they call themselvesKeeping The Door Open

This Winter while the drug reform people were holding discussions on how to bring about change in current drug policy,the forces of prohibition and entrenched drug treatment programs were whining that although they held at least 1/2 of the dialogue they weren't being heard.The second meeting was particularly significant as they not only dominated the floor but at the meetings end they were very vocal about how their voices weren't being heard.I happened to be sitting in the section they chose to discuss their strategy for the future,which was to form their own group and push for their agenda.This week they assembled the proponents for abstinence and prohibition and did just that.They had the former heroin addict now on methadone that is living at a house ironically named Onsite.This is an obvious take on INSITE the safe injection site.They had all the hard liners from B.C. politics and every 12 step program and just say no group in the area.Like the other meeting their chief aim was to secure as much of the drug war booty as they could get their hands on.The very last thing Keeping the Door Open wants is to Keep any doors open.They want everything to stay just as it is and for their programs to get another 100 years to work,having failed to do so in their first century.These are the most closed minded people I have ever tried to have a dialogue with.They still think the drug war is winnable and that we just have to keep on jailing our way through the 21st century.They see pot as a gateway drug and are convinced that alcohol is a necessary evil but that drugs are an absolute no go.Everything they say has been debunked and disproved but these are not people to listen to things like research and data when there's perfectly good dogma to work with.It depresses me that they can drag out some poor doper that says he just wanted a early death and show him off as a success because he's down on methadone instead of heroin.This is not a good week for enlightenment or reform in Vancouver.Sam Sullivan was in attendance which surprises no-one as his CAST program is looking more and more like it was a ruse to deter real research into solutions for the drug problem that's killing a person a week in metro Vancouver.The Emery deal is off,the drug war museum is closed down and everyone busted,the forces of intolerance and injustice are forming and there's a neo-con government in Ottawa that won't accept any research that doesn't fall into line with what their agenda has already decided is true.