Pubdate: Wed, 20 Jun 2012
Source: Nelson Star (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Black Press
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/4kNvY8sy
Website: http://www.bclocalnews.com/kootenay_rockies/nelsonstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4866
Author: Megan Cole
Cited: Stop the Violence BC: http://stoptheviolencebc.org/

Stop the Violence BC Reacts to Last Week's Council Meeting

DOOLEY'S STANCE REFUTED

The Stop the Violence BC campaign and advocates for the legalization 
of marijuana are responding to comments made in last week's 
emotionally charged city council meeting.

"I think the mayor [John Dooley] is well meaning," said Dr. Evan Wood 
with the campaign. "But really we need an evidence-based and factual 
discussion. Clearly his views are inconsistent with the Chief Medical 
Officer of BC, the Health Officers Council representing all major 
regions of this province, let alone the voices of law enforcement and 
supreme court justices and other legal experts."

Wood, who is a professor of medicine at University of BC and works at 
St. Paul's Hospital in downtown Vancouver, has extensive experience 
in drug policy.

"I'm special advisor to the Global Commission on Drug Policy and head 
up an organization known as the International Centre for Science and 
Drug Policy. Most of the work that we have been involved with has 
been looking at heroin and HIV/AIDS and other things," he said in an 
interview with the Star last week.

After working in the emergency room when people who had been shot in 
gang violence came into the hospital, Wood took an interest in 
working with colleagues in law enforcement to start a conversation 
around marijuana prohibition from a public health and safety perspective.

"You pretty much have to be quite distanced from reality to think 
that prohibition is achieving it's intended objective" he said. 
"Marijuana is more freely and easily available today than at any time 
in our history. One of the objectives of Stop the Violence BC is to 
move to a place where your average British Columbian recognizes that 
the issues that are related to home invasions and organized crime and 
gang violence, hydro theft and all of these other things that 
increasingly common in our communities are actually a natural 
consequence of prohibition."

DOOLEY'S OUTBURST

The motion that was brought before council last week asked that Mayor 
Dooley send a letter to the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, 
the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the provincial and federal 
ministers in the justice and health departments, and Stop the 
Violence BC, to inform them of Nelson city council's support of the campaign.

The debate became heated when Dooley said he would not sign a letter 
and that he would "go to the wall" in opposition to it.

"I won't be signing this," said Dooley at last week's meeting. "If it 
is asked of me to sign it, I won't, based on the mountain of 
information I have come up with myself. I did take time to read that 
on the website and the reality of the situation is that 80 per cent 
of the dope that is grown in BC is for export and legalizing 
marijuana will not eliminate the underground economy and it will not 
eliminate organized crime."

Dooley along with councillors Bob Adams and Robin Cherbo asked that 
the issue be sent for analysis at the Union of BC Municipalities.

"The situation simply is not working and we need to have a sober and 
adult conversation that gets away from the rhetoric and ideology that 
has got us stuck in the quagmire that we're in," said Wood. "We know 
from the research that has gone into alcohol and tobacco, as 
examples, that there are regulatory tools that make regulation 
consistent with reducing rates of marijuana use and rage economic war 
on the biker gangs and groups that have really taken hold of the 
marijuana industry."

WHO'S ON BOARD

Wood said the campaign has the support of experts from all major BC 
universities, former supreme court justices, and former and current 
law enforcement in addition to external groups like the Health 
Officers Council of Canada, the Chief Medical Officer of BC Perry Kendall.

"I think the mayor alluded to 'retired' attorney generals (during the 
council meeting), well these are people who were specifically tasked 
with dealing with the organized crime problems in BC and with their 
expertise they are saying that this is the right thing to do," he 
said. "It's not just retired politicians, we recently had eight 
currently sitting mayors quite forcefully support an alternative approach."

Local marijuana activists Dustin Cantwell and Philip McMillan who 
were at last week's meeting echoed Wood's statements.

"The thing is due to Stephen Harper's introduction of Bill C10 (Safe 
Streets and Communities Act) and eventual passing of C10. There's 
been a real national dialogue on drug policy and much of the dialogue 
is focused on the fact that prohibition isn't working," said Cantwell 
who is part of the Nelson Cannabis Compassion Club, former owner of 
Holy Smoke and is a legal researcher on drug law and policy.

McMillan who is the facilitator and director of the Nelson Cannabis 
Compassion Club disputed statements that were made during the council 
meeting that the Stop the Violence BC campaign was driven by 
marijuana activists.

"Dooley was implying that activists were trying to do this back door, 
well Stop the Violence BC is actually made of former and current 
mayors of Vancouver, former Attorney Generals, doctors, former law 
enforcement, these are not pot activists," he said. "Chris Bennett 
wasn't involved, Philippe Lucas wasn't involved, Hilary Black wasn't 
involved, Marc Emery wasn't involved, Jodie Emery wasn't involved, I 
wasn't involved. It came out of nowhere. Like Dustin said, it came 
out of that national discussion that we're having now because of the 
crime bill that was passed with mandatory minimums on pot."

While drug policy does fall under the jurisdiction of the federal 
government, Wood said the discussion needs to be driven by local leaders.

"We really need local leaders speaking up about this because Ottawa 
doesn't have a huge organized crime problem related to the cannabis 
industry, BC does. We need BC leaders talking about it," he said. 
"Obviously the policies that are being implemented in Canada have 
huge repercussions for taxpayers in terms of mandatory minimum (jail 
sentences). Sending a young person to jail for minor cannabis use 
versus future employability and being a productive member of society 
when they are basically going to gang school - which is what our 
prisons are - just makes absolutely not sense."

Nelson city council passed a motion 4-3 in favour of tabling the 
issue until after UBCM this fall.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom