Red Ribbons

I have always viewed the various ribbon campaigns with a bit of suspicion. All you have to do to help cure breast cancer, AIDS, drinking and driving or *insert good cause here* is wear a pretty, colorful ribbon to show your support. I have always wondered if wearing a ribbon does anything more than assuage the guilt of healthy people.

Now we have a brand new ribbon campaign. So far this is an American campaign sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration and aimed at teenagers. With any luck this foolishness will not come here. But with our Canadian habits of capitulating to misguided American trends, I am not feeling optimistic. Look forward to high school students hawking Red Ribbon merchandise. You read it here first.

Red Ribbon week takes place from Oct. 21 - 29. It includes typical overpriced Red Ribbon merchandise, misinformation falsely called education and a prayer campaign. We all know that a completely "drug-free" lifestyle is both possible and ideal! And what campaign to support an unworthy cause would be complete without a racial minority poster boy? I am speaking about none other than Enrique "Kiki" Camerena. See? There are good Mexicans and here he is. You must wear a Red Ribbon to show that he didn't die for nothing!

What the world really needs is a Green ribbon campaign to raise awareness of the casualties of the war on drugs. We could sell all kinds of green gear and we could have our own poster-boys and girls to end drug prohibition. How about a picture of a pregnant drug-addicted woman giving birth in a dirty jail cell? Or maybe we could collect pictures of all the innocent people killed in late night no-knock raids? The pictures would be mostly minorities. The Red Ribbon campaign has showed me that its good to showcase members of minority groups to support a good cause.

Maybe I am on to something here.

Drug dealers: Good, bad or necessary?

I have mixed feelings about drug dealers. Obviously if people want to smoke pot there has to be people willing to grow and sell pot. If cannabis consumers want to smoke they need a steady supply and drug dealers do a very fine job of providing a valuable product.

I suppose it’s the term drug dealer itself that has gotten a bad rap. “Drug dealer” evokes the image of a young man getting rich from the proceeds of crime. Does anybody stop to think that drug dealers are created by the war on drugs? In a legal sense, anybody that provides a controlled substance to another individual is a drug dealer. Everybody who has ever smoked a joint with a friend is guilty of “trafficking“.

I personally am all for free enterprise and I have no problem with an entrepreneur who creates wealth through hard work. But I definitely have a problem with the type of person that cares only about the bottom line. They may realize in an abstract sense that drug prohibition is bad but they have absolutely no interest in seeing the legal status of cannabis change. They do not wish to be a member of a political party because of “the heat”.* This drug dealer knows that in a legal environment a one ounce bag of plant matter is not going to be worth hundreds of dollars. Prohibition allows an individual to make exorbitant profits from growing plants. These are also the same types that will sell you a quarter ounce bag of utter wet shwag that is a gram short of the proper weight. They do not take pride in providing the customer with a quality product.

Then you have drug dealers like Carol Gwilt or the BC3 that flout the law and do what they can to make change. Now I certainly don’t expect people to accept jail time as a way of supporting the cause of repealing prohibition. But there certainly are things that an individual can do. There are many fine organizations and individuals fighting on behalf of cannabis consumers. Like the BC3, NORML, LEAP and SKMP* (just to name a few). It is a sad fact that many of the people that would like to support repealing prohibition rightly feel that it would be dangerous to join one of these organizations. However, monetary support is one way that a person can support activists that are making real change. A recent example of this is SAFER, the organization based in Colorado that has successfully gotten drug reform on the ballot. It was the hard work of volunteers and monetary donations that made this happen.

So there you have it. I love drug dealers as long as they see the futility of drug prohibition, provide a high quality product at a reasonable price and support the repeal of drug prohibition.

I may be asking too much!

*The member list of a political party is a highly guarded secret. If the list were ever made public, the repercussions would be horrendous.

A Description of the Habits of a Drug user

I always get discouraged when I see a story like this. To summarize, the article is the story of a drug addicts' struggle to throw off the terrible shackles of marijuana addiction. The author describes the rages he went into when he suffered from a lack of weed. The author's downfall is a common story that we have all come to expect. He pawned his entire philosophy of literature collection and eventually his professional photo equipment in order to afford his expensive drug habit. He had difficulty finding a dealer and coming up with the cash to pay for his habit. Yes, typical drug users pawn their valuable possessions. At least this guy wasn't breaking into houses and shooting his best friend! Redemption comes at the end of the article when he quits smoking pot, despite the ineptitude of so-called drug counsellors that liken smoking pot to using heroine and cocaine.

Isn't it interesting that the author begins with the article describing how pot is addictive, despite the claims of outspoken potheads, yet manages to escape the clutches of marijuana on his own accord? Sounds to me like a severe case of reefer madness.

I feel the need to counteract this story by describing my personal drug habits. I highly doubt that my story would be interesting enough to publish in the newspaper. My story does not include pawning my things or prostituting myself to support my habit/s. Nobody gets killed or screamed at. It's frighteningly mundane.

I started smoking pot when I was introduced to it by my ex. For the record, this is the only positive thing that he has ever done. I was a university student and as we all know, "the time and place for drugs is college"*. I smoked my first joint and immediately felt a sense of peace and calm that I hadn't felt in a long time. It also made everything better, food tasted better and colors seemed more vivid.

I continued to enjoy marijuana throughout my adult life. I save it for special occasions and I am an extremely moderate smoker, by just about any standards. I also quit during my two pregnancies, even though I highly doubt that marijuana is harmful to foetuses. But the last thing a woman wants to be is a bad parent and abusive to foetuses, so I digress.

I have found that marijuana is the best thing to ease PMS cramps and insomnia, far better and cheaper than any legal medicine available to me. Does this make me a medical marijuana user? Not by the governments' standards. Oh sure the government lets sick and dying patients have medical marijuana. Exactly 1306 Canadians have access to medical marijuana. I am sure that there are only 1306 terminally ill patients in Canada that would benefit from medical marijuana, right? Because I am not dying and I have not swam through their river of shit and bureaucracy in order to gain gov't approved access, I am a law-breaker!

In all the time that I have used pot I have had several long periods that I completely quit smoking. And I can honestly say that running out of pot was far from being a catastrophe. I have never felt the need to go to any drastic measures to get marijuana. Running out of potato chips is more likely to cause me panic than running out of pot.

So there it is, my drug habits posted for the entire world to see.

*South Park reference!

Racism: Part 1

Racism: Part 1

It would be quite presumptuous of me to pretend that I know what it is like to experience racism. I am off-white. Not alabaster but I am certainly not brown or black or yellow, by any means. I used to think that racism had all but disappeared but every so often something small will occur in everyday life to remind me that being the wrong color can be just as bad as belonging to the wrong sex. It can be an off-hand remark like, “Those native kids gave my kids lice.” As though lice prefer long, black Native hair to Caucasian hair.

The moment when I realized that racism was real came when I was a happy, care-free school girl. We were discussing our “roots” for social studies class. Everybody piped up about being Ukrainian, Scottish, German, English, French and other acceptable white origins. I piped up that I had Cree origins, that my mother was raised out in “the bush” and could speak fluent Cree.

The looks and the stares and the whispers that I got from that simple realization! Of course I took advantage of it and called my friends white trash. My real friends responded with good-natured ribbing about being a wagon-burner. Everybody else seemed to see me in a new and muddy light. It made me think really hard about what people of colour must deal with every single day.

Now it is no secret that Canada has a history coloured with both overt and underhanded forms of racism. We interned the Japanese in camps during World War II, we applied head taxes to the Chinese and killed them off during the construction of the national railroad.

The drug laws would be an example of covert racism. Not many people make the connection between banning drugs and racism. Is it a coincidence that the two drugs traditionally used by white, male Europeans, being alcohol and tobacco, are legal for recreational consumption? Opium and marijuana are two examples of drugs used by people of the wrong color that were banned as a result. The racist ranting of Nellie McClung about the degenerate races is what inspired Canada to follow in the misguided footsteps of the Untied States. Sadly, this was not the first or the last time that Canada followed a foolish American policy simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Thanks to the woman who made the case that women are indeed persons, many disenfranchised groups have been jailed or worse.

I will continue ranting about our racist drug laws tomorrow, when I am well-rested and not annoyed at my drama queen child who is frantically running around the house in preparation for her three day camping trip. This blogging crap is not for wimps.

A flyer from the Hon. Carol Skelton

I just got an interesting flyer from our conservative MP in the mail the other day. you can find the images here and here. So I took the opportunity to write Ms Skelton a letter. I still have to print it and mail it but I will do it as soon as my sweety gets home and fills the ink cartridge. Anyway, without furher ado, here is my letter.



September 23, 2006


Hon. Carol Skelton, PC, MP
904E 22nd Street West
Saskatoon SK S7M 0S1


Dear Ms. Skelton,

I recently received your flyer in the mail entitled “Tackling Crime: Gangs and Drugs in Saskatoon” and I welcome the opportunity to air my concerns about drugs and crime in my community. I applaud your efforts to reduce the impact of crime in Saskatoon and we can all agree that this is a very important issue. I agree that community-based initiatives like employment programs and education will go a long way towards preventing our youth from falling into the trap of gang involvement.

However, I am concerned that the root cause of gang and drug-related violence is not being adequately addressed. I am quite concerned and disappointed that the conservative government has not followed through with the recommendations of the Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. We are still punishing non-violent drug users and suppliers without solving the cause of the extremely lucrative drug trade, which is often run by gangs. As long as it is extremely profitable to produce and sell drugs such as marijuana, any efforts that we make towards reducing the influence of gangs will be futile. Wasting our precious tax dollars incarcerating non-violent drug offenders does nothing to insure the safety of Canadians. "The continued prohibition of Cannabis jeopardizes the health and well-being of Canadians much more than does the substance itself." - Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, 2002

I believe that giving Canadians the choice to ingest marijuana legally would go a long way towards crippling gang-related activity. If a safe, legal and affordable supply of marijuana was available, gangs would no longer have the vast financial resources that the drug trade offers. Marijuana is far safer than any of the legal intoxicants that are presently available including both alcohol and tobacco and has never caused an overdose death.

Thank you for your hard work representing my riding and for listening to my concerns.

Jaling pregnant women to protect their fetuses????

How often does misogyny and the drug war intersect in such a disgusting and frightening way? It has come to my attention that some misguided judges out there think that jailing pregnant women with addiction problems is the best way to protect the health of their fetuses.

This has resulted in women giving birth in jail. I can think of nothing more horrible than having to endure the ungodly pain of childbirth while alone in a dirty jail cell. One poor woman gave birth, unattended and alone, after her cries for help went unanswered.

If you want to protect women and children, why not do something about the horrendous infant mortality rate? Because of the lack of universal healthcare, women living in poverty do not get prenatal care. If the US had universal healthcare, 15 000 more babies per year would survive.

But instead we have laws that jail pregnant women and may keep other women from getting the pre-natal care they need to improve the health of themselves and their babies. If I was a drug-addicted pregnant woman, the last thing I would want to do is seek health care and wind up in jail for abusing my fetus. There is no possible way that the law serves pregnant women and their children in any way.

Shame on you!

This is why I smoke outside.

Didn't I say that the only thing worse than being a bad example to children is a prostitute? The article is about a foster mom who made the mistake of having her photographs developed at a photolab. A busybody employee with nothing better to do reported the incriminating photographs, which showed a foster mom smoking pot in front of her baby.

OH THE HUMANITY!

I am going to assume that you have read the article and are thinking, "What was she thinking smoking pot in front of her baby?"

Now reread the article and every time they mention marijuana or pot or bongs think cigarette, tobacco and lighter and you can make the stunning realization that this is shockingly overblown and the kids are being removed from a loving foster mom due to discrimination.

And how does this have anything to do with discrimination? The young lady in question made the mistake of admitting that it was marijuana in her pipe. Do you really think that the kids would have been removed if she had been smoking the leaves of a far more harmful but less demonized plant, such as tobacco? Oh no, the busybody photolab worker would never have phoned the police and small children would not have been removed from a loving home.

Endangering children, my ass. The drug laws have absolutely nothing to do with protecting children or anybody else. If that were the case, then the two most harmful drugs, alcohol and tobacco would not be legal for use and consumption. Millions of people die from consuming tobacco and alcohol. How many people die from consuming marijuana?

Zero.

Looks like there will be more strip searches in US schools

It is now easier for teachers to search students.

It seems that invading the privacy of teenagers and treating them like they are nothing more than overgrown children is a high priority for the US government. It's bad enough that students are asked to pee in a cup before being allowed to participate in extra-curricular activities. But to think that schools will be required to implement policies that allow/require teachers to conduct random warrantless searches on students is indeed frightening. So long forth amendment!

Really great teachers serve to inspire their students and build trusting relationships. In my time working in the educational system I have had students talk to me about very personal issues. I can not imagine how fractured the relationships between students and teachers would be if a student had to endure having their personal belongings gone through by trusted authority figures.

This also forces teachers to fight a drug war they may not agree with. Nobody should have to spend any time in jail for injesting the wrong plants. Imagine being in a position of having to search a student that you suspected had drugs and being partially resposible for their incarceration! Oh the horror. Nobody goes into the teaching profession to act on behalf of the armed thugs of the state.

On a more postive note, the legislation is opposed by the Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association.

Oh and it's also opposed by a school marm mom with a shitty blog that nobody will ever read.

*The bill still has to go through the Senate so lets hope that it dies.

Who is opposed to repealing prohibition?

To a lot of people, the case for repealing prohibition seems pretty simple and straight forward. Drug use is not reduced by our drug laws. Many non-violent drug offenders are being locked in jail for no good reason. Drug prohibition drives up the price of drugs which increases crime. And on and on it goes.

So who is opposed to repealing prohibition?

Just to name a few:

-inept politicians. Mentioning cannabis and being associated with stoners is political death.

-drug dealers. People that profit from selling drus do not wish to see prohibition come to an end. Members of the SKMP were hassled at a Motley Crue concert when they were collecting the required 2500 signatures to register the party. You would think that Motley Crue fans would be sympathetic to the cause of legalization, but sadly this is not so.

-regular uneducated folks. The demonization of drugs has so thoroughly saturated our popular culture that most people really believe that marijuana is the devils' weed.

No-Knock Raids

They have been doing no knock raids in the States for years. What usually happens is a low-level thug wants to stay out of jail. So he acts as an informant (RAT) and tells the police about a fellow trouble maker in order to stay of jail. Then the cops decide to act on this oftentimes bad information and conduct what is known as a "no-knock" raid. A SWAT team storms into the suspects house in the middle of the night and terrify the occupants of the house.

These no knock raids often end very tragically, with the deaths of family members. There have even been cases of raids being carried out at the wrong address!

First of all it is horrible and deplorable to think of all the innocent people that have suffered because of this misguided drug war. Medical clinics run by sick and dying little, old ladies being raided by armed thugs is reprehensible. Especially when it is tacitly condonded by the federal government. It is beyond stupid to prohibit a substance that has never caused a single overdose death and does not cause lung cancer in the name of public safety. But to then have the US government engaging in its' own propoganda war to try to say that drug users are to blame for funding terrorist activities. It's despicable and just plain inaccurate.

And we are supposed to be scared of the terrorists.

Carol Gwilt to serve 17 months

Here is one more example of the government picking on a political activist. They are scared to death that activism might actually succeed in changing public opinion. They may be forced to change the laws to reflect public opinion. The best way to shut people up is to lock them in jail for insane amounts of time while real criminals run free and profit from the apathy of ourgovernment institutions. In case you are too lazy to click the link, Carol Gwilt ran the cannabis cafe known as Da Kine. Of course it got raided and shut down as has happened a number of times to a number of cannabis cafes.

It's pretty easy to go after people like Carol that do their illegal activities publicly and snub the unjust and immoral laws of the government in the process. It is unfortunate that the legal system can think of no effective way to make an impact on crime. Drug prohibition has been enforced for decades with a vengeance and we have more drug users than ever. 12% of Canadians have smoked pot in the last year. When prohibition was passed, marijuana use was almost non-existent in Canada. (I'll save that for another post.)

The problem is that people that are in the business of trafficking marijuana for a huge amount of profit prefer to keep their illustrious business away from the prying eyes of the government. The activists, like Carol, that actually care passionately about this issue get shut up and locked in jail. Every time they lock up another activist they can all pat each other on the ass and feel like they have accomplished something, while terrorists and criminals continue to profit from the prohibition of drugs. Way to go!

If I was in a position in society that benefits from maintaining our unjust drug laws, I would be shaking in my boots right now. You can't lock up everybody that disagrees with you. And some of us are smart enough to complain loudly and publicly without getting into any sort of legal trouble.

The Personal is political

The Personal is political

I have given a little bit of thought to this phrase made popular by unshaven feminists. Isn’t it funny how the lack of shaving is the first mental association that one makes with feminists? Why think of all the wonderful ways that the women’s rights movement has improved the lives of people around the world, they didn’t shave their legs! EWWW GROSSS!!! DYKES!!! LOL!!11

Anyway, the phrase “the personal is political” originated with the idea that politics greatly shape our personal lives. When women did not have the vote they had no political power and they had no way to protest their living conditions. If hubby beat you, too bad. In those bad old days a woman was basically property and not considered a person in her own right.

Fast forward a few decades and we have various oppressed groups that give us examples of how the personal is political. I think of Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus. That personal choice ended up being very political.

I think of how the phrase “the personal is political” effects my own personal life. As a parent and an educator there are certain expectations that I have to live up to. I have to be an exemplary example. There are certain unspoken expectations. I should be polite and instruct kids how to be respectful as well as how to color in the lines or how to add.

And of course, I should never, ever break the law.

Ah there’s the rub! I am a bad old law-breaker. Every single time that I light up a joint in my garage I am breaking the law. The fact that I go to the garage also makes a powerful statement. I need to do my evil, illegal activity where nobody will ever see me. I would never dream of going to the garage to drink a beer or smoke a cigarette. But when it comes to pot, I better make sure that nobody will ever see me do my dirty law-breaking. Especially not kids. You can not ever let children see you doing a disgusting thing like that.

It doesn’t matter that I am an autonomous adult and that the consequences of ingesting a substance are mine to accept. It doesn’t matter that smoking marijuana is far safer than smoking cigarettes or eating sugar or drinking alcohol or driving a car. I am a law-breaker and if I was seen smoking pot in public, the consequences could be devastating. I would no longer be merely an opinionated school marm mom I would be a law-breaker and a bad example to children. The only thing worse for a woman to be in this society than a bad example to children is a prostitute.

I am not free to make a choice to enjoy a relatively safe substance. That is a wrong choice because the law says it is wrong and the law is a reflection of society and its’ prejudices. If you smoke pot you belong to a group of free-loving munchy-snacking strung-out stupid hippies. It matters not that many intelligent people choose to use cannabis. You broke the law.

If I ever got into any legal trouble due to my political activism or my choice to smoke pot and be fairly public about it, I could quite easily lose my job. Making the choice to start this blog and do it publicly and put my picture up is a political statement.

But I am so very tired. Tired of being made to feel guilty about a personal choice. Tired of hiding in the garage. Tired of the way the law forces people to hide their dirty pot-smoking ways.

Every single time I hide in the garage to smoke a joint I am helping the drug war. I am enforcing a stereotype and I am proving the government right: I have something to hide.

Every single stoner that refuses to buy a membership to the SKMP because of fear is helping the drug war.

I am tired of knowing that there are thousands of people that are afraid to support this cause because of the possible repercussions.

So here it is, my political statement:

I smoke pot.

Marc Emery on 60 Minutes

I watched this show when it first played a few months ago and they are playing it again. I sure hope he doesn't get extradited. If he does, we might as well forget about this whole notion that we Canadians have that we have a sovereign nation. We are not as soft on drugs as the world thinks. We are very slowly moving in the right direction towards repealing prohibition. But it has been a slow process and the government has dragged its' heels every step of the way.

Marc's extradition will be a horrible tragedy. I just hope that it doesn't happen but I am very pessimistic about the whole thing. He could spend the rest of his life in jail as a "drug dealer" for selling seeds to Americans. In Canada, nobody has been given more than a slap on the wrist for selling seeds. And Marc did it openly for years! He even paid taxes to Revenue Canada on all the money that he made.

Anyway, if anybody out there is actualy reading this shitty blog, go check it out this sunday night on CBS news.

Ken Sailor's Awesome Letter to the Editor

It is always wonderful to see when a member of the SKMP (Saskatchewan Marijuana Party) gets a letter to the editor in our local newspaper, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. Ken Sailor is a Vice-President on the SKMP's executive council. Here is Ken's letter, since it is not available online unless you subscribe to the paper.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Drug link to schizophrenia more about spin than reality

Re: Journal articles link marijuana to schizophrenia (SP, Aug. 28). The debate about marijuana and schizophrenia isn't new and probably has more to do with scapegoating than mental health.

We have demonized marijuana as a dangerous drug and will leave no stone unturned trying to find some justification for a stupid policy.

The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry reports that schizophrenia rates have decreased 42 per cent in Canada at a time when our children have increased significantly their consumption of marijuana.

How hard would it be to make the reverse argument, that marijuana actually reduces schizophrenia? Furthermore, if prohibition of marijuana were an effective safeguard of our children's mental health, then one would expect our rate of schizophrenia to be lower than that of the Netherlands, where marijuana has been legally available for more than 30 years. But there is no difference in rates. Unsurprisingly, Dutch scientists surveyed many of the same studies (including the Swedish study) and concluded there is no causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia.

While there are good reasons to discourage our children from using marijuana, prohibition has been an utter failure: 75 per cent of our children will have tried marijuana before graduating high school, compared to 25 per cent in the Netherlands.

It is time to end the useless prohibition of marijuana: fears of schizophrenia are no justification for this expensive, brutal, and ineffective social policy.

Ken Sailor
Saskatoon

LTE Contact: spnews@SP.canwest.com

Stupidity from the US government

I just stumbled upon a blog with a dude complaining that a bill to spend $700 million in a futile attempt to reduce the opium trade in Afghanistan almost died. What a complete waste of time. If they really wanted to cripple the drug trade all the have to do is legalize drugs. If drugs were legal the price would go down significantly and terrorists wouldn't make money on the drug trade. Not only that we wouldn't have junkies committing crimes to fund their drug habits. But this simple solution will never be taken seriously by either Republicans or Democrats. Logic that even a school marm atheist mom like me can see is simply beyond the morons that run the most powerful country in the universe.

The DEA are meddling in politics.

Big surprise, that the US DEA has taken it upon themselves to meddle in state politics. A ballot initiative to make the possession of one ounce of marijuana legal for adults over the age of 21 in the state of Colorado is being challenged by the DEA. The DEA is forming the “Colorado’s Marijuana Information Committee” which will probably tell everybody the truth about marijuana. I wonder if they will ever find a campaign manager. I find it soooo funny the way that this tactic has backfired on them and all the deep doo-doo they have managed to step in. The local media has responded with editorials telling the DEA to stay out of state politics. I sure hope this initiative passes. We need all the victories in the war on the war on drugs that we can get. Did that make any sense?

Alcohol vs. Marijuana

I love cannabis culture! They have an article about the way that the law encourages use and abuse of alcohol over other far safer alternatives such as marijuana. Check out the stats about the numbers of alcohol users as opposed to marijuana users. What is especially disturbing is the numbers of young people that are using alcohol. Youth are so misguided that they believe that smoking marijuana is just as dangerous as using heroin! How did such a horrifically uneducated youth come about?

For those of you that are not aware of it, marijuana is far safer than alcohol. No overdose deaths, no permanent cognitive effects and very little chance of contracting cancer. It’s about time that our laws reflected this reality. Anybody that believes our laws are based on logic or common sense is just sadly uninformed about the reality of the history of prohibition.

Insight on InSite

Isn't that a lovely title? Why didn't somebody else think of it?

Insite is the safe injection site in Vancouver, on East Hastings street where injection drug users can use drugs in a clean, safe environment under the supervision of clinical staff. The idea is to reduce the dangers associated with injection drug use, such as being exposed to dirty needles.

As to be expected, our minority conservative government is not pleased about this. They want to shut down Insite, and they would, if they truly believed that they would survive the political fallout. They are going to wait for a majority government, so they can impose their misguided ideology that drug addiction should be treated as a criminal justice issue rather than a health problem.

OH so what if we are saving lives, reducing the spread of disease, and preventing school children from being exposed to needles on playgrounds. Allowing safe-injection to exist and be subsidized by our tax dollars is sending the wrong message! The right message is that drug addicts should be hidden away in dark alleys or better yet, locked up in jail. If we don't see them, they don't exist. That, gentle reader, is the right message. So what if we have been doing this for years with no reduction in the number of drug users? We have to send the right message!

The right message is that disease and poverty are the appropriate consequences of drug addiction. Does it matter that the addict may at some point overcome their addiction and make their way back into mainstream society? No, apparently not.

This is just one of many reasons that we better hope and pray* that we do not get a majority conservative government. The last thing that Canada needs is four more years of those clowns.

*For the record, praying makes about as much sense as writing a letter to Santa Claus.

Blame the Drug War

I have had it UP TO HERE with the inane stupidity of the war on drugs and the way this pervasive mindset has invaded our culture, our brains and our educational institutions. This is where I plan to come and bitch about all the ways the drug war is dumbing down the world, wasting our resources, institutionalizing racism and brainwashing school children into fearing plants, of all insane things.

I envision a world in which people will be free to ingest the plants of their choice without having their freedoms curtailed or having armed thugs invade their homes in the middle of the night.