Let me start by saying that I am in favour of making illegal drugs legal, provided they are given to registered addicts in regulated doses to be used in situ. The addict arrives at the clinic (or opium den, or whatever you want to call it); shows his/her photo permit; gets the dose in a needle; and either uses it or is injected by an employee. I don’t care whether he/she pays or not. If the feds/province/municipality buys the stuff from the producer, with no middleman (sorry, middle person), the cost per dose will be about 50 cents. Chump change.
What I cannot support is what is taking place now. Out of my left pocket, some government (and I don’t give a damn whether it’s the federal, provincial, or local bunch) takes my money to fight the ‘war on drugs’, by having: cops run investigations; prosecutors do whatever they do; the courts spend huge amounts of money in trials, including providing defense for the accused (all on my dime); appeals; prison; parole; and then it happens all over again.
Out of my right pocket, the same bunch provides: housing for the addicts; a place to use their illegal drugs (bought at a huge price from illegal salesmen (sorry, salespersons); and essentially immunity from prosecution (“It’s not their fault, they can’t help it.”)
And the worst part is that the cops (and the Canadian Navy) preen when they make a major drug bust. Do they think that helps? What it does is raise the street price, so the addicts have to commit more crimes to buy the drugs so they can inject them at a safe site, all paid for by me.
Ian Cameron, Brentwood Bay
