I would like to comment on two statements in the editorial "Hang tough on crime." "A jailed rapist is no longer a threat to innocent women." Very true, no one is looking to take his place. "A jailed gangbanger means one less gun-toting drug dealer on the streets" This is untrue. Arresting a drug dealer merely creates a job opening, which many of our youth will "apply" for. The black market in some drugs was created by prohibition, and in doing so, our government has ceded control of these drugs to organized crime. Whether your goal is to allow harmless moderate personal use, or to reduce all use, legalization is a better route to success than prohibition.

Kelly Christie

(Would legalization really end the illicit drug trade?)

[end]

Re: "Build families, not prisons to reduce crime," by Jim Hackler, Letters, Jan. 30.

I would like to see fewer prisons built as well, but I propose a different method that would empty our prisons, reduce our policing costs and, if the experience with marijuana in the Netherlands is a guide, reduce drug usage.

My solution is to decriminalize all recreational drugs. Most of the violence in our city revolves around the drug trade. Legalizing drugs would put most of the gangs out of business.

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Community Invested in Drug Fight

After talking with both the enforcement and the rehabilitation side of Lloydminster's drug culture, the Booster looked into what prevention and awareness support the community offers.

Preventing people from getting sucked into the 'game' is a priority for many in the community.

While there are people hard at work helping addicts recover and even more people hard at work trying to get drugs off city streets, there are groups that work at preventing these situations from presenting themselves in the first place.

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In Case You Missed We've Been Talking a Lot About Drugs Lately.

To be honest it wasn't by design, it just kind of happened. I was tasked at the start of the year with conducting an indepth interview with a local RCMP General Investigative Section constable. In my line of work that kind of task is a golden opportunity.

What came out of it was a six part series on the nature of drugs in our community.

I learned a drug fight truly does take a community. Not just from the perspective of people being responsible citizens and letting the RCMP know when something is fishy. From the prevention and awareness perspective the whole community has a responsibility to help protect and prevent drug situations from occurring. From the rehabilitation the whole community has a responsibility to be non-judgmental, patient and positive.

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'I prefer the natural herb that I know where it has been grown'

Several Calgary stores were busted last week for selling synthetic marijuana, but the owners aren't talking. What do you know about it?

The situation is that it's not synthetic marijuana; it is incense. It says right on the package, "Not for human consumption." Some people are consuming it, but I know the majority of the people out there who do consume cannabis and other drugs aren't consuming it to smoke, they're using it as incense. Some of those storeowners are good friends of mine.

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Taber woman fighting for access to medical marijuana

In summer, it's one of Canada's iconic tourist attractions. In winter, Ottawa is just another snowy city. But that's where Tamara Cartwright is speaking Monday an Albertavoice on Parliament Hill.

The Taber woman, who's living with chronic colitis, flew east to be part of a national rally urging better access to medical marijuana. Medical uses have been legal for more than a decade, but she says most Canadians who could benefit are being blocked by the federal government's red tape and political antipathy.

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After sitting down with Const. Eldon Chillog, Lloydminster RCMP General Investigative Services, and talking at length about the drug 'game' in the city the Booster sat down with Dr. Lisa Luciano, Thorpe Recovery Centre, to talk about the effects and recovery of long term drug use.

By the time people reach the stage where they are ready to stop using drugs and get clean the 'game' has chewed them up and spit them out.

"When people call us it is usually because they have hit bottom," said Dr. Lisa Luciano, Thorpe Recovery Centre clinical director. "The people who come here aren't recreational users of the substance they have had significant losses in their life due to alcohol, drugs or gambling."

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In late 2009, hemp advocates were hoping to piggyback the California vote to legalize marijuana. The proposition would have allowed the cultivation of all cannabis, including both marijuana and hemp, but it failed to pass. Despite hemp's amazing potential, marijuana's bad rap is holding hemp back.

First let's get our facts straight. The words hemp and marijuana are often used interchangeably when they actually refer to different things. Trying to get high smoking hemp would be like to trying to get drunk drinking non-alcoholic beer. Hemp is the ultra low-THC (tetrahydracannabinol, the cannabinoid that gets you high) cousin of marijuana. Technically, 'hemp' refers to about 60 varieties of cannabis that contain less than 0.3 per cent THC, whereas marijuana can have as much as 24 per cent THC. Smoking something made of hemp would certainly not get you high, only a headache.

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It's been legal for years. But just try to get a prescription.

Medical marijuana has become a kind of oxymoron in most of Canada.

The recreational, non-medical kind may be available in almost any town across the country. But patients say finding a doctor to prescribe the medical kind legalized across Canada more than a decade ago is far more difficult.

While some physicians in other provinces are willing to support its use, patients say Alberta's doctors are particularly reluctant.

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Do people want more prisons? Wouldn't they prefer less crime?

We know that prisons have little effect in reducing crime. Those who might be deterred by prison, such as criminal corporation executives, rarely end up in prison. Some offenders become more involved in crime because of their prison experiences.

For decades, however, we have known that a better quality of life for children reduces crime.

Research on child development shows that support to vulnerable first-time mothers helps children become less troublesome young adults.

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The high from synthetic marijuana products comes from a laboratory -- not a plant.

And the chemist who created some of the compounds commonly used to make synthetic marijuana is warning people against using it recreationally. "It's like playing Russian roulette. You don't know what it's going to do to you," John W. Huffman told the website LiveScience.

In what's considered the first case of its kind in Calgary, police this week seized synthetic marijuana on sale at several stores and stored in a warehouse.

[continues 96 words]

Packaged to appear legal and geared toward kids, $30,000 worth of synthetic marijuana being sold by several businesses were seized in the first such bust in the city.

Seven search warrants were served Tuesday - three at Bongs and Such locations, three at Smoker's Corners locations and one at Grass Roots - - where police said they found 707 packages of synthetic marijuana labelled under various names such as Spice, K2, Yucatan Fire, Tribe and Skunk.

Those seizures led investigators to a warehouse in the city where they found another 280 packages, said Det. Collin Harris.

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Police Act on Tip Received From Border Services

In what's considered the first case of its kind in Calgary, police have seized synthetic drugs designed to mimic the effects of marijuana.

During raids of seven stores Tuesday, police seized 770 packets of merchandise worth an estimated $30,000.

A subsequent raid of a warehouse yielded a further 280 packages, police said.

"Up until recently, this has never been seized in the city," said Det. Collin Harris of the Calgary police drug unit.

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For Giff, once a well-known Toronto publicist and now retired to the country life, keeping his sexual orientation on the "down low" was never a concern.

He was already "out" when being "out" was deemed courageous.

When the Toronto cops launched Operation Soap in February 1981, and notoriously raided four gay bathhouses and arrested 300 men - then the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October Crisis - it was not alarming that Giff was one of the found-ins hauled off to a holding cell.

[continues 465 words]

By MARK BONOKOSKI, QMI Agency

For Giff, once a well-known Toronto publicist and now retired to the country life, keeping his sexual orientation on the "down low" was never a concern.

He was already "out" when being "out" was deemed courageous.

When the Toronto cops launched Operation Soap in February 1981, and notoriously raided four gay bathhouses and arrested 300 men - then the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October Crisis - it was not alarming that Giff was one of the found-ins hauled off to a holding cell.

[continues 465 words]

In case you've missed it - which would be fairly difficult as it has been an issue we've decided to make front-and-centre in the past few issues - we have, as a city, been given a pretty strong warning and word of encouragement from our local RCMP in the fight against drugs.

And the message, in case we've also missed that part, is that the drug scene is alive and well in the Border City. Which is not news.

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Coke Still Common but Crystal Meth Becoming an Issue in Community

The Booster recently sat down with Lloydminster RCMP Const. Eldon Chillog, of General Investigative Section, to discuss the realities of the 'game,' the drug scene in Lloydminster.

Similar to how gangs change in communities, so do the drugs people want to purchase.

Though Lloydminster's drug scene has been mostly driven by cocaine, according to Lloydminster RCMP Const. Eldon Chillog, things are changing.

Through their travels and efforts crystal meth is emerging as a new drug in the game in Lloydminster.

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Record Number of Marijuana Busts Highlight Cops' Year; Alberta Sheriffs Added to Area Highways Full Time

Marijuana grow-operations and a rash of thefts plagued Airdrie in 2010, but for local RCMP, the introduction of a new unit and the implementation of additional resources to existing units helped combat the problems.

Airdrie RCMP Acting Insp. Damon Poole said the creation of the Crime Reduction Unit (CRU) this summer, along with a seconded front-line constable in the plainclothes General Investigations Section (GIS), helped police gain momentum on the fight against organized crime.

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Without a doubt, local police are starting to make some headway in their battle against organized crime.

In the past two months, police have raided and shut down six major marijuana growing operations in Airdrie. There have also been busts in the rural areas surrounding Calgary, while Chestermere and Strathmore police have also made some headway.

What comes as the biggest surprise to us is not the hundreds and thousands of plants being seized and destroyed by police. No, the truly shocking part is how little reaction there has been from the public.

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I understand the thought process behind doing drugs for fun.

As I've watched my friends try various chemical drugs over the years, I have sometimes wanted to join in because it looks exciting.

But watching my friends go through myriad experiences with substances is exactly the same reason I've stayed away from drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, meth, and acid. I've witnessed everything that can go wrong, and that's enough to keep me away.

I've seen the life of someone close to me spiral into a black pit of suicidal depression when she crossed that thin, dubious line between 'recreational drug user' and coke addiction.

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