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Immigrant
Children
Used
to
Sell
Cocaine
in
Vancouver's
Black
Market
9/18/98
In yet another stunning example
of the dangers of prohibition to children, police in Vancouver, British
Columbia have reported this week (9/11) that over the summer they have
picked up seven Honduran children, aged 10-15, who were selling crack cocaine.
The most recent, and most shocking, incident occurred last week when a
ten year-old child swallowed at least 18 pieces of the substance as the
police approached him. The unidentified boy was taken immediately
to a local hospital where his stomach was pumped. The children, according
to BC police, are being used as "mules", holding the drugs while adults
transact the sales.
Adam J. Smith, associate
director of DRCNet, who spent more than a decade working with children
and teens in New York City, commented, "the use of children, and the luring
of young teens into the drug trade, is an inevitable consequence of prohibition.
We had the same problem with Alcohol Prohibition, which was one reason
why mothers across the nation came together to overturn the eighteenth
amendment."
Smith continued, "Clearly,
in this case, we have a situation where very young children were being
exploited, which is in itself horrifying. We see that a lot with
border crossings where children are made to either carry drugs on them
or to swallow balloons or condoms filled with heroin or cocaine.
But there is also the problem of young teens who find that there is money
to be made in selling drugs on a small scale to their friends who use them.
Put simply, prohibition insures that the drug trade remains in the hands
of children and criminals and out of societal control. If we look,
on the other hand, at alcohol, despite very lax enforcement of existing
regulations, kids are not selling it and, for the most part, they cannot
directly buy it. Prohibition is not 'drug control'. In fact
we've abdicated control over the market in illicit drugs. For children,
the consequences of the drug war are disastrous."
-- END --
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Issue #59, 9/18/98
Shattered Lives Book Offer Continues, Eyegive Participants Raising Valuable Funds for DRCNet | Alert Feedback | Free Will Foster Campaign Continues | Attention Students | DEA Raids Humboldt Cannabis Center, Destroys Patients' Medicine | House Approves Anti-Medical Cannabis Resolution, Patient Arrested For Medicating in McCollum's Office | Medical Marijuana on Ballot in DC | Industrial Hemp Making Strides Worldwide | Methadone Clinic Sues Fairfax Police | Immigrant Children Used to Sell Cocaine in Vancouver's Black Market | Editorial: Whose Privacy?
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