Here we go again with Insite

This story is getting old. Another court decision breeds another appeal by the federal government against the legality of Insite, citing a dissenting opinion.

I beg you to pardon my ignorance, but to the best of my knowledge Insite does not supply the drugs. Needles are not controlled equipment and there is some evidence suggesting Insite attendees are more likely to ask for help and rehab. Where does the Federal government enter the picture?

This legal wrangle only serves to fan the flames of idiocy, as the comments section on the CBC site shows all too well. I wish Canada didn't need places such as Insite. The imperfection of human nature and the characteristics of Vancouver make Insite necessary to take at least some of the disgrace of addiction off the street. 

The Government should admit that the final decision regarding Insite lies with BC's voters. I shall qualify this statement before constitutional scholars jump on me with technicalities. I trust the Supreme Court to make the right decision, which may indeed favour the federals. Harper would then face the double whammy of either hindering Insite (angering many uselessly) or maintaining the status quo, resulting in internal party rumblings. Passing the scalding buck is an art onto itself.

In the end the money wasted on legal wrangles would be better wasted settling the issue in a provincial referendum. This way a vote against Insite can be attributed to savvy BC-ers while an endorsement can be shrugged off as a provincial matter. Nicholson and company are best advised to leave Insite alone, this game is really not worth the candle.

Drugs: still wrong

Drugs policy, what a bed of nails. Bill C-15 is stalled (thankfully), now the United Nations seems to argue for shifting drug policy foci from punishing users to more crackdowns on traffickers and more treatment. At the same time, Canada is revealed as a meth warehouse.

Let's state the obvious: you own your body and are free to destroy it as you please. The notion of being slapped on the wrist if you break the law should be just as obvious to proponents of the former, for you can't have one without the other.

Drugs exist and circulate as long as there is a route from producer to consumer, and are susceptible to demand and supply dynamics as any other exchangeable good. Efforts so far have focused on combating trafficking, which should cut supply and drive up prices. In Britain (at least), this resulted in greater cocaine "cutting" instead, with the country still being the cokehead of Europe.

Penalties for trafficking should reach into the highest locally imposable punishments, and I for one applaud the harshness of Colombian, Laotian and Cambodian (among others) justice systems. The Colombian one-year-per-gram is definitely a fantastic deterrent, if only its applications were given more publicity. Consumption, on the other hand, has always been a point of contention.

Boiling the issue down to the transaction itself, buying property obtained through illegal means is illegal in most jurisdictions. Penalties vary, but it lands you with a record. Possession and use of illicit drugs should be, therefore, punishable under that clause. It can be as light as a 1 dollar on-the-spot fine, but unless there is a clear distinction between right and wrong hardly any drug policy will work.

While we may treasure the freedom of taking drugs, we can't dispense with the entire body of law that regulates commerce and exchange. It is wrong to transact with an individual who forwards the proceeds to law-breakers and is not compliant with consumption tax law. On this basis alone the user is eligible for a penalty. I for one believe the offence should be an infraction rather than an indictable crime.

Unless we legalize, regulate and tax the production, import, distribution and safety of illicit substances (a policy I lean toward), possession of them remains abetting a violation of the law. Possession and confirmed use should land you with a fine (however light) and a record expungeable only by reporting to a treatment centre. The most ironic way would be to correlate the fine to local GST and PST, so the State would solely take its due from the transaction.

If I can't buy a stolen bike I won't argue for your right to get high on something that took a dozen broken laws to get in your pocket. But for God's sake don't go with much-trumpeted Bills after the rebel Che-Guevara-shirt-wearing capitalism-bashing daddy's kiddo who keeps a pot plant to delight in the knowledge of giving a finger to Big Brother. That's just potty!

At last the bleeding hearts get it

Britain's liberal bleeding hearts finally plan to cut benefits to chronic addicts who do not seek treatment. At long last, and not a second too soon.

The welfare state is not an evil in and of itself. If people be helped in times of need, so be it. When one's in need, however, one does not indulge, and despite all the excuses that the urges of addiction are hard to resist, the crack just doesn't smoke itself. Therefore giving addicts and alcoholics the shove to do something about their condition is finally a step in the right direction.

In times of economic crisis, it is not for the State to cuddle its socialist ego with wasteful welfare that fuels crime, destroys communities and burdens the health system.

Ganja is not cool - do something about it then!

An enlightening article by the BBC on the use of cannabis among Britain's young: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7042881.stm

Moms giving skunk to their kids so they don't go buy from street dealers, lots of under 16's smoking the crap, people growing it on their balconies, you name it, they got it all! Now police chiefs say some parents are complacent and they should be doing more to deliver the message that doing Mary-Jane is not cool. Duh!

What else do you expect when you declassify cannabis from class B to class C? When a kid can take his parents to court for assault when they kick him out of bed and make him go to school? First you take all power away from parents and enforcement officers, then you realize you have a problem. Didn't see that one coming!

Ganja is a drug. It blows your neurons. It makes you idle. It destroys your willpower and ambition. It makes your head fuzzy. It destroys your worthy friendships. It makes you behave weirdly. It makes you waste money. Why can't people understand this, and keep rambling on about how it's not too bad and how it's better than having a cocaine problem et cetera?

If the point is zero tolerance then act accordingly. Reclassify the drug. Jail those who sell it. Hammer in the message that if you smoke skunk you won't get anywhere. Don't just sit idle and watch as the country's young plunge into smokey oblivion.

The Dutch have an apparent tradition of not being able to form a government for a couple of months after elections or resignations. Too stoned to negotiate? Do we want the same fate?