Pubdate: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2007 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n1140/a04.html Author: Ken Waters LIBERALIZED CHARTER GIVES MORE RIGHTS TO DRUG DEALERS Re: Harper vows jail time for drug dealers, producers, Oct. 5 Before Vancouver NDP MP Libby Davies decides to criticize Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his plans to incarcerate drug dealers, she may wish to reconsider the effects of what she considers her enlightened policies. The Downtown Eastside, the heroin capital of North America and disease sector of our city, is the result of poverty mixed with tolerance of drug crimes. The drug dealers, many of whom are in Canada illegally, leave a swath of ruined lives far out of proportion to their numbers. These dealers remain at large because of lenient judges, a non-functional deportation system, and a political bureaucracy which performs better at sustaining itself than protecting the public. The comparison to American drug enforcement is distracting and erroneous for many reasons. Before our Charter of Rights was styled in the American manner, with greater freedoms for criminals and more hindrances for police, our drug crime was comparatively isolated and contained. It was the liberalizations that enabled a political and social relaxation towards drugs which, in the runaway ideology of Davies, would expand into no enforcement at all. The public may not recognize that drug dealers far surpass murderers in their destruction of human life, but may wish to visit Main and Hastings to view the current progress of Davies's philosophy of law enforcement. Ken Waters Vancouver - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman