• Canada’s Welcome Mat To Crime

As Canadian taxpayers contemplate personal debt ceilings, increasing costs of living, increasing taxes, and regressing net incomes, they are being failed by a broken judicial system and police forces who are no longer empowered or willing to act in their defense and protection.

Grasping for the good life, the average Canadian family has enshrouded itself with over $100,000 of debt, which represents a debt-to-income ratio of 150%. Admitting it is difficult, and discussing it in detail brings certain shades of shame, but the stress is undeniable. That stress has consequences. One of them is the blindness it brings to the breakdown occurring in the broader society. That blindness seems like complacency, however, when you’re overburdened with the challenge of feeding your family month to month, keeping up with what your own government is or is not doing, rarely makes your priority list.

While Canadian taxpayers were averting their attention throughout the past generation, their streets became littered with crime. Whether you visit Vancouver, Toronto, or Edmonton, on almost every street corner you cannot miss the drug pushers. The drug industry has a hierarchy that is unmistakeable, from the kid with the hoody and the backpack pretending to be waiting for a bus, to the low level distributor running low riding foreign subcompacts, to the black Chrysler 300s, to the Black Cadillac Escalades with $5,000 wheels, and all with necessary and prescribed blacked out windows, the drug industry command food chain is obvious. Obvious to all, but the judicial system.

Generally, there is the pernicious attitude that, “As long it doesn’t affect me, I don’t care.” Along come the gang wars, with high caliber, automatic weapons blaring, and spraying SUVs with bullets. The latest one on sunny Sunday afternoon in front of the high-end Delta Grand Hotel on the Kelowna, BC, waterfront. Temporarily, or for a few days at best, attitudes change then go back to, “As long it doesn’t affect me, I don’t care.”

Unfortunately, we don’t care, and neither do the police, the lawyers, the judges, or the liberal minds of the legislators who evolved Canada’s judicial system, laws and sentencing guidelines.

To keep the populace quiet, the suggestion promulgated by the media is that this particular shooting, for example, was a “targeted hit.” What a classy, diverting phrase this is. Oh, well, that makes it OK, “It's just criminals killing one another, which does not concern me.” Of course, the fact that a salon was also peppered with bullets from the automatic assault weapon didn’t quite make the front pages. And still, we don’t care.

The police departments have for years rationalized their lack of aggressive effort against the proliferation of criminals and criminality, by whining that their efforts are a waste of time since the courts let the criminals go when the criminals are brought in, . . . so what’s the point? The Court system in Canada is so lax that a murderer, Sasan Ansari, can kill Josh Goos at the Hoolyburn Country Club in West Vancouver, to whom he owes $100,000, by stabbing him 30 times with video evidence, and he gets two and half years for the crime.

Canadian taxpayers believe that their judicial system contains Sentencing Guidelines because their judges tell them so. That is an outright lie. Guidelines are virtually non existent because judges’ egos will not succumb to being instructed or told what to do. They also use the rationalization that each crime is committed in a different context from the previous one. Excuses are simply, that, excuses. There should be tight guidelines and regulations for crimes, rather than loose, very loose, recommendations.

There should also be a legislated shift away from the broken liberal belief that all criminals can be rehabilitated. This is one Trudeau legacy that must be put to rest conclusively. The politically correct attitude that people change and can be “improved,” may be occasionally true, but is not the rule. It is devastating the streets of Canada to backwaters where all doors are locked.

For two decades now, the British Columbia joke is that marijuana is the biggest industry in the Province. In truth, the immigration business is bigger, but drugs have become a major multi billion dollar industry that is enormous by any comparative measure.

It’s time the courts quit hiding behind the veil of poor guidelines, and the police quit hiding behind the poor record of Canadian courts. If the trend continues, Canada’s civil society will disintegrate to unrecognizable degradation which its children and grandchildren will regret.

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• War On Drugs – Time For A Change

There are no viable, or wise reasons for drug use to remain on the illegal side of the national judicial ledger. Legalization of drugs, starting with marijuana, will be a major step toward society getting back in control of its streets, and its sanity.

The violent circus that is the Mexican drug industry currently arrests the attention of the mainstream media herd which is reacting with “deer-in-the-headlights” amazement. In its stupor, it fears taking a politically incorrect position on the nonsense making up the current laws surrounding drug use. The answer, if one believes the current Administration’s response, is to spend additional taxpayer money and provide other support to Mexico in order to strengthen its own drug war efforts.

Following recent news headlines, one might perceive “drug wars,” as being a Mexican problem that only requires some of our attention and reaction. Not so. Even Canadians are becoming numb to the accumulation of bodies dropping daily from bullets flying through the streets of once docile cities like Vancouver. Vancouver has of late established its presence at the top of an infamous list. It is now home to more violent gangs than any other city on the continent.

The billions of dollars to be made from the traffic and sale of illegal drugs are worth the risk to armies of well-armed criminals. Drug lords from Miami to Toronto have accumulated powerful armies, and vast assets, including legal businesses and expensive real estate. In many neighborhoods, some of the largest gated mansions belong to the kings of the drug business. On our neighborhood street corners, the pushers at the bottom of the drug distribution hierarchy are visible and obvious as they ply their nefarious and toxic trade. We are all being affected by the crimes their clients must commit to raise money for the next hit. Our homes or our neighbors’ homes are subject to “home invasion,” a new crime that has become so common, it has made its way into our daily vocabulary. Everyone you know has been affected negatively by the current and failed war on drugs.

Well beyond our shores, but affecting us very directly, is the wealth that our laws on drugs have provided groups like the Taliban. In Afghanistan the billions in revenue received from feeding the costly demand for its principal export, finance the daily attacks on our soldiers, fund expanding terrorist networks around the world, and finance the growth of Islamic Sharia law governance. Whole countries are now under the control of well-armed, well-connected international drug lords. Dictatorships in countries in West Africa, for example, find themselves particularly attractive to the cocaine supply chain. Their vulnerabilities succumb readily to drug sourced billions. Countries such as Guinea-Bissau have become narco-states, providing convenient launching points for South American cocaine shipment distribution into Europe where a kilo of cocaine sells for about $50,000. In Guinea, diplomatic pouches expedite drug shipments under comfort of Presidential protection. Drug money is establishing a new order in countries like Niger and Mauritania. Drug cartels have become powers unto themselves. North America is their preferred market.

It should now be evident to anyone not blinded by ideology, that the present twenty five year archaic policy on drugs is not only NOT working, it is stimulating and energizing the decay of our society. Our policies positively affect the street price of all drugs, and induce the pusher to action. Prohibition itself, while dissonant with the Constitution, has evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry as the never-ending war on drugs continues to fail, but its costs keep increasing. The impact of our policies on our own society is that we pay for the drug trade in lives, in international instabilities, in tax dollars, in personal loss, and in anxiety.

First on the agenda should be legalization of marijuana, reversing misguided laws that were supported by twisted racist social perceptions in Congress with funding from special interests. Allow individuals who decide they absolutely need it, to grow two plants for personal consumption for example. This action alone would vacate thousands of jail cells, but more importantly, it would remove justification for the pusher, and would end the massive inflow of cash into the hands of the drug hierarchy. Marijuana would have no street value.

Let’s take a page from the early ‘30s; defer to the reasons which led to the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, and the repeal of federal prohibitionary laws that unsuccessfully attempted to smother the consumption of alcohol. Ask Al Capone’s ghost how he felt about the repeal of prohibition. It would also be enlightening for anyone on either side of the argument to research the depraved process through which the government brought about the abolition of marijuana. Society has moved on from those very backward percepts, and very peculiar special interest groups.

Legalization of other drugs can be brought under the control of state governments in time, but the lessons learned from the legalization of marijuana and alcohol, will guide the unraveling of laws governing use of cocaine and heroin. Collection of taxes on sale of drugs will be just a beginning. The objective should be to minimize the value of street drugs. There will always be individuals among us seeking alternative levels of consciousness through substance abuse. Our objective as a society is to reduce the impact that these people’s self-abuse has on the rest of us. It is time for a paradigm shift in attitudes and a reversal of the failed Control Substance Act governing the war on drugs.

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• POPPY FIELDS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

The beautiful and delicate poppy that now paints the landscapes of Afghanistan with vibrant colors, has long been the symbol for sacrifice. The aesthetic is as soothing to the sense of sight, as it is exasperating to the conscience. Families of soldiers bring home their loved ones in body bags from the despair that has become Afghanistan, and the sacrifice continues, little understood and scarcely appreciated. There is confusion in thought and in perception. Most of all there is turmoil in principles and ethical discomposure of policy. While security concerns have escalated to what should be described as chaos, the West and NATO maintain a public posture of denial, the Taliban controls half the country, and warlords and criminals have a good handle on all of it regardless who they support. Where’s the solution?

We have difficulty fully comprehending the war in Afghanistan since much of the reporting is confusing. The explanations have become too complex to unravel from San Francisco or Toronto, and even Washington and Ottawa have difficulty sorting out the mess. Most challenging is the provision of cohesive responses, military, financial, or otherwise. Indecision is stagnating the military presence and advancing the disintegration of the whole country, while much of it returns to the fanatical grip of the Taliban. The Taliban are now well funded from their share of the country’s principal source of income, as Afghanistan supplies over 90 percent of the world’s opium and over 80% of its heroin. Some estimated $4 billion a year in illegal drugs represent a majority of the $7.5 total GDP. Now that drug lords and terrorists can operate with virtual impunity, what was once a battle against terrorists, has become a war against the poppy, and there is no consensus on strategy.

Afghanistan hovers around the very bottom of the international human development index on measures that include life expectancy, nutrition and literacy. Its population is loyal to tribal elders, religious leaders, or commanders with durable military influence. It is no surprise that President Karzai is dependent on warlords for maintenance of stability, and all levels of the society are financially benefiting from poppy cultivation including the police and Afghan military. NATO forces are principally accused of being interfering non-Muslim foreigners. Farmers, the bottom of the opium production chain, are impoverished and not receiving much benefit from the proceeds. A farmer’s security is expensive and alternative livelihood programs are under-funded. Alternative crops are a vague concept when wheat or corn might only bring $250, while poppies can provide $2,700 for the same acreage, and are less vulnerable to the extremes of cold and heat, or drought.

Most of the money is made further along the delivery network including the huwala (transfer) system. The huwala is the unstructured, unregulated, but well organized and effective bedrock that provides all parties the wherewithal to move cash. Its organization connects to the outside world through cities in neighboring countries for the processing of transactions. Hope being placed on the creation of banking systems that would aspire to control the money laundering, ignores the failures of such regulated organizations in developed countries. For example, in Canada’s British Columbia, marijuana has reportedly become a bigger business than lumber, and yet neither banks nor government revenue agencies are capable of negatively influencing the billion dollar lifestyles of organizations in control of drugs. Financial guidelines and transparency expected from future or re-emerging Afghan banking institutions can be expected to provide about as much potency.

In the chaotic atmosphere of a country relying almost totally on narcotics, warlords are partners on intelligence and are occasionally allies in battles against Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents. There is currently no firm policy on the eradication of poppy fields – only of the sporatic damaging of fields. Fear that eradication will drive more of the population toward the Taliban is a very restrictive motivator. There is also apprehension of upsetting the financial foundation of an already unstable country.

Amongst endless scenarios for potential strategies, one has surfaced that may have promise if applied within the context of a broader and substantially decisive strategy. A recent proposal by an organization called Senlis Council claims that eradication has not worked and that the answer lies in licensing Afghan opium cultivation for the production of morphine or codeine. This would provide the country with a legal market for its principal crop. The argument seeks acceptance by pointing to the third world’s shortage of morphine that urgently needs to be filled.

Such proposal could be effective if enough money was found to pay for the potential new source of legal morphine and if all poppy growing operations not signed on to the program by a certain date were eradicated. That is an almost impossible task given the distribution of plantations and lack of security. Not only does the Taliban’s primary source of income have to be eliminated, but all illicit growing operations should be eradicated. The eradication must be complete and without exception, preventing the product of these poppy fields from further destroying lives of millions from New York to Tehran, and eliminating the social and financial grief the drug scatters without prejudice. It is not possible to allow both licit and illicit cultivation, and expect positive results. Afghanistan is a country in urgent need of complete rebuilding. All NATO and Middle Eastern countries should be contributing to the construction of infrastructure for the creation of a viable and a secure sovereign state. Such effort begins with investment in education, and production of goods (start with textiles), and opening doors to some initial markets.

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• DRUG PROBLEM – IT'S THE PUSHER . . . STUPID

Perhaps for the first time in history, America faces a “product” problem where conventional capitalist solutions can’t seem to abrogate a severe dilemma. Billions of dollars are fattening up plump administrations hopelessly fighting a delusory “war” on drugs, while communities across North America are seeing their children as young as eight years old exposed in the school yard to the latest mind-bending drug of the month. There is nothing appreciably or demonstrably effective with the War On Drugs. The term is a rationalization for the continuing and progressive build-up of a bloated infrastructure achieving absolutely NO cogent or even compelling results.

From heroin, to cocaine and methamphetamines, extreme psychoactive substance use continues to burgeon pervasively through our society (I don’t include marijuana here as it is not considered to be in the same league as these drugs). The flashy media events we all watch following a “big drug bust”, are only that . . . media events feeding egos, rationalizing promotions, securing salary increases and justifying additional underlings for the deployment of ever more impotent engagements. Footage of paramilitary operations smoking out low level mill-hands in the jungles of Columbia provide abundant self-serving gratification for the senior levels of the food chain.

All told, it costs somewhere near $200 billion for drug policy enforcement by all levels of government. A bloated judicial system, lawyers, agents, police and jails are all part of this juggernaut feeding copiously from the taxpayer trough. Making money is fine and everyone should be able to find work, but could they at least show taxpayers a positive trend resulting from such expensive efforts? Fear mongering keeps the trough replenished without much squabble but dispatches little succor to all the communities passionately struggling for answers.

The single most important element in the drug food chain is the pusher. It is not the grower. It is not the transporter. It is not smuggler. It is not the financier. It is not even the user. Eliminate the pusher, and we begin to bring stability to the user population. Only then can rehabilitation begin to have some impact. Sure we can provide parents with more effective tools, or provide schools with videos presenting the ravages of drugs on the human body, or other variations on “Just Say No”, (forget the idiocy of urine sampling on school kids). Unfortunately there are only two effective actions the system can take against the malignant and lethal invasion - legalization and extreme punishment.

Legalization would radically bring product value down eliminating the lure of easy cash for the pusher. Legalization and government controlled distribution is a solution that will take years to see daylight. Extreme punishment on the other hand means putting away a pusher for life. No one can look at a “life” sentence and think, “I can handle that,” as one might with a few months of a couple of years. Elimination of the pusher means elimination of any PR or promotion to any product in the drug firmament and eliminating the process of, "The first three are on me, the fourth one . . . well, then you're mine!"

Our collective historic relationship with cigarettes and alcohol can form the basis for our strategy on the drug front. Its review can provide us with some of the common sense required as we take decisive actions to deal with a problem which is rotting us from within. We advertised and promoted cigarettes and alcohol, creating broad dependence and building enormous pools of wealth making it impossible to unravel the structures that grew for their production and delivery.

The judicial system should be provided the very strictest of guidelines for punishment, not vague, approximations for sentencing. Focus on the pusher. I also don’t differentiate here between the pusher we all see on so many of our street corners and the supposed friend who turns a friend on to a drug. It’s rare that someone gets up suddenly one day and says, “I’m in the mood to do some heroin today.” That just doesn’t happen. That’s not how drug use expands. Use grows maliciously and with intent. Self-serving friends make money from friends, and “friends” are easy picking since there are few behavioral forces more powerful than peer pressure. Perhaps such malicious and malignant individuals don’t really fit the definition of “friend.” A pusher by any other name . . .

Perhaps we can gradually implement what is right, rather than abiding obstinately with what is expedient and rarely in the collective best interest. Perhaps we can expunge our "lack of will," and abate the damage inflicted on society.

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