Harm Reduction / Tories Take Heavy-Handed Approach To Fighting Drugs The Tories have declared an American-style war on drugs and are trying to ditch harm-reduction programs that reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, said NDP House leader Libby Davies in the Commons on Mon, Jun 4. In the 2007 federal budget released in March, the Tories quietly outlined their new national anti-drug strategy, which includes $22 million to target gangs and illicit drug producers. Although the full plan has not yet been released, the outline did not mention harm reduction. [continues 423 words]
To be sure, this was a special time for African-Americans. It was a historic moment, the importance of which was lost on many among the small army of journalists who descended on Howard University last week to cover a gathering of the eight Democratic presidential contenders. The All-American Presidential Forum was billed as the first time a panel made up completely of journalists of color -- me, Michel Martin of National Public Radio and columnist Ruben Navarrette of The San Diego Union-Tribune -- would question presidential candidates on prime-time TV. [continues 568 words]
Much Gain, Less Pain How One Country's Problem Could Ease the World's Suffering An Abundance of Deadliness SOPHIE-MARIE SCOUFLAIRE, the chief pharmacist for the French humanitarian agency Mdecins Sans Frontires, has spent a lifetime watching people in disaster-stricken areas of the world writhing in pain.and she has put in many hours frantically trying to procure enough opiates to relieve her patients' agony. That is surprisingly hard. Part of the trouble is that most countries are allowed under a United Nations regime to import only a very small quantity of narcotics for medical use.and governments are often slow to apply for an increase in their quotas. Sometimes, sincerely or otherwise, they say they doubt their own capacity to handle increased quantities of drugs. So in a real disaster MSF has to beg the local health ministry to seek an increase. And in places where no government exists, MSF doctors go straight to the UN for permission to import drugs on their own responsibility. But that process is burdensome. [continues 559 words]
Recently, the nation's drug czar, John P. Walters, came to Philadelphia to urge schools to offer random - but voluntary - drug testing of students. Walters, whose title is director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy, argues that young people who take drugs are more likely to engage in violent behavior and join gangs. He said that "early use of marijuana" was an indication of future criminal behavior, sort of like that "check engine" light going on. Teens who use drugs, particularly marijuana, are more likely to steal and experiment with other drugs and alcohol, compared to teens who don't, according to research Walter's agency cited. [continues 158 words]
Ill-prepared and often corrupt, rural and border city police and officials are the weakest link in the war on drugs. By Hector Tobar and Carlos Martinez Times Staff Writers NACO, MEXICO -- The message came on police emergency radio: An army of drug traffickers with machine guns mounted on their pickup trucks was headed toward this town of 5,000 people on the Arizona-Mexico border. Like a sheriff in a western, police chief and part-time schoolteacher Juan Bracamontes gritted his teeth and assembled his 15 officers, who had nothing better than old .38-caliber revolvers to face off against the enemy. [continues 1480 words]
To the editor: I want to thank Pamela Sterling for standing up for herself and educating the public about Kevin Mannix's initiative to criminalize thousands of sick and disabled patients while giving pharmaceutical companies a handout at the expense of Oregon's taxpayers. Mannix should not be making medical decisions for Oregonians and our state should not replace a program that actually brings in revenue with a system that would cost Oregonians millions. Our medical marijuana program has a budget surplus even though the Oregon Legislature gobbled up most of that surplus during the 2005 legislative session. [continues 63 words]
To the editor: Kudos to the Newberg Graphic for printing David Sale's excellent article, "Taking up the fight to protect medical Marijuana (June 30), on Kevin Mannix' latest attempt to destroy the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Mannix, an apparent lobbyist for our nation's drug war industry and corporate pharmaceutical giants, once again seeks to take pot away from Oregon's patients. After a failed attempt in 1999 Mannix has returned and this time he seeks to replace the nation's most successful medical cannabis program by coupling it to the methamphetamine problem. [continues 87 words]
I'm writing about Kathleen Parker's outstanding column: "There's gold in that weed" (7-08-07). If marijuana were re-legalized, our government could collect billions of dollars in taxes instead of throwing billions of dollars down the drain in our futile attempt to nullify the law of supply and demand. It seems to me that non-marijuana users would be in favor or taxing marijuana. Around these parts, taxing someone else's vice is very popular. Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
The resolving of the issue of hemp bags at Forest Grove High School ("Over The Hemp," News-Times, May 30, 2007). could have been a contentious and loud community dispute, but in the end displayed Oregon at its best. The principal of Forest Grove High School, John O'Neill, behaved cautiously and intelligently. He gave the students the ultimate challenge of education: "prove it." And the students, to their credit, did. In Oregon we are experienced with cannabis. About 10 years ago Bill Conde "proved it" by producing hemp MDF (medium-density fiberboard) boards at the Washington State University wood products laboratory. [continues 219 words]
BRENTWOOD - With a heavy thud, Gayle Brady placed the urn holding her daughter's ashes on the table in front of prosecutors yesterday afternoon, and turned to the young man convicted of giving her a lethal dose of heroin. "That's Caitlyn," Gayle Brady said, before demanding Dante Silva, 22, of Newton, turn to look at her when she addressed the court. Silva, who was convicted on one felony count of dispensing a controlled drug with a death resulting earlier this spring, did not turn. Silva was in court yesterday for sentencing, facing a maximum of life in prison with no possibility of parole for at least 18 years -- a sentence recommended by both prosecutors and the Rockingham County probation office. Silva's attorney argued for counseling and rehabilitation, with the threat of a deferred heavy prison sentence. [continues 733 words]
It is apparent Gov. Donald Carcieri still believes the federal government's lies regarding cannabis. Here in Oregon there are over 2,500 doctors who have written recommendations for patients to use cannabis as medicine. In saying he does not support the bill because it "violates federal law and ignores the drug-approval process as established by the Food and Drug Administration," your governor ignores the needs of citizens living with a health-care system that is failing millions. Described in 1988 by a Drug Enforcement Administration administrative-law judge, Francis Young, as "one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man," cannabis has been demonized for over seven decades. Its prohibition was founded with no scientific basis and relied on the bigoted fantasies of a career prohibition bureaucrat named Harry Anslinger. [continues 81 words]
Humboldt State University's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is currently preparing for NORML Day 2007, a day centered on cannabis legalization and education. NORML is proposing a number of activities, including a cannabis medicine application workshop, music and various movie marathons leading up to the event, ranging from the humorous to the historical. NORML said it also intends to focus on the portrayal of cannabis in the media, as well as education, the drug war and the prison industrial complex. [continues 231 words]
Susan Kingston, a meth expert from the King County Department of Public Health in Seattle, Wash., brought a fresh approach to how the gay and general communities should begin to treat crystal meth addiction and, more importantly, the individuals using the drug during her presentation, "Crystal Meth Uncensored: What the DEA and Gay Media Won't Tell You." Kingston's presentation was part of a day-long event presented by the Chicago AIDS Foundation and the Center on Halsted entitled "Preventing HIV: Ethics, Activism and Promising New Strategies," which took place June 27--National HIV Testing Day--at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted. [continues 357 words]
The recent busts of medical marijuana dispensaries have raised questions about the revenue the operations collect. Four dispensaries last week were accused of operating as "super-sized retail drug-dealing centers," turning tremendous profits and accepting questionable doctor's recommendations. The dispensaries were investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which can charge them with violating federal drug laws, regardless of whether or not they make a profit. However, the agency claims dispensaries it went after last week were operating as for-profit operations, which may not be permitted by state laws that set guidelines for growing, possessing, and distributing medical marijuana. [continues 706 words]
LONDON -- Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous. The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent. Doctors have long suspected a connection and say the latest findings underline the need to highlight marijuana's long-term risks. The research, paid for by the British Health Department, is being published today in The Lancet medical journal. [continues 354 words]
Cannabis users are 40 per cent more likely to develop a psychotic illness than non-users, a study has found. Heavy users are more than twice as likely to suffer mental illness, according to a group of British academics, who calculate that about one in seven cases of conditions such as schizophrenia is caused by cannabis. The warnings come as the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary signalled that the "softly softly" era for cannabis may be coming to an end. [continues 755 words]
Former Abbotsford MP Randy White has stepped down as president of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada (DPNC). White, who decided not to run as Abbotsford's Conservative Party candidate in the 2006 federal election, announced on Wednesday that he would be replaced by "long-term drug policy specialist" Ben Jenkins. Before taking his position as DPNC president in 2006, White served Abbotsford voters in Ottawa for 12 years. He was succeeded by current Conservative MP Ed Fast. Jenkins, from Halifax/Dartmouth, is said to have 40 years experience in substance abuse issues. [continues 136 words]
Denver City Council Is Considering Making Marijuana the Lowest Police Priority. There seems to be quite a bit of consternation at Denver City Hall over what to do about a citizen's initiative that would make busting people for marijuana possession the "lowest law enforcement priority." City Council members are kicking around the idea of passing the law themselves - without sending it to voters - in an effort to more quickly kill it in court. That would be a presumptuous course of action that would subvert the process and is unnecessary. It's not the council's role to stop voters from passing an ineffective local law if that is what they choose to do. [continues 431 words]
Want to defeat the pushers and drug kingpins? Then let's buy what they're selling. The largest single change for the better in U.S. foreign policy, and one that could be accomplished simply by an act of political will, would be the abandonment of the so-called War on Drugs. This last relic of the Nixon era has long been a laughingstock within the borders of the United States itself (where narcotics are freely available to anybody who wants them and where the only guarantee is that all the money goes straight into criminal hands). But the same diminishing returns are now having a deplorable effect on America's international efforts. [continues 279 words]
DAYTONA BEACH -- Marlee Hull got high before her swim meets and practices last school year. She often went home to smoke marijuana and take anti-anxiety pills she got from a friend, then to the pool to swim for the Seabreeze High team. She tells how once after an hour in the pool she vomited and coughed up blood in the bathroom. The 16-year-old knew the drugs were damaging her body but she didn't care. Hull was depressed with life's problems, including those that come with having divorced parents; a childhood friend also died. She wanted to forget. [continues 1852 words]
CHARLESTON, W.VA. - Drug shipments from illegal online pharmacies were once so frequent in Appalachia that delivery companies had to add trucks to their routes. Police have cracked down on such deliveries but are confronted by a booming global network of so-called rogue pharmacies operating online. For people addicted to prescription medications such as the painkiller hydrocodone - sold mostly as Vicodin - the days of "doctor shopping" are over as long as they have Internet access. With the help of unscrupulous doctors and pharmacists, hundreds of Web sites dispense prescription narcotics to customers in exchange for nothing more than a credit card number. [continues 692 words]
Re: "Another marijuana field found near GP border," Wednesday Metro. I have no idea what it costs the taxpayers to fly a helicopter around all day looking for marijuana, which most feel should be decriminalized anyway. I'm sure the expense of this aerial assault would go a long way toward funding the needs of the extra police officers needed to patrol our streets to be able to respond to our burglar alarms. As recreational drugs, all proven less harmful than alcohol, become harder and harder to get, they'll become more expensive, resulting in even more crime. The biggest crime is such a blatant waste of our tax dollars in attacking a problem most don't even consider to be a problem. Norman Hines Iii Dallas [end]
How Should the City Respond to West-Side Crime? Blaska Says a Strong Dose of 'Law and Order' Is Called For My family had just moved into the Orchard Ridge neighborhood on Madison's southwest side when it came time to put No. 1 son at the controls of the lawnmower. Boy One loaded his boombox with a We Must Be Giants cassette tape. Not on my watch. That would violate the neighborhood compact that we had tacitly accepted before moving in: Anything louder than a lawnmower was verboten. [continues 569 words]
Allen Broussard was killed on a Bayview street in August. It took someone with a gun to put an end to Allen Broussard's auto burglary spree - something San Francisco prosecutors, probation officers and judges had been incapable of doing. Broussard, 37, a high school dropout who grew up in San Francisco's housing projects, was arrested at least eight times over the last year and a half, mostly for breaking into cars to get cash to feed a drug habit. [continues 1538 words]
To the Editor: I respectfully disagree with your editorial: Marijuana Law Still Being Abused (Aug. 8, 2007), to amend Prop. 215. Instead of moving backwards California and the rest of America should completely re-legalize cannabis. That ends all the problems your editorial has identified and a large percentage of citizens don't agree with cannabis prohibition any way. The Ukiah Daily Journal should stop supporting the luciferous practice of caging humans for using or growing the Godgiven plant cannabis. Stan White Dillon, Colorado [end]
To the Editor: I am a former National Director of NORML and I publish MarijuanaNews.com. This article from Marijuana News may help explain my views more completely: Medical Marijuana Endgame: " 'So go ahead and die.' That would be all right?" "Congress has made that value judgment." Not Really, But The Bush Administration Has. The American People Have Not! At www.marijuananews.com. Your editorial "Marijuana Law Still Being Abused" ignores two possible explanations for why some jurors refused to convict a grower in a county where there is very strong support for cannabis, medical and otherwise. [continues 827 words]
Who's Smokin' Funny Cigarettes? Lawyer and activist Norm Kent gets around. He made a flash in the news a few weeks ago, when Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle said that he felt most gay people were unhappy -- and that he was basing that statement on his friend, Kent, whom he's known for years through political circles. (Not so, Kent tells Tailpipe. He's actually gay and happy.) Kent made even bigger headlines a month earlier -- in Minnesota, where he was shaking up the race for U.S. Senate. [continues 487 words]
Neal Peirce hit the bull's-eye. [ "Drug war's latest achievement: Boosting global terrorism" syndicated column, Sept. 4]. The war on drugs is an obvious failure and one way to recognize it is because President Bush supports it so much. Impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, while we're at it, impeach the war on drugs. Stan White, Dillon, Colo [end]
Neal Peirce is absolutely correct that the best way to deal with opiate production is to buy all the Taliban can grow at or above market prices and divert it to the legal market. Peirce did miss a great opportunity, though. If Afghanistan was allowed to legally grow cannabis and produce hashish, it would greatly reduce their farmers need to grow poppies. They once produced some of the finest hash on the planet, but because of the economic distortions of prohibition, growing more addictive and dangerous drugs is more profitable. David Lane, Santa Cruz, Calif. [end]
People with drug problems pack our prisons. Figures show more than half the people who commit crimes are using at least one drug at the time of their arrest. And 90 per cent of prisoners suffer from a substance abuse disorder at some time in their lives. A tougher stance on crime since the 1999 criminal justice system referendum, when 92 per cent of us voted for harsher sentences, has meant we are now cramming offenders through the prison gates faster than ever. [continues 728 words]
Winnebago's drug court is definitely a step in the right direction, but an arrest should not be a necessary prerequisite for drug treatment. Would alcoholics seek help for their illness if doing so were tantamount to confessing to criminal activity? Likewise, would putting every incorrigible alcoholic behind bars and saddling them with criminal records prove cost-effective? The United States recently earned the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world, with drug offenses accounting for the majority of federal incarcerations. This is big government at its worst. At an average cost of $26,134 per inmate annually, maintaining the world's largest prison system can hardly be considered fiscally conservative. [continues 76 words]
At first blush it would seem a literal no-brainer that the state Board of Executive Clemency shouldn't have to take but a few moments to realize the defendant pleading for mercy and justice before them has about as much business being in prison as a Soviet era dissident. But then again, had you told Richard Paey that he would wind up in the big house - in the United States, in the 21st century - doing a 25-year stretch for simply being a very infirm man the idea would have been laughable. [continues 436 words]
BOLTON'S indoor cannabis growing operations are a direct result of cannabis prohibition. Legitimate farmers do not steal electricity to grow produce in the basements of rented homes. If legal, growing marijuana would be less profitable than farming tomatoes. As it stands, the drug war distorts market forces to such an extent that an easily grown weed is literally worth its weight in gold. Rather than continue to subsidise organised crime, British policymakers should ignore the reefer madness hysteria of the United States government and instead to look to The Netherlands. That country has successfully reduced overall drug use by replacing cannabis prohibition with adult regulation. Dutch rates of drug use are significantly lower than US rates in every category. [continues 110 words]
The homes looked like countless others lining suburbia's streets and pictured in Southern California real estate brochures - except the shades were always drawn, the garbage bins were empty, and no one ever seemed to be home. The nearly million-dollar houses, scattered across the Inland Valley on well-manicured streets and cul-de-sacs named after trees and Spanish landmarks, shared a secret. One by one, they had been turned into factories, all with the same hallmarks: high-tech lighting and watering systems, complicated - and usually illegal and dangerous - power hookups, and the isolated comings and goings of people who clearly didn't live in the homes, but instead seemed to be ... checking on something. [continues 1986 words]
Drug prosecution costs soared to their highest level in history during the Conservative government's first year in office - comprising more than half the $50-million tab billed by private-sector law firms who represented the federal Crown in criminal and civil litigation in 2006-2007. The Government of Canada will pay almost $26 million for the fees and disbursements of Crown agents who prosecuted illicit drug cases in the fiscal year ending March 31, estimated Brian Saunders, the acting director of public prosecutions in Ottawa. [continues 1443 words]
America is being invaded. Not by illegal immigrants as some claim. Nor by a world superpower. We are being invaded by Mexican drug cartels that are growing marijuana from Humboldt County to Keokuk, Iowa. No state, or national forest, is exempt from this invasion. The cartels are so sophisticated and well-funded that they don't just stop at growing massive amounts of pot outdoors. They have been setting up indoor grows from coast to coast that produce prodigious amounts of the popular herb. Their methods are simple. They buys houses, put some Mexican nationals in them posing as normal families and "blow-up" all the rooms with indoor grow systems that yield surprising amounts of that billion-dollar bud. [continues 778 words]
The White House sent a team of speakers to Charleston recently to persuade parents, educators and public officials that randomly testing public school students for drugs is a powerful tool to keep kids off drugs, (Post and Courier, Page 1-A, Sept. 25). Horsefeathers! The truth is that testing students for drugs does not reduce drug use. Instead, it creates more problems than it solves, and it benefits nobody except the companies that do the testing. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the National Education Association, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, among others, all vehemently oppose it. [continues 321 words]
By extending for six months the licence to operate Vancouver's supervised drug injection site, the federal government has conveniently removed from the table the most contentious aspect of its new anti-drug policy. So enamoured of the Insite project are its supporters that their noisy clamour of support for its continued operations had threatened to drown out the more pertinent parts of Tory strategy. Even Premier Gordon Campbell felt compelled to get in his two cents' worth in favour of Insite in the nick of time before Health Minister Tony Clement's announcement yesterday of its reprieve. [continues 372 words]
Please don't fear the end of the war on marijuana. It's going to be a glorious time. Your compassion and open mind helps to bring light to the issue of cannabis prohibition, which is indeed a troublesome one. Thank you for speaking up on what you see with your own eyes. I applaud you and the Tribune-Herald for that. The continued war on cannabis is destroying our communities and the very fabric of our society. It's not the drug itself that's causing this destruction, it's the war on it. Isn't that ironic? It's time for people to wake up and see the realities. We've been deceived and scared far too long. The Internet is here and the information is available. Not just one side, but all of it. [continues 309 words]
Re "Afghans Pressed by U.S. on Plan to Spray Poppies" (front page, Oct. 8): The American-led counternarcotics policy of forced poppy crop eradication in Afghanistan has been pivotal in hindering stability, security and development in the country's most impoverished regions. Starting a more aggressive approach like chemical spraying would be nothing short of disastrous. Chemical spraying was undertaken in Colombia and proved ineffective. Not only did aerial spraying merely displace illegal coca cultivation to more remote areas, it also led to starvation and displacement of entire farming communities while posing severe health risks to both humans and the environment. [continues 102 words]
30 Arrested in Raids Throughout Region OAKLAND -- Oakland police and federal authorities announced Wednesday they had dismantled a major drug ring that they said brought heroin from Mexico into California's Central Valley and ultimately Oakland and other Bay Area locations. The announcement came after law enforcement personnel conducted dozens of raids beginning at 6 a.m. Wednesday in Oakland and throughout the region. Police Chief Wayne Tucker said he believed the streets of Oakland will be safer after the bust, because of the violence often associated with drug dealing. [continues 469 words]
I'm bipartisan in my criticisms of politicians, depending on the issue. Republican Rep. Leah Vukmir, chair of WI Assembly's health-care committee, refuses to give a hearing to a bill legalizing medical marijuana in our state. The current bill has several Democratic sponsors and just one Republican. But again this year, such legislation will likely not get an up-or-down vote by our elected representatives. My mother-in-law is in her final months of a several year battle with lung cancer. Hospice workers have provided her morphine if needed. Should she be denied morphine out of objection to the drug being legal in general? What a lack of compassion that would be! When Lyn Nofziger of the Reagan Administration provided marijuana to his daughter to fight the side effects of chemotherapy, he wasn't arguing that marijuana should be legal. But he understood the value of the plant in fighting nausea and generating appetite. [continues 154 words]
LONDON-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says marijuana is not a drug, a British magazine reported Monday. But his spokesman said the governor was joking. Schwarzenegger told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs, even though the former bodybuilder and Hollywood star has acknowledged using marijuana in the 1970s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron." "That is not a drug. It's a leaf," Schwarzenegger told GQ. "My drug was pumping iron, trust me." [continues 335 words]
Mary Zuanich loves downtown Everett, especially Colby Avenue with its block of chic stores. She not only shops on Colby, Zuanich enjoys cooking classes at J. Matheson Kitchen & Gourmet. "And I like her," said Zuanich, 68, who lives with her husband, Andy, in Everett's Lowell neighborhood. Her? I didn't need to ask. Zuanich meant Judy Matheson, who opened her original shop, J. Matheson Gifts, at 2615 Colby Ave., in 1991. Her kitchen store, a couple doors to the north, is a newer addition to the block that includes Pave Specialty Bakery, Burkett's women's clothing store and Erickson's Jewelers. [continues 677 words]
Afghanistan, one of the forgotten fronts in the global war against terrorism, reported record-high production of opium poppies last week, ushering in more problems for the embattled nation and causing more conflict and prevention of a stabilized government. To make matters worse, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Afghanistan produces 93 percent of all poppies used for illicit purposes, called opium poppies. It is also known that the money from the production of poppy funds all the necessary means for the Taliban, making Afghanistan's profitable and most exported crop a facet of global terrorism as discovered by NATO troops. [continues 727 words]
It's not often I find myself at odds with the police, particularly on law and order issues. But on the Conservative government's new anti-drug strategy, expected out this week, I'm afraid I cannot share the official sunny assessment of the Canadian Police Association (CPA). On Sunday, following a Parliament Hill ceremony honouring fallen officers, Tony Cannavino, the CPA president, called the government's plan -- many aspects of which have already been widely leaked -- "a cornerstone" that should help curb the violence that has accompanied Canada's expanding drug trade. I hope he's right, but instead, I suspect he is guilty of wishful thinking. [continues 484 words]
ON Sept. 12 in this space, I explored the reality and the hype about marijuana grow-ops, pointing out that evidence about the many harms they cause often has nothing to do with threatening the community. In particular, that they are proliferating at an exponential rate and that they may cause damage to the premises that house them has no bearing on whether they are the scourge they're made out to be. It's time to take a closer look at the four items that might well be a threat: firearms, fires, home invasions ("grow rips") and organized crime. [continues 1227 words]
Studies have suggested that as many as 1 in 4 cannabis users may be genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. Now, a new study reveals all users are at risk.1 Given recent United Nations' statistics citing Canada as the industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this news should set alarm bells ringing. After all, a leading role in cannabis consumption sets the stage for a leading role in psychotic disorders. Instead, Canada's mainstream media responded in chorus from The Happy Hippy Hymn Book, failing to notice that it is 10 years out of date. [continues 560 words]
Thankfully, we now hear baby steps. But will same old be same old, lots of jaw action? The status quo is not acceptable. That's what Ron Stevens, the province's justice minister, tells us. That's what Rick Hanson, the city police chief, tells us. That's what Bronco, the mayor, tells us. That's what Stephen Harper's Conservatives tell us. That's what polls tell us. The hug-a-thug criminal justice system is broke, a joke when it comes to who gets bail, a mystery when to comes to what sentence goes with what beef and what bonehead. But somehow, in all this telling to us, we still have no shortage of screaming headlines and shocking stories. [continues 719 words]
