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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: Ottawa embarking on its own war on drugs |
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The ending was anticlimactic.
On Monday evening, just as Canadians were sitting down to dinner, Parliament quietly enacted one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most controversial pieces of legislation.
The Liberals joined forces with the Conservatives to pass Canada's first mandatory minimum jail sentences for individuals convicted of drug dealing.
The vote was lopsided: 195 to 54. But it was a superficial consensus.
MPs approved the bill without any empirical evidence that harsh sentencing laws reduce drug crime. They endorsed the policy without any estimate of how much it will cost to jail thousands of marijuana growers and street pushers. They changed the law without any plan to contain the spread of AIDS, hepatitis C and other drug-related diseases in the prison system.
The Liberals dared not look soft on crime. The New Democrats and Bloc Qu�b�cois were outnumbered.
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Under the newly amended Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, judges will be required to impose the following sentences:
A minimum prison term of one year for selling marijuana as part of an organized criminal gang or when a weapon is involved.
A minimum of two years in jail for selling hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine to young people.
A minimum of six months behind bars for growing five to 200 marijuana plants without a licence and two years for cultivating at least 500 plants.
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http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/649475
And don't look to the next Liberal government to pull this back:
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| Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is shifting his party to the right. He's killed the centre-left coalition. ... Now, he's supporting the Conservatives' law and order legislation. |
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/ignatieffs-shift-right-angers-grits-47509572.html |
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AgentM
Joined: 07 Jun 2009
Location: British Columbia, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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Conservative drug 'policies' are such a joke! This is all part of their 'tough on crime' platform. The so-called 'War on Drugs' mentality isn't working, it's failed, drugs are everywhere in the US and Canada. Putting more and more people in prison isn't really helping in the long run (sometimes it makes things worse). Here in BC the cops don't even bother going after personal users of pot really anymore, it's so ubiquitous (although they still go after grow-ops and dealers).
Our system is a knee-jerk reaction, and it's a useless waste of money. We should be looking at drugs as more of a health issue than a criminal one, and there is at least a bit of movement in that direction from some quarters luckily. But overall, I see little positive in our current policies. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| AgentM wrote: |
| Conservative drug 'policies' are such a joke! This is all part of their 'tough on crime' platform. The so-called 'War on Drugs' mentality isn't working, it's failed, drugs are everywhere in the US and Canada. Putting more and more people in prison isn't really helping in the long run (sometimes it makes things worse). Here in BC the cops don't even bother going after personal users of pot really anymore, it's so ubiquitous (although they still go after grow-ops and dealers). |
I'd argue that putting people like, oh I don't know, potheads in jail always causes problems in any run. Consider, that many of these people are branded as convicts for the rest of their lives effectively taking them out of much of the labor force for the rest of their lives; think of opportunity costs. Also, the police are wasting resources on such a benign phenomenon. Such resources would be better spent going after violent criminals.
| AgentM wrote: |
| Our system is a knee-jerk reaction, and it's a useless waste of money. We should be looking at drugs as more of a health issue than a criminal one, and there is at least a bit of movement in that direction from some quarters luckily. But overall, I see little positive in our current policies. |
Right, drug abuse is a health issue and the shouldn't be under the purview of the criminal justice system.
Minimum Mandatory Sentencing and the Sad Case of Charlie Lynch:
Video 1
Video 2 |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| AgentM wrote: |
| Conservative drug 'policies' are such a joke! |
But it's not just the conservatives. Many liberals and socialists support the war on drugs. Considering drug prohibition is meddling with the economy, supposedly for our 'own sake', it's socially and economically-liberal in nature.
A true liberal, in the name of liberal morality, ought to want to destroy prohibition; and so too a true conservative in the name of conservative (laissez-faire) economics. But of course, many don't, and it is to those folks that I say "poo to you with knobs on!" |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:39 am Post subject: |
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| The former Liberal government had plenty of opportunity to decriminalize marijuana. |
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Pink Freud
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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I support the decriminalization of marijuana.
However,
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| A minimum prison term of one year for selling marijuana as part of an organized criminal gang or when a weapon is involved. |
The intent here appears to be to reduce a key source of revenue for organized crime.
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| A minimum of two years in jail for selling hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine to young people. |
I have no problem with severely punishing the act of selling dangerous drugs to minors. (not sure what "young people" means, though)
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| A minimum of six months behind bars for growing five to 200 marijuana plants without a licence and two years for cultivating at least 500 plants. |
This is ridiculous. Unless it can be shown that a grow-op is providing revenue for organized crime, home growers shouldn't be punished with minimum sentencing laws. It's also ill-conceived because measuring a grow -op's size "per plant" can't really be done. In this scenario someone with four six-foot female plants capable of producing 12-24 ounces of weed is not subject to minimum sentencing (nor should they be). but someone with 6 4- inch seedlings (not all of which will be viable or female) is subject to these new laws.
The homegrower who grows for his or her personal use is one of the primary ways of reducing the revenue to organized crime. The homegrower is actually taking money out of organized crimes' pockets. Every independent homegrower in Canada knows their biggest threat is actually criminal gangs, which don't welcome any grow ops they don't control. |
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Kimbop
Joined: 31 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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This issue is very simple:
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/seniors-aines/pubs/fed_paper/pdfs/fedpager_e.pdf
Seniors are a huge voter block. And for the most part don't do drugs. And they hate seeing tattood weed-smoking criminals on the news. Most Canadians WANT these scumbags in jail and out of sight. It makes little sense, but thats democracy.
The issue is only marijuana in part; have you ever walked into the living room and found the cold, hard body of a friend lying on the floor? With a needle sticking out of his arm? Just for effect I'll tell you that it's happened to me twice. The second time didn';t suck so bad, because I barely know the girl.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1T4GFRE_enCA317CA317&q=drugs+needles+canada&meta=
and the problem isn't drugs per se; the problem is that a segment of society is infested with aids, unemployment, DRUG ADDICTION, high reproductive rates, and are absolutely reliant on free healthcare and social welfare. And they breed 6 kids who are bound to have the same problems. And these problems are getting worse. Nationwide we are seeing MORE drug use on reserves, more suicides, higher aids rates, more social worker baby snatchings, and more bloody needles littered in east hastings and Stanley park. But this is not the downfall of the "war on drugs"; these are the ramifications of certain parts of the Indian act and the social-welfare system.
I'm all for legalizing marijuana, but people who decide to experiment with a sudafed/heroin iv injection deserve death -- NOT aids payments and free daycare for their crack babies. Option B is to keep doing what we've done for years: pay these people to A) stay in their crappy parts of town B) stay on the reserve C)stay in jail. |
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