who need marijuana for medical reasons, including the victim of an inoperable brain tumour who was hauled into court for growing his own. [continues 441 words]
