He aint no judge Judy

[Jack Bennest]

I FEAR FOR B.C.’s FUTURE

Society’s Aims Do Not Include Drug Trafficking
October 17, 2007

LAST night I had a nightmare about British Columbia in 2020.
A demented British Columbia was fast becoming Canada’s land of the behaviourally disordered; a promised land of 24-hour Insites and surreal achievements viewed through the looking glass of never-ending ‘recreational’ drug use; a land bereft of insight, common sense and ethics.
I am jolted awake and it dawns on me that British Columbia already is the de facto drug capital of Canada, with pre-eminence over all other provinces in a madcap move to drug legalization.
What drug legalizers don’t even dare think about, and what we surely will have to endure, is the inevitability of Orwellian bureaucrats, and their medicine men, pitted against international traffickers and their contrivances and deceit. Our young people will be trapped between them.
In 2000, then-mayor Phillip Owen sold Vancouverites a bill of goods that would make a Howe Street promoter blush.
Like a biblical prophet he gave us the word. Our western land was to rise up on the certainty of the ‘four pillars.’ We were told that it was to be a transformational miracle; from a land beset by criminals to a land of the benign. The word alone, ‘four pillars,’ would make junkies, crackheads, methheads and potheads into quiet, self-indulgent, ‘recreational’ substance users.
On November 21, 2000, the Vancouver Sun made it a front page story headlined: “This is an international crisis.”
Wrong. Vancouver was already an international disgrace. During Owen’s watch, sixty-five women disappeared from the streets of Skid Road.
The Sun story, by reporter Frances Bula, said that “Mayor Philip Owen unveils today his sweeping plan for city’s drug crisis.”
“Safe-injection sites for drug users and providing free heroin for hard-core addicts on a trial basis are among the strategies the City of Vancouver is recommending in a new drug policy that is the first of its kind in North America.
“The plan, to be made public today, also includes drug courts that would put users into treatment instead of jail, special treatment beds for young people, day centres for drug users outside the Downtown Eastside, testing of street drugs to help prevent overdoses, and more police to target upper-level drug dealers. …
“The new plan, a copy of which was obtained by the Vancouver Sun, contains 24 recommendations … intended to emphasize the … strategy used in some European cities that is known as the four-pillar approach.
“Like European cities that pioneered it, Vancouver is also taking the position that it has to act even if others are not willing to yet. And, like them, it is also clearly shifting to a position that says drug addiction is a health issue, not a criminal issue.
“The plan does not commit the city to spending any money or to undertaking any immediate, controversial action. …All but two of the recommendations are labelled as the responsibility of …the federal and provincial governments, the Vancouver health board and the Vancouver Police Department. …
“Owen says that, while public reaction is important, the city will not agree to a final strategy that doesn’t have all four pillars in place.”
On November 16, 2002, Larry Campbell succeeded Owen in office and got there by being a loud voice in a campaign for so-called safe-injection sites.
Owen, Campbell and incumbent mayor Sam Sullivan are still campaigning for this cosmetic solution to Vancouver’s festering sore of Skid Road.
Seven years have come and gone and all we have is rhetoric and one legal shooting gallery.
In the meantime we have lowered ourselves even deeper into the quagmire with a cheaper and more fashionable poison, excuse me, er drug, made locally: crystal methamphetamine.
On September 18, Owen popped up again on the op-ed page of the Sun under the banner of Continuing the ‘war on drugs’ is not helping the addicted.
Of all people, Owen should know by now that Canada has never had a war on drugs; the only war is that of the international traffickers in opiates who target the United States of America and local marijuana grow operators who, unidentifiable, slither unseen among us.
Similarly loose with facts, Owen fantasized that “Those who are addicted … did not choose a life of addiction, illness, crime and eventual early death. They are the victims and they require medical assistance.”
“In 2001, Vancouver …adopted a four pillars approach (and) has five years of experience in implementing it. …we opened a supervised injection site in downtown Vancouver in 2003. The most recent study of the effects of this site shows that it reduces public disorder, refers users to addiction counselling, saves lives and improves health because it significantly reduces needle sharing.”
Owen is in reverie and divorced from reality.
The hard truth is that Vancouver has opened one unsafe injection site and the other pillars are imaginary; and that includes enforcement of the existing federal criminal law.
Only a massive involvement by the federal government will rid Vancouver of the pestilence of illicit drug abuse.
When one becomes addicted, and a criminal, he no longer satisfies the criteria for citizenship: “a member of society especially as regards one’s contribution to it.”
Citizenship does not include a so-called God-given right to knowingly become addicted to a poison and then claim victimization.
Society is an association of persons united in a common moral and ethical aim, supported by firm laws. That aim does not include druggies and traffickers.
Our once proud Canadian society is constantly being brainwashed to accept never-ending addiction as a normal common feature.
We are being deluded into living according to a lowest common denominator.
It’s time to be as tough as nails and stand together against these misfits.

Wallace Craig - wallace-gilby-craig@shaw.ca
– NSNews - Oct 17, 2007
www.realjustice.ca/

[PMC]

This guy in entitled to his opinion, but he is definately not correct in the scope of what is occuring.

This fellow sees the drug user as a criminal element.. so I ask Mr. Craig if the drug user was a prosperous president of a solid well run corporation, would this person continue to be labled as criminal... the surprise to Mr. Craig is that drug users exist in all places of life. The Vancouver east side has a reputation because of homelessness that occurs with it.

If people need heroine to kill pain or to survive, I would rather give it them so that they can get off it from the open discussion of it, and not being labeled as a crime and criminal.

There are dangerous drugs, and the population can be educated on them.

The media can play a part in that, and more than psa's... as simple as a link from a broadcast website to further info on substance abuse.

[Jack Bennest]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion - thank god for that


Here is the background for his comments:

Educated in Vancouver at Sir James Douglas Elementary School, John Oliver High School and the University of British Columbia
(Faculty of Law).

1955 to 1975: independent lawyer (general practice)
– downtown Vancouver.

1975 to 2001: Judge – Vancouver Criminal Division
– Provincial Court of BC.

Born in 1931 in Fraserview - Craig was brought up and educated in the bleak times of the Great Depression, the uncertain times of the Second World War and the optimism of the dawn of world peace.

Craig was assigned exclusively to the criminal courts at 222 Main Street in Skid Road and remained there until retirement at age 70.

Released from the judicial constraint against engaging in public discussion and political comment Craig put pen to paper and in 2003 published:

"Short Pants to Striped Trousers", The life and times of a Judge in Skid Road Vancouver.

It has been described by Ian Mulgrew of The Vancouver Sun as “Part memoir, part local history and part polemic . . .

Craig thinks Vancouver’s future is in jeopardy because too many judges have gone soft on crime and too many politicians have gone soft in the head . . .”


my comments - many of us want to think this is a medical question.
I think the Judge sees it from the basis of what came before him - day after day - in remand courts. The same people, the same problem, and the same lack of a plan to eradicate the germ.

[PMC]

The same people, the same problem, and the same lack of a plan to eradicate the germ.

You are calling it a germ... why ?

It is the same people with the same problem, and yes the judges perhaps let the car thieves free to easily... so is the answer to fill up the jails, create more prisons, and have more authority figures telling the labeled criminal that to justify a belief that all drug users are criminal thus should be locked away and out of sight.

Not all drug users should be painted with the same brush... I all for giving them the drugs, eliminate the profit picture and the mystic, and then bust / punish them if they commit a crime.

One plan doesn't solve the issue, because each individual got there from the way they were raised or educated or lifestyle etc.

[Jack Bennest]

Sorry if the word "germ" is too much for you.

Germ is my description of the number of people including kids affected
by the use of crystal meth

Take a look at this picture

http://www.methmadness.com/addictfacesofmethL.jpg


In my day it was heroin use - the addiction on the downtwon eastside.

What the judge is saying, I think, is that the so called softer/medical approach is not working. Sterner measures are needed. Ones we don't want to comtemplate.

[OpenMike]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article ... 6kRDbU_l8g

Vancouver police chief says non-resident repeat criminals should be put on planes


12 hours ago

VANCOUVER - Vancouver's new police chief is proposing a novel solution to dealing with a rising number of chronic offenders from other provinces - put them on a plane and ship them home.

Chief Const. Jim Chu said the Vancouver police department is considering what he called a "home-for-the-holidays" program that partly uses donated travel miles from local businesses as a way to slash the escalating property-crime rate.

He told a business crowd Thursday that criminals often flee their own province when there's a warrant for their arrest and come to Vancouver to commit more offences, often to feed their drug habits.

"We do need some national leadership on this issue because people should not be able to evade justice just by leaving the jurisdiction that they were charged in," he said.

Chu said crack cocaine addicts typically steal $2,000 worth of goods every day to support their $200-a-day addiction, putting the public at risk.

"The reason it's frustrating for us is we encounter victims of crime and these are people who've had their savings stolen, their lives are disrupted," said Chu, a career Vancouver cop named police chief in June.

"We've seen people that are hurt physically, injured because of these chronic offenders."

Effectively deporting non-resident criminals would save British Columbia social-service, health-care and court costs, said Chu.

He said he recently raised the idea with federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who was shocked by the scope of the problem and suggested he write Justice Minister Rob Nicholson about it.

[crs]

i like this new police chief already! where do i donate my points??? LOL

[Mike Cleaver]

I favour the Singapore approach: Illegal drugs = death.

[crs]

I favour the Singapore approach: Illegal drugs = death.

but then who would pilot our BC Ferries fleet??? (drum roll/cymbal crash)

I'm here all day...try the veal!

[PMC]

I favour the Singapore approach: Illegal drugs = death.

They would be a busy death squad here

They are not to keen on chewing gum either... a very black and white perspective, and little in the gray fabric of the image.

[Mike Cleaver]

And a very successful society with NO crime.

[PMC]

Germ is my description of the number of people including kids affected
by the use of crystal meth

All of the meth is being created for profit.

Take a look at this picture

http://www.methmadness.com/addictfacesofmethL.jpg

I know the issue of meth... the user pays twice, in dollars and then their lost cognitive ability.

In my day it was heroin use - the addiction on the downtwon eastside.

What the judge is saying, I think, is that the so called softer/medical approach is not working. Sterner measures are needed. Ones we don't want to comtemplate.

why do the meth heads steal cars, or steal anything... for the drugs... give them the drugs and the option to get off.. if they commit a crime, bust them, and send them away, with a rehab program attached with the sentence.

Would a meth head walk into a clinic and ask for a fix ? If the drug issue wasn't labeled as a crime, I believe it opens communication with that person on why they need the meth at all... what drives that person to meth.

Putting people behind bars rather than finding the answer to the question only creates a rotating door of drug abuse and expense to the system.

[Jack Bennest]

The sterner measures I contemplate are not jail.

a Bus, a long trip, no escape, work for your meals, training for those
that want it, 5 years and you are released.

[Mike Cleaver]

There are too many f***ing bleeding hearts in this country.
I ask again: Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Whose fault is it that these people are on drugs?
Don't give me all the crap about societal pressure and failure to provide for those who won't or can't help themselves.
We all have to make choices.
When I was growing up in the '60's, all manner of drugs were available.
Yes, I tried marijuana and hash ONCE each.
I decided I'd stick with my drug of choice, alcohol and later learned my lesson with that.
Now, it's a glass of red with dinner.
Everyone must take responsibility for his or her own life.
You make the choice, no one else.
There are far too many people in this city who feel the world owes them a living and aren't willing to lift a finger to help themselves.
The government should be ashamed of the way it treats the mentally ill but the rest of these people just don't get it.
If you want something, you work for it, not beg for it or steal it.
Every Tuesday, I walk past a church on Burrard where all manner of people are sitting on the sidewalk waiting for a free meal.
Don't the "church" people realize this only re-enforces the view that you can get something for nothing?
Vancouver Police used to have a signboard at Burrard and Robson, advising people where they could go to get all kinds of free stuff.
Thankfully, it's gone now.
Don't people realize that handouts are perpetuating the problem?
We have more bums per capita than any other city in Canada, partly because of our warm climate but also because no one is cracking down on the problem of drugs.
The policy of city hall and the police is leave them alone and let them do their thing.
Former Mayor Larry Campbell said in essence, so what if your car is broken into?
The former judge is right.
You don't get rid of a problem by "treating" it.

[Jack Bennest]

Jack Webster Broadcast On Drug Addicts And Traffickers

as reported on by Judge Wallace Craig – September 20, 2007

WEBSTER! An autobiography by Jack Webster published in 1990, chronicled many flashpoint happenings in Vancouver since the 1950s’; and provided an insight into various zany “only-in-Canada” politicians and other aspirant stuffed shirts.

In his preface Webster said “I consider myself a broadcast journalist, not a performer. My professional life has been devoted to making people talk, often about a personal tragedy, sometimes about an achievement, ideally about a controversy. Not for me the longwinded quote or the abstract debate.”

Born and raised in the industrial slums of Glasgow, a teen-age Webster gravitated to reporting and worked “round the clock at three (local) newspapers before moving to Fleet Street”; followed by emigration to Canada after the Second World War and a place among Vancouver's finest journalists.

Webster said that “Crime was long the mainstay of my reporting. The courts and police dockets provided endless grist for the mill. I knew dozens of junkies, pimps, burglars, small-time hoods and other rounders. Their picaresque exploits made marvellously entertaining material for television and radio. The stories of their lives provide a clearer picture of what is happening in a city than the boosterish twaddle usually provided by local politicians or the chamber of commerce.”

In the 1970s Webster worked out of 12 Water Street doing a talk show for CJOR/60. He was right in the middle of Skid-Road Vancouver.

Here is an extract from a Webster broadcast; 8:30 AM, Monday, November 11, 1974, concerning the rising tide of drug addiction and trafficking in British Columbia.

“The facts are:

“We have a minimum of 10,000 heroin and cocaine users in British Columbia this very day, and if we continue as we are, in five or ten years we will be supporting an addict population of anything from 50,000 to 200,000.

“We must make a moral decision against the use of alcohol, tobacco and hard and soft drugs. If we don’t, we are faced with the social disposal of human garbage. I suggest that there are no magic wands, but we must have a three-pronged attack: Enforcement, Treatment and Education.

“Enforcement

The strictest law enforcement against importation and distribution of all forms of drugs; hard or soft.

Amend the Bail Reform Act NOW and deny bail to all charged with trafficking in drug cases, but provide the speediest of trials.

Proceed by direct indictment to the high court in all drug trafficking cases.

Special year-round drug courts with no long summer vacations.

Mandatory life sentences with no parole for all couriers and traffickers who are themselves non-users.

“Treatment

Voluntary registration of heroin and cocaine addicts. After a period of 90 days, authorities to have the power to apprehend and detain suspected hard drug users for testing and treatment.

Compulsory treatment of the two definable groups: new addicts, and confirmed addicts.

Treatment of the new addicts shall be as in-patients in a hospital-educational setting. This treatment shall be compulsory and cold-turkey, no criminal stigma of any kind to be attached to this isolation and treatment.

Maintenance of confirmed addicts as out-patients on methadone, only as an interim measure.

If after release either category of addict commits a drug offence, this will call for return for compulsory treatment for an indefinite period, subject only to a yearly review.

“Education

“We surely can come to the moral decision that we are against the destruction of human beings by alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Our school programme should be shaped accordingly, but most important of all there must be education by adult example. A moral restructuring of our educational system from elementary to university level must remove all drug permissive influences.

“If you agree with any part of my proposition:

“Sit down now and write your views in a personal letter to the Prime Minister of ‘Canada, he Minister of Justice, he Minister of National Health and Welfare, all in Ottawa; and to Premier Barrett and Health Minister Dennis Cocke in Victoria.

“Get on the back, by phone and letter, of your local MP and MLA and insist on an answer to two questions: What is your personal philosophy concerning the non-medical use of drugs? And second, what are you currently doing about this disastrous situation?

“Contact the Minister of Education or your local school Board and your children’s school staff and insist that they implement a preventative drug education programme, not as a special sensational programme, but as part and parcel of a whole life programme.

“Give the police information that might prove helpful.

“Teach your children by personal example. Don’t have a double standard in your home.

“Keep a continuous pressure on authority at all levels of government. Never, ever stop trying!

“Fight against the legalization of heroin as you would fight against the free supply of liquor to alcoholics. (end of extract)

In his 1990 autobiography Webster recounted some of the many jousts he had with Pierre Trudeau including Trudeau’s evasive stance on marijuana. “Trudeau could not have been aware then what a hard line I had come to take on drugs. If a drug trafficker was jailed for seven years in prison, I’d be on the air saying the court was soft – he should have got seventy! I did a program on the toll it was taking in Vancouver by interviewing forty families who had lost sons and daughters to heroin addiction.”

“I always took a hard line on drugs.

“In the beginning, as far as I was concerned, junkies should be quarantined until they died or kicked the habit. Later, I came to see addiction as a more complex problem that was deeply rooted in prevailing social conditions.”

Jack Webster – Master of Talk Radio and Talk TV – died March 2, 1999.


http://www.realjustice.ca


Listen to Judge Craig http://www.podcast.biz/1asx/pcraig070830.asx