Pubdate: Mon, 13 May 2002
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Allen Garr
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

U.S. WAR ON DRUGS CRUSADER GETS POLICE LIFT

Once you understand just who that Vancouver cop was supposed to be 
chauffeuring to the IDEAS drug conference in a "nice unmarked police car," 
you'll be able to figure out the size of the problem we have on our hands.

The cop is Const. Chris Graham. He is a member of the Odd Squad, a small 
group of Vancouver cops who made a name for themselves shooting an NFB film 
about junkies on the Downtown Eastside. The two senior members of the Odd 
Squad are constables Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton.

It's no secret that Hinton and Arsenault, along with the rest of this gang, 
have worked to undermine harm reduction, a key part of the drug policy 
supported by Mayor Philip Owen, city council, the Vancouver police 
department, the provincial and federal governments and the general public.

Arsenault and Hinton were key organizers of the IDEAS conference, along 
with wealthy Vancouver War On Drugs crusaders Lynda and Bob Bentall. The 
two cops and the Bentalls are the only members of IDEAS. The Odd Squad 
provided logistical support at the conference.

It's just the most recent effort by the Odd Squad and its supporters to 
attack a made-in-Vancouver public policy that calls for the end of the 
American-inspired War on Drugs and the beginning of a balanced approach to 
drug addiction now succeeding in Europe.

Graham was scheduled to pick up Betty S. Sembler. She is the mother of all 
War on Drugs crusaders. Betty and her husband Mel started the Drug Free 
America Foundation Inc. and its earlier incarnation, STRAIGHT Inc.

STRAIGHT Inc. grew from The Seed, which applied a forced treatment approach 
to children-an approach the U.S. Senate denounced as similar to 
brainwashing methods used by North Korea.

Betty's Florida-based foundation first inspired, then sponsored and helped 
fund the IDEAS conference. Bob Bentall told me that Arsenault and Hinton 
took a trip to foundation headquarters in Florida and came back with a plan 
that became the conference.

For decades, the Semblers have raised major money for the Republican Party. 
The include among their friends Ronald and Nancy "Just Say No To Drugs" 
Reagan and George and Barbara Bush. Both Ron and George made commercials 
for the Semblers' various foundations.

Mel Sembler dumped so much money into Republican coffers, George Bush 
rewarded him with an ambassadorship to Australia. Between Betty's work as a 
zero-tolerance drug warrior and the cash she kicked into the campaign to 
elect George Bush's son Jeb governor of Florida, it's no wonder Jeb 
declared August 8, 2000 Betty Sembler Day in his state.

The War on Drugs has accomplished a number of things, including putting at 
least two million young, mostly black and Hispanic, Americans in prison. 
Meanwhile, drug addiction and related diseases have increased everywhere 
the war has been waged, including Canada.

Private citizens like the Bentalls and the Semblers are free to have 
whatever conference they want to advance any failed ideas they choose. They 
can even screen and exclude certain journalists at their own peril.

But when members of the Vancouver Police force actively organize these 
large-scale events to undermine public policy, it's unacceptable, 
regardless of whose cars they use. When these cops tie themselves to a 
foreign political machine with an agenda detrimental to our own-which is 
what the Odd Squad has done-it's time to stop them.

Police Chief Terry Blythe has known what these "cowboys," as he calls them, 
are up to for some time and has done nothing. Whether these most recent 
revelations will push him into action during the last few lethargic weeks 
before his retirement is debatable.

But this should not go away just because he does.
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MAP posted-by: Beth