Reeferlogic

This week it was revealed that the RCMP overstepped their bounds (by a huge degree!!!) when they secretly funded a report that undermined the highly successful and internationally praised harm reduction facility - INSITE.

INSITE is located in the downtown eastside - a neighborhood that has the reputation of being the poorest postal code in Canada and has a long history of being a crime infested, dirty area of Vancouver with open air drug use and dealing at nearly any time of the day. Ironically a main station of the Vancouver Police Department is located in this neighborhood - right in the epicenter of it all at Main and Hastings.

And as if that isn’t ironic enough, the Vancouver police are in support of INSITE and its mission. Why then would the RCMP have such a different point of view?

Could it be political interference? Or is it just pure greed and selfishness on the part of the RCMP? After all, the continuation of the drug war is in their best interest. A significant portion of their annual budget exists purely for the purpose of fighting the war on drugs. Without the war on drugs that money would be spent on other government priorities. Heaven forbid some of it might go towards drug policies that have been proven to work - properly funded treatment and harm reduction strategies! Heaven forbid that the RCMP might have to focus on real crime, not unnecessary manufactured crime that was created due to prohibitionist drug policies.

Thank God for the good souls at the Pivot Legal Society who are fighting the good fight and revealing these scandals to the public.

I sure hope the media picks up this story in earnest after the election is over. It’s a given no party will talk about this during the election period yet the RCMP must respond to these accusations. This is a serious issue, the police are not a political entity, they are there to enforce laws, not make them. As soon as they start to meddle in law making they start to go well beyond their mandate.

Someone’s head in the RCMP better roll for this one. And the media better fucking follow the story until the very end.

We are down to the last 2 days before the Federal election here in Canada and I fear that the way our system works will ensure a conservative victory.

Hopefully it will be a minority government we have to deal with but I’m quite worried that, due to vote splitting on the left, we will end up with a conservative majority. That result would be absolutely disgusting because it would mean that the government of Canada will not represent the values of a majority of Canadians. I can already Harper state that he has “a clear mandate” even though more people voted against conservatism than for it.

Can you imagine Harper’s actions without an opposition to stop his legislation from passing! It would be very, very frightening - especially if you are on the opposite side of Harper’s ideologically driven agenda. Look out social justice types, take cover artists, anti-prohibitionists run and hide - a Harper majority will force you all to take cover until the next election. At the very least you won’t be able to move any of your agenda forward, at the worst you may find yourself in jail - I don’t put it passed Harper to start doing some very extreme things, policies we have never been able to stomach in the past will all of a sudden be the law of the land. Without the majority of Canadians wanting them to be.

We are a left leaning Country, no matter what the propaganda spouted by Stephen Harper might say. We must ensure that when we go to vote in this election we are doing what will ensure a conservative defeat - even if that means breaking with our traditional party support. We must vote for the person that we feel has the best chance of defeating the local conservative candidate. If we don’t then we won’t be governed by a government that thinks and acts like the people it governs.

If you need a reason to vote non-conservative (I find that hard to believe but maybe you’ve been in a coma for the past 2 years) take a look at the list I’ve been keeping since Harper came to power. Canada’s conservative legacy.

So don’t forget - Vote “Anything but Conservative”

The cops in BC have been busy making sure that a few organized crime groups aren’t making any profit from pot - for the next month or two max! After all, these gangsters grow pot! Pot grows fast and commands a high price. And this is Canada - the product is in high demand!

How exactly do the police expect to overcome the law of supply and demand? This is why prohibition - aka the drug war - is a complete failure. And the failure is being made worse by people like the cops ignoring the failure and continuing to pursue drug policies that don’t work!

Here are some news articles that illustrate how our brave and courageous police are enforcing laws that don’t work and are actually putting them in harms way - for no good reason! You’d think the police would be smarter than to continue waging this useless war against drugs - especially against cannabis. I guess the death toll must have to reach a much higher level in terms of civilian and police deaths before the cops will even start to consider other approaches. I wonder how high that body count will need to be because it’s already way too high.

• Williams Lake Factory Bust
• Langley Harvest Bust
• Comox Valley Police Blow Smoke Up the Media’s Ass
• Vancouver Bust Leads to $600,000 Forfeiture