Uh-Huh

Vancouver has a new police chief.In a speech recorded by BCTV he can be seen saying that some addicts have said that they were grateful for federal sentences because it helped them with their addiction.How can you comment on something so ridiculous that it defies description?I'll try.Firstly,anyone that has addiction problems and really wants to quit doesn't need two years to figure that out.(For those in the US,here in Canada,two years is the minimum required for a federal sentence.Any time less than two years is a provincial bit.)Second,only an insane person would wish a two year sentence on themselves.I do know addicts who have said that they would probably be dead if they hadn't done so much time but that's a comment on the lifestyle and has nothing to do with being grateful for a two year sentence.This is what the chief has distorted into gratitude for federal time.The chief was trying to make a case for federal time for the so called "chronic offenders" that are almost always drug addicts.He is trying to say that they should be given "special" treatment for their disease.The crimes they commit are all petty and are met with short sentences of a week or two.Because there are so many charges piled on top of one another.Our kindly police chief wants these unfortunate people to go to prison for years.This is what they used to do years ago.They stopped because it was doing no good and was felt to be cruel and unusual punishment.Now our new police chief wants to go back to long prison terms for petty crimes because there has been no progress in drug reform in the interim.I'm sure that Jim Chiu knows that jailing these felons will do nothing for their drug rehabilitation and will just warehouse them where the police don't have to worry about them for a longer term.We have been here before.That's what is so frustrating about the demise of the NAOMI program.It was successful at giving people with these "chronic"legal problems a break and a brief shot at a normal life.The stats have not come out yet but I will guarantee that that is what the data will show.It's a sad reality that these often mentally unstable addicts are a nuisance and I'm sure it would make the chief's life easier if he could just lock them up and throw away the key.There is a case on the books here of a man receiving an eleven year sentence for stealing a can opener he needed to open a can.We have dealt with addiction in this way in the past and I'm sure the police were much happier then.For the chief of the police force of one of the largest drug addict populations on the planet to express a desire to turn back the clock and to use prison to "solve" our drug problem is beyond disconcerting.It's like we learned something and then did nothing with the knowledge.Now we have forgotten the lesson and are going to start all over again.This decade started with so much promise and then along came Stephen Harper and all the rest of the neocons and every lesson learned became moot.Instead of dialogue it looks like it's going to have to be the upsurge in gang violence that eventually brings this drug war to an inevitable end.It didn't have to be this way as there has been plenty of evidence that drug prohibition is every bit as destructive as was the prohibition of alcohol.It's just a matter,now,of awaiting the day when the body count becomes unbearable and we end the insanity.It's unfortunate but it seems that as a species we learn all of our lessons the hard way.