Blowing Smoke Where?

Okay, I have to jump into this whole shadow story that is popping up about the NDP candidates who’ve been taken down due to their histories for, horror of horrors…
SMOKING POT.

Get real people, bunch of hypocrites. If political candidates are now going to be vetted and “weeded out” for smoking pot, or being involved in the marijuana decriminalization and legalization movements, then that pretty much rules out at least three generations of candidates:

Baby boomers - Hello, remember, “tune in, turn on, drop out” and that was about more than toking, my friends in weed. And y’all know most of you did much more than inhale.

Baby boomers still lead other U.S. age groups in drug abuse
Use dips among adolescents, survey finds
By KEVIN FREKING. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. September 3, 2008.

Drug use increased among the 50-59 age group as more baby boomers joined that category. Their past month drug use rose from 4.3 percent in 2006 to 5 percent in 2007.

"The baby boomers have much higher rates of self-destructive behavior than any parallel age group we have data from," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Walters, 55, is a boomer himself.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, being released Thursday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is based on interviews with about 67,500 people.

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Sensible words from Vancouver’s own Senator Larry Campbell on his blog:

Once again, rather than being an advocate for the use of marijuana, and I am simply a believer in the fact that personal choice and proper parenting should be the parameters for a substance that is clearly less harmful than alcohol, which is of course legal and easily accessible.

According to recent crime statistics, it is estimated that the federal and provincial governments spend between $300 million and $500 million a year enforcing the law against simple possession of cannabis. Now maybe Canadians have become used to hearing about such amounts of money, but I know that a lot of communities, particularly those where our Aboriginal peoples reside, could make much better use of such funds.

Senator Larry Campbell in the Province:

"If we're going to call people who have smoked pot criminals, half the country would be criminals," Campbell, a former Vancouver mayor, coroner and RCMP drug cop, said yesterday. "We don't see marijuana users going around beating and robbing people. They don't fit the criminal profile but there's a criminal stigma attached that means people can't get into the States." (or now run in elections)

Generation X - I don’t care where you’ve grown up in this great land of ours, more than half of all Gen X’s, quite likely a majority of voters, have either indulged at some point, or regularly and guess what, they are regular tax paying citizens, stand up people.

Generation Y - This is a generation that has such liberal views of marijuana use and are so bold as to move their vices to a new level by posting pictures, videos and comments on Youtube, Facebook and MySpace that they will be lucky if anyone from this generation will EVER be accepted for candidacy of any party, except for one with names like the Sex Party, or the Party More Work Less Party.

I can’t believe the “Evil Demon Weed” propaganda machine that has led to resignations of some decent and quite likely excellent candidates. And this smacks of the right-wing, fundamentalist anti-drug ethos of the Conservatives, a party made by white men, for white men, funded by white men. Wonder how many of those folks have indulged in the old green? How many have downed more than a healthy amount of alcohol? Or, have full blown alcoholism? Been caught drinking & driving? A ever-climbing number of Conservatives have sure been known to have some pretty poor judgment in quite a few other areas: Maxime Bernier. Gerry Ritz. David Emerson. Tony Clements. Chris Reid.

This stuff is piggy-backing on the international embarrassment that is Tony Clements, Conservative Minister of Health, traveling around the world, humiliating himself and Canada refuting the solid research results and success of Insite as part of the harm reduction strategy for IV drug use and addictions. Yes, Mr. Clements, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a law degree seems to think he is eminently more qualified than the researchers and doctors who have studied Insite and published articles in the leading peer reviewed medical journals on the planet. A quote directly from the horse’s …

That’s why, to me, Insite is an abomination…

Now, for some real outcomes about Insite:

Insite has been subject to rigorous, independent third party research and evaluation by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, recognized as one of the world’s leading research organizations.

The Centre’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and The Lancet.

Results include:
·Insite is leading to increased uptake into detoxification programs and addiction treatment. (New England Journal of Medicine)
·Insite has not led to an increase in drug-related crime, rates of arrest for drug trafficking, assaults and robbery were similar after the facility’s opening, and rates of vehicle break-ins/theft declined significantly. (Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy)
·Insite has reduced the number of people injecting in public and the amount of injection-related litter in the downtown eastside. (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
·Insite is attracting the highest-risk users – those more likely to be vulnerable to HIV infection and overdose, and who were contributing to problems of public drug use and unsafe syringe disposal. (American Journal of Preventive Medicine)
·Insite has reduced overall rates of needle sharing in the community, and among those who used the supervised injection site for some, most or all of their injections, 70% were less likely to report syringe sharing. (The Lancet)
·Insite is preventing overdose deaths and reducing hospital visits (The International Journal of Drug Policy)

Vancouver's supervised injection site celebrates fifth anniversary
Cheryl Chan, The Province. Published: Sunday, September 21, 2008

Despite research that shows Insite works, the federal government has refused to support it, say members of PHS Community Services, which runs the facility along with Vancouver Coastal Health.

"Old arguments against Insite just don't stand up against real research," executive director Liz Evans told The Province.

We sure wouldn't want those "junkies" as the Conservatives called some of the citizens of the Downtown Eastside having more opportunities to reduce harm to themselves, the community and boosting their chances of getting into treatment. Why that would just be too clever and humane. And what exactly is it the Conservatives have planned for all those "junkies?"

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Another NDP candidate quits in B.C.

Vancouver-Quadra candidate Kirk Tousaw, a civil liberties lawyer and former campaign manager for the B.C. Marijuana Party, resigned Friday afternoon.

Tousaw has been a long-time advocate for the legalization of marijuana and once appeared on Pot TV, a website run by party leader Marc Emery. He is also chair of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association's drug policy committee.

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Boy, we sure wouldn’t want someone clever, educated and committed to civil and human rights like Mr. Tousaw to represent Canadians, eh? Absolutely not when Deborah Meredith, a scary right-wing Conservative who would represent the constituents so much better:

A Vancouver Quadra voter wrote Conservative candidate Deborah Meredith to express her concern about Ms Meredith's refusal to meet with Medicare For Autism Now representatives DURING the election campaign. This was apparently Meredith's reply:

"What I said is that if I am elected I will meet with you. If not, it is a waste of time for both of us. Make sure what you put on your website is accurate please. Deborah"

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So, lets get real people. I think we can see the Conservatives are running scared and grasping at straw men, look at the shallow gene pool they are working with.

I hold the NDP responsible for this mess too. Why can’t the left just stop pandering to everyone. Regular every day people, many of whom either smoke pot, know people who smoke pot, or who don’t care what substances other adults choose to put in their bodies will respect you and your party more if you stand up straight and tell people, we believe in sensible reform of drug laws so regular citizens are not criminalized for smoking a plant.

Tell the people, Jack, that if Stephen Harper gets in again, he and his party have big plans to start handing out contracts to build lots of private prisons. You know how in the United States the prison industrial complex has been created and more American black men are in prison than colleges. Guess what, that kind of “law and order” plan is right up on the top of Harper and the Conservatives list in their "Get Tough on Crime" platform. I hope all the people who vote for them remember that when their precious little Conservative offspring are getting scooped up and jailed for smoking a blunt and have a permanent criminal record.

Layton denies striking deal with pot party
EDMONTON - NDP Leader Jack Layton's biggest political headache on the campaign trail Saturday wasn't Stephen Harper or Stephane Dion. It was some angry pot-smoking activists who felt they'd been burned. Full Story

May stands firm on legalizing pot
John Colebourn, The Province. Published: Sunday, September 21, 2008

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said last night her party stands firm on its position toward the legalization of pot.

May, in a taping for a segment of The Daily Weekend Edition with host Todd Cantelon on the faith network's Vision TV, said the Green Party would like to see organized crime put out of business by the legalization of pot. "We should face the reality that we are losing the battle against substances like marijuana," she told a pre-selected audience last night. "We would deal a real blow to organized crime."

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More from the campaign trail this week:

Chris Reid, who was challenging Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae in Toronto Centre, resigned after blog postings emerged in which he criticized passengers on a Prairie bus this summer for not intervening to stop the beheading of a fellow passenger. Reid also blasted the CBC for a "far left-wing bias," among other extreme views.

In an Aug. 10 posting, Reid opined of the bus tragedy: "This is where socialism as (sic) gotten us folks, a castrated effeminate population."

Toronto Tory candidate quits over blog postings
Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, September 21, 2008

Right-wing ideology penetrating the Canadian psyche? Don't count on it
Janet Bagnall, Montreal Gazette
Published: Sunday, September 21, 2008

"But the thing I look at most noticeably is when I was first involved in politics we were fighting about the basic precepts of 'getting taxes down' and 'living within a budget' and I think there's been a tremendous change in that." This is almost delusional. Canadians were never in favour of out-of-control spending and living with crippling debt. And proof is thin that the Conservatives are more fiscally responsible than other governments.

Under Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty the $13-billion surplus the Conservatives inherited from the Liberal government more than two years ago is nearly gone.

Last month, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation blasted Harper's government for its tax cuts and 11-per-cent spending surge that outpaced revenues by a factor of three.