Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The need for media to address issue of drug policy and legalization.
I wrote and submitted several letters/commentaries during our recent blitz of hand wringing and “the sky is falling” reporting that took place during the weeks when gang warfare filled the pages or airtime in the best “if it bleeds it leads” traditional media practices.
I pointed out that if you want to “lock ‘em up” you need a place to incarcerate them which we lack as our prison system is currently full and overflowing. Thus in order to carry out a program of long prison sentences would require an investment of billions of dollars in new prisons and more millions of dollars on a yearly basis to operate the prisons.
It was pointed out that arresting all the drug dealers in BC would have only a transitory effect since within a matter of days new people would have stepped in to reap the lucrative rewards that our policy choices have pumped into the illegal drug trade.
An exploration was made about the manner in which our greed based society, with its economic and cultural inequities, lack of options/opportunities and emphasis on greed, self-centeredness and ME, ensures a steady and ready supply of people willing to be employed in the illegal drug trade with its high material rewards.
Economic analysis revealed that what are termed “successes” by law enforcement pump more money into the illegal drug business providing the illegal business with more funds to spend to import/export/distribute the product (drugs) and increase the economic rewards to those employed in the illegal drug business.
Economic analysis also revealed how important the illegal drug business is in cushioning the effects of the worldwide economic meltdown on the BC economy and the other positive effects on the BC economy of having a major billion dollar agricultural export crop that is recession proof. Even in good times the large cash flow created by the illegal drug business is a major positive factor in the BC economy; whether from the illegal drug business or from the law enforcement employment resulting from keeping these drugs illegal.
The fact that calling it a “drug war” was inaccurate and misleading was examined since the war is not on drugs but on the addicts who use drugs. The victims of illegal drugs are further victimized by the war being waged against them by society and its agencies.
Supply/demand capitalist theory makes clear that the only way to successfully reduce the illegal drug trade is to reduce demand, to stop waging war on the addicts and instead render to them the aid they need to get into recovery and out of addiction. That our policy must focus on putting in place the infrastructure and supports to successfully get addicts into recovery and wellness.
The falseness of the argument that legalizing drugs would lead to increased drug use was revealed by the fact that anyone anywhere can find the illegal drug of their choice. Thus those who would turn to drugs have, leaving no flood of new addiction to occur since those who would be addicts are already addicts.
The insanity of continuing to do the same thing over and over decade after decade was noted.
All this leads to the conclusion that we need a major change in policy to legalize drugs in the same manner prohibition was repealed. Especially in light of the reality that alcohol is the most abused drug, abused more than all illegal drugs combined.
With the economic reality Canada and the world faces we as a society cannot continue to waste resources on ineffectual policies. We no longer can afford the luxury of pursuing a costly and failing policy simply because we are emotionally and ideologically attached to the policy.
We need to have a rational national discussion on legalization.
Yet the traditional media did not print even one letter that questions the intelligence of our current policy.
In their arguments that there should be an internet tax with the monies raised going to support newspapers, newspapers and staff cited newspapers being “important to our democracy”.
How can newspapers and other traditional media claim to be important to democracy when they refuse to examine the reality of the issue of our policies on illegal drugs?
Obviously they can’t.
Which is why you are correct when stating “If it is to survive at all, the old media has to learn, once again, how to simply tell it straight.”
Not to mention being willing to address issues of national importance even if such an examination is not considered “politically correct.”
Mike Archer's comments:
A story broke in the Vancouver Sun April 15, that read more the like the screenplay to a Burt Reynolds movie about rum-running in the 1920’s than it did a major drug bust in 2009.
The story was about an Abbotsford man who was caught transporting 150 kilos of pot across the border. Every newspaper story I read on the subject called him a farm boy and ran with photos of what looked like three good ‘ole boys who had made a bad business decision.
The Vancouver Sun editors even went so far as to include s sub-head over the story that said: “Jansen basically a ‘law-abiding’ citizen, lawyer says.”
The connections between this story and the stories about gang violence and death, about which we’ve been so concerned, don’t much enter into the whole impression a reader might get from the packaging. If these were good kids who made a bad mistake then I guess the much-demonized Bacon Brothers are just good kids who made worse mistakes.
They’ve both been playing the same game. Why are the two stories treated so differently?
How does ‘basically law-abiding’ go together with ‘trucking 158 kilos of pot across the border’?
These are either drug dealers or folk heros. Let’s make up our minds.
We’re staring a depression in the face as bad as The Great Depression and we can’t seem to get our stories straight about the world we live in. Everyone acknowledges that prohibition didn’t work; in fact it created crime and violence. Our modern version of prohibition isn’t faring any better, nor do we seem to remember how they worked it out nearly a century ago when they faced the same situation.
If ever there was a time for straight talk it is now. The old media has forgotten how to do that. The media (including the new media) is always playing to its perceived audience. Right now the traditional media is wandering blind in a dark cave where none of its tools will shed any light on the situation or tell it where its audience has gone.
Self-censorship is a cardinal sin for a journalist and yet we have reached a point where the old media seems more like packaged information looking for an audience, prepared to be repackaged in an instant depending on the audience.
But consumers of information have become more savvy and more impatient. Today, content matters more than the packaging and an industry that has concentrated on nothing else for decades can’t remember how to do it. The new media has yet to find its place but it will be on the right track if it dares to tell the truth. Abbotsford Today’s Vince Dimanno said as much in his column The Truth Politicians know the media game better than those in the media and are very successful at manipulating it to serve their own ends. If it is to survive at all, the old media has to learn, once again, how to simply tell it straight.
For those who don’t remember how it all got worked out a century ago; the guys who made bad decisions became folk heros, the guys who made worse decisions went to jail or got killed and, oh yeah, they ended prohibition and legalized booze because the ‘war on booze’ just didn’t work.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friendship Garden not really friendly.
Where once visitors to the Clearbrook Library where greeted with an open vista of grassy treed space, they now are confronted by a fence that is a blight upon the landscape - ugly to the point of being an eyesore.
The glaring contradiction in calling something a Friendship Garden while building a solid fence with locking gates that prevents people from seeing inside and provides the means to lock people out demonstrates once again the desperate need for a dictionary at City Hall.
Just how can erecting such a fence be construed as friendly behaviour?
I remembered the view of open grassy green space with tall shade trees that had for years welcomed visitors to the library; the gentle slopes, soft grass and shade that invited people to step off the concrete walkway and into the green space.
During spring and summer there were always individuals, families and kids taking advantage of this space to walk, sit on the grass to read, eat lunch or just enjoy sitting there enjoying the sun and breeze with the trees providing shade as needed.
The green space that, lying outside the lower (basement) level entrance, was perfect for the library’s plan to relocate the children’s section to that more spacious and open area of the library. With a pond now just outside the entrance doors that plan is scuttled since the librarians are to responsible to locate the children’s section near the pond.
Abbotsford City Hall and Council had neither the courtesy nor the consideration to consult the library, whose space they usurped, about how this space should be used. Focusing on council’s wants and to bad about the children and their needs - highly Ironic considering the children will be the ones paying for the spending excesses of City Council.
In destroying what was a people friendly green space used by people and in denying the use of the space inside and outside the lower library entrance as a wonderful children’s area city council’s actions were not only NOT a good public investment but were a disservice to citizens, children and the city.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Moe Gill's Conflict of Interest
I was raised with and to have high standards govern the manner in which I conduct my life. It was never about setting my standards by what you can get away with.
As a point of information to Mayor Peary and Councillor Gill I also have an expectation that people making decisions on my behalf, such as politicians, will practice those same high ethical standards. Not slipshod, lowest common denominator minimal ethical standards and behaviours.
I concede that to date my expectation concerning ethical standards and behaviours has proven unrealistic as evidenced by the behaviours of politicians at all levels of government – municipal, provincial and federal.
With specific reference to Moe Gill’s voting on the gravel pit application I would judge, with apologies to Mayor Peary and Councillor Gill that the ethic’s bar was set below minimally acceptable ethical behaviour.
A quick web search reveals that “personal interest includes an interest arising from family, marriage or common-law relationships.”
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia’s list of types of conflicts of interest includes “Family interests, in which a spouse, child, or other close relative….” Of particular interest on this website is an example of conflict of interest that cites a brother to brother relationship.
I fail to see how one could claim that the fact a decision will have a direct and substantial effect on a member (in this case members) of one’s family will not influence one’s thinking. Voting other than to benefit one’s family member would have serious family relationship and conflict consequences.
Thus one is predisposed to vote for an outcome favourable to family and is therefore in a conflict of interest.
As an aside - when wants to approve something one can always find “acceptable” reasons or reasoning to justify the decision you want to make.
Moe Gill has a clear conflict of interest here and when the matter comes before council again he MUST recuse himself on grounds of personal involvement.
