Marci Mobbs Thanks Community That Saved Her Life When recovering addict Marci Mobbs and I last met in the cafe at B.C. Women's Hospital 21 months ago, she told me she longed to fulfil one last promise on her when-I-am-clean wish list: Reconnect with the daughter she had sacrificed to the crack demon many years ago. Not only is Marci's relationship with her now-20-year-old solid today, so is her employment, schooling and commitment to providing stability and love to partner Randy and their toddler Tyson. [continues 466 words]
Not Enough Addicts Escaping Relentless Cycle of Crime Judging by recent comments from the Criminal Justice Branch, the B.C. government appears to be counting on the drug court to fix what ails Vancouver's 379 identified chronic addict-thieves. If so, we're in trouble, because the rehab court's numbers just aren't adding up. The Downtown Eastside drug-treatment legal project was masterminded in 2001 by a federal-provincial group of elected officials to reduce the use of heroin, coke and crystal meth by adults who daily ripped off businesses and citizens to finance their costly habits. [continues 456 words]
But Short Prison Terms Mean Residents at Risk Each year an estimated 4,000 Greater Vancouver citizens become victims of his crack cocaine-stoked break-ins and thefts. Put another way, if a lower court judge had put the guy out of commission for just 12 months, 4,000 law-abiding residents would still have their personal property worth $1 million and their peace of mind. But Vancouver's provincial sentencing judges are wimps. A yearlong stint in prison? Try two months max, according to a mind-boggling report on the city's busiest crooks released this week by top cop Jim Chu, who says it seems the longer the guy's rap sheet, the shorter his sentence. [continues 470 words]
Why Is It OK To Fund Junkies But Not Autistic Children? Welcome to topsy-turvey land, where the law dictates that junkies have a legal right to pump unlawful toxins into their veins, using state-issued rigs in a free, taxpayer-backed clinic with public nurses on hand. Meanwhile, parents who struggle to raise autistic children are required to dig into their own pockets for critical treatment for their youngsters' debilitating medical condition. With legal decisions such as these on the books, it's no wonder the federal government is appealing the latest court ruling that addicts have the constitutional right to get wasted in a publicly funded site if it's part of a health-care program. [continues 453 words]
This plea is to the families of 20 missing moms, sisters and daughters whose names and photos occupy convicted serial-killer Willie Pickton's second charge sheet. In a few days a judge will invite the defence to respond to the Crown's bid to shelve further prosecutions involving the 20 women, at least until the appeals of Pickton's six second-degree murder convictions are known, and perhaps forever. But the families argue there will be no closure for them and no justice for their loved ones until Pickton stands trial again. [continues 589 words]
Officers Should Know About Getting Evidence Legally The recent court ruling that let David Jacob Funk dodge 13 trafficking and weapon-related charges was given a miss by most media hounds. It's likely reporters figured the public had had its fill of suspects successfully sidestepping the justice system due to botched investigations by cops. Funk's case was more of the same -- and not of huge public appeal, either. There are no stats on the rate and frequency of acquittals due to violations of accuseds' legal rights by police. [continues 479 words]
George W. Bush may want to call off the war on drugs now that border patrols have intercepted a notorious drug desperado trying to cross into the U.S. Two weeks ago we were gunning for Hawaii on a WestJet itinerary, bags bloated with tubs of sunscreen and numerous sleeveless frocks, boarding passes and documentation in hand, hotels and a getaway car awaiting us in Kona. I had vacationed south of the border at least twice in the last two decades but my 79-year-old mother-in-law was realizing her dream to explore the famous volcanoes and ancient temples on the island of aloha for the first time. [continues 477 words]
Storm-Trooper Antics Belong On TV, Not In Canada Perhaps B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce had seen enough of the harm caused when Rambo-rabid cops barge into places with guns drawn before sussing out a situation. Perhaps she wanted to get the word out that in Canada law enforcers are expected to do some old-fashioned footwork before scrambling into storm-trooper gear to put lives at risk. A lot of Province readers were outraged by the court ruling last week that saw evidence of a substantial grow operation in a stylish Surrey manor tossed out. [continues 472 words]
Don't Make It Easier For Us To Get Wasted, Give Us Treatment Centres While conference attendees gathered in Vancouver and other North American cities to find a fix for the global drug mess, addict Renee Kettleman was combing the Lower Mainland for an available bed in a treatment centre. "I've been packed and ready to go for a month and a half now," the 48-year-old confided this week, after knocking on doors at 10 facilities here and on Vancouver Island. [continues 481 words]
Pastor Wonders Why She Was Excluded From UN Forum For a region thick with addicts and thin on rehab beds, it's logical to assume a global forum on solving the world's drug woes would want to encourage talks on various recovery initiatives. At least Gloria Kieler, a faith-based, go-clean worker in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for the past 16 years, thought so. The East Hastings storefront pastor expected treatment and rehabilitation to be the operative buzz-words when delegates from 70 non-governmental groups (NGOs) gathered this week for the UN-stamped forum in Vancouver that's supposedly rooting for a drug-free world. [continues 447 words]
Legal Issue Of Gang Membership Needs To Be Aired Citizens have the most to lose when a criminal court judge moves to outlaw the printing, airing or Internet posting of all evidence emerging from a juicy trial. That's why we media messengers were relieved to hear that B.C. Supreme Court Justice Anne MacKenzie has finally rescinded most of the gag order she imposed eight months ago on an ongoing hearing involving some of the muscle behind the mighty Hells Angels. [continues 512 words]
It's Hard To Turn Prisoners Around With Drugs Rampant The fact that drug mules manage to trundle pot, heroin and cocaine into federal prisons, past the noses of guards and screening tools, is old news to most of us. But what we hadn't realized until now was that Ottawa considers the privacy rights of criminals getting wasted to be more important than society's right to put a stop to an illegal, risky behaviour that studies indicate is on the rise inside. [continues 473 words]
Why Not Free Taxi For Alcoholics, Patch For Smokers? It's more about the message than the money. B.C.'s latest handout to crack addicts is likely considered a cruel joke by the sick among us, struggling to afford the over-priced pills they have to ingest to keep their chronic diseases in check. Try explaining the taxpayer-funded give-away of syringes, alcohol swabs, methadone and now crack pipes for junkies -- who view their own lives as just as disposable as a dirty needle -- to the diabetic who must supply her own insulin-injecting apparatus if she wants to stay alive. [continues 493 words]
We're not legally permitted to ask members of the jury how they arrived at the conclusion that Robert Pickton's savage killing spree was impromptu and unplanned. Clearly, they figured he executed all the women, or at the very least helped, but the verdict indicates they also believed each killing was a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing. And that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't take a forensic expert to tell us it's unheard of for a person to kill spontaneously, or in a blind frenzy, on so many separate occasions, unless it's of the mass-murder variety when a killer opens fire on a group. [continues 442 words]
Dad Jailed As He Tries to Rescue Teen From Drug Den They were hard-working, rural folks determined to deliver their daughter from the bleak, menacing world inhabited by prostitutes, pimps and crackheads. So the last thing the Pochs expected when they marched in to yard the girl from a drug den was to butt heads with local law enforcers and be criminally charged themselves. Yes, Frank was charged with B&E and resisting arrest a year ago, after Sparwood RCMP found him scouring a seedy dwelling for his wayward 15-year-old and the creepy meth heads she was with. [continues 471 words]
Prevention And Treatment Come First, Critics Say Faith-based charities helping addicts in Vancouver's skid row are not the only ones to question the almost blind fixation on harm reduction at the expense of prevention and recovery. Many of the officers deployed to police the grimy results of destitution and prostitution in the Downtown Eastside are also troubled by the glaring absence of programs aimed at helping -- and if necessary forcing -- druggies to get clean. Indeed, much-needed funds to establish treatment and recovery facilities for hardcore users isn't even a blip on the radar of advocates for harm reduction -- an ideology that addresses the health and social problems associated with drug use but not the use itself. [continues 553 words]
The Lord sent her to help the addicted women in Vancouver's seediest district but it's the politicians and health authorities who are driving Pastor Gloria Kieler crazy. For seven years the 65-year-old Christian has quietly prayed in her threadbare East Hastings Street storefront chapel for governments to deliver on a vow made in 2000 to build a four-pillar anti-drug program: prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction. But the only pillar that has attracted the care groups and health authority's attention -- as well as taxpayers' bucks -- is Insite, the harm-reduction injection site, renovated and expanded recently at an added cost of $2 million to better serve the needle users. [continues 460 words]
Mission Institution prisoner No. 786492E was an admitted crack-cocaine addict now doing minimum 10 in medium security for killing a woman he met at an addiction treatment centre. The jury who convicted Alan Steele last year learned he killed friend Cindy Kaplan after she threatened to spill the beans to his family about his crippling dependency on smoking crack. The 54-year-old is not encouraged by the feds' latest plan to put druggies and pushers behind barbed wire: That's where most wind up now, Steele pointed out. And a fat lot of good it has done them or law-abiding Canadians, after all, jail and drugs go hand in hand. [continues 443 words]
Giving Heroin to Junkies Could Turn Around Many Wasted Lives A fitting reward for the well-heeled landowners whose decaying Downtown Eastside hotels aren't even fit for the area's scavengers and addicts would be a lengthy stint in one of the foul, filthy rooms they let for top dollar. But recent reports of the disgustingly dirty, dangerous interiors of Vancouver's seediest flophouses not only help expose the callousness of some megamillionaire businessmen -- they also punctuate the absence of options for the most wretched. [continues 557 words]
Vancouver Granddad Says Jail Turns Addicts Into Hardened Criminals Prison, Terry McKinney tells me, screws up your head so badly that when you're on the outside, it's payback time: A confused and off-track kid goes in, a slick, seasoned felon comes out. So if Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks users and traffickers like him will rush to change their stripes -- spooked by a $64-million anti-drug plan that imposes must-do jail time -- he can forget it. [continues 527 words]
