Back in my day it was a regular thing to read about 176 people up on 200 charges and this happened every three months or so.The RCMP would run one,Vancouver would run one various local forces ran them.They were a goldmine of statistics and made a lot on lawyers and prosecutors(mine included)into very young judges.These are the same judges who are being pilloried now for being too soft on crime.They saw us as decent human beings who were having their lives taken away from them for what just about all believed was a medical issue.Now we have cops watching gang members shooting it out in our city and laying charges later and making arrests much later,even though the killing never abated.There's something very sick when the really violent criminals are allowed to play(Clifford Olsen comes to mind)And more time is being given to drug interdiction than saving lives.Now our solicitor general has decided that although the US has finally seen the error of their ways and are eliminating mandatory minimum sentences,Mr.Nicholson is introducing mandatory minimum sentences for pot,speed ,cocaine and heroin.The Canadian government has never expressed any but the most draconian approach to the drug issue ,They operate in a vacuum that seems to protect them from the harm reduction practices that even the hardest justice system in the world has now seen as too harsh.After 40 years of ups and downs I actually thought we'd perhaps seen th beginning of the end of the drug war.We have to work harder to elect people with an anti drug war stance or this will just continue to waste billions of dollars and ruin thousands of lives.Support jury nullification.
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