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[The Great Wall of Whiner]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/08/29/drugs_taiwan.html

BUSTED with coke, weed, and E.

Death penalty is a possible outcome.

Anyone know this guy?

[Chris Smith]

Is this the same guy?

Do a name search in this article:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2003/07/04/2003058040/print

[Miyazaki]

Reports say there were several English teachers from both Canada and America who were arrested - some locals too.

Too much foreign garbage EFL'ing on Taiwan.
It's really too bad.

[Fortigurn]

Get rid of them all. We don't need freaks like this in Taiwan. In fact we don't need freaks like this anywhere.

[Ferfichkin]

That's gotta be him, how many Mathieu Forand's could there be in Taipei? I saw that episode of English Teachers a few weeks ago and there were four guys in it, one of whom was smoking pot right on camera. It was the guy in the top right hand corner of the website listed by Chris Smith. Mathieu is obviously a French name and of the four guys in the show he is the only one who really looks French, the other three had blondish hair. It must be him.

Geez, I hope they don't execute him. I know when you're in a foreign country you have to obey their laws, but still, I really hope they don't give him the death penalty. How do they know he was smuggling, they didn't catch him at the airport? Does anyone know about that? Also, does anyone know how much drugs he was caught with? Are we talking about a couple of grams or a couple of pounds? That's the thing about these black and white, zero tolerance laws, they fail to take into account the severity of the offence, (ie) someone with a couple of grams of cocaine is just as guilty as someone with a couple of pounds. Now in the latter case it is obvious that the person intends to distribute the drug on a large scale, while in the former it could be that he just had a few grams to sell to his friends at a party, however, with these black and white laws, they are both labelled "drug dealers", and as far as I could tell from the CBC article, both face the same penalties. You can form your own opinions as to the legitimacy of that policy, personally I think it's ridiculous, and I just really hope that they have some mercy on him.

I also wonder how effective these zero tolerance drug policies are in Taiwan? Does anyone know? I know that in the States they are completely ineffective. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration for non-violent drug offences in the western world and yet they have the highest rate of per capita drug use. They did a study comparing maijuana use in the Netherlands and in America, and the Dutch, who can use the drug legally, have lower rates of useage in all age categories. The study confirmed that amongst the youth, the Dutch had half the number of users than in America. (I got that info from the Nader website, I'm not sure how accurate it is, you can check it out yourself, I believe it.) Same thing with murder, the United States is one of the few remaining industrialized countries with the death penalty, and yet they have the highest per capita murder rate in the western world. Those zero tolerance policies don't seem to work in America, I'm wondering if they work any better in Taiwan?

I don't really know what I'm trying to say, I guess it's obvious that he's guilty of breaking Taiwanese laws, I don't know, I just hope they take it easy on him, that's all.

fich

[PAULH]

[Ferfichkin]

Yeah, I'm not saying that he should recieve special treatment because he's white or for any other reason, I'm just saying that I hope they take it easy on him. It wouldn't matter to me if he was black or Chinese or whatever, I would still hope they would take it easy on him. I'm not questioning Taiwan's right to form and enforce their own laws, I'm just saying that I hope they show mercy.

As far as the smuggling thing goes, I don't know anything about that, it said he was accused of smuggling in the CBC article but it seems to me he could have just as easily bought the drugs in Taiwan. Although I guess if they're accusing him of smuggling they must have some kind of evidence or else they would just charge him with possession and trafficking. If they have the death penalty for all drug offences there isn't much point in lying about the smuggling since the trafficking will produce the same sentence.

In terms of what I wrote about America, that was an honest question. I guess the theory is that the death penalty will disuade people from using drugs in Taiwan. What I was saying is that conservative criminal legislation has been ineffective in the United States and I was just wondering how effective it has proven in Taiwan.

fich

[Aristotle]