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After the Willingdon location was so soundly trashed by residents who threatened to make it the sole election issue,causing the government to dodge imminent defeat by scrubbing plans for the location,the search was on for another site.Prisons in B.C. have been disgustingly overcrowded for years with several local prisons closed down in a more sane era,leaving what we have filled to overflowing.We all know the reason for the overcrowding is the dismal failure of those in charge to make logical choices in the drug file.In my day we took it for granted that there would be double bunking,as the older prisons had installed the means before the drug war even existed.We had an entire wing of the prison just for junkies awaiting trial and the games that went on with the administration trying to intercede in shooting gallery activity(not a chance)with their idea of a swat team.There were some close calls and some people did hole time for flying without a plane but those were just spot grabs where the guards picked a favorite target(often myself)to do 15 days on bread and water.They took your blanket in the AM and you got it back at 10.I cannot imagine doing time as a sick hype with three people to a one man cell.There are a lot of really bad people out there but I have watched this go from a heroin problem with a lot of busts for chemicals and THC delivery systems to now where we have organized crime and gangsters and shootings in our streets.None of this should have happened.The few addicts could have been put on a maintenance program and pot was within a whisker of being legalised.Then we had this conservative war on drugs and even the liberals who experimented with no harm themselves would not touch the issue with a 10 foot pole.Canada just stopped allowing Mexican citisens into our country without a visa because the Mexican drug war is killing by the thousands and our conservative government doesn't want any more of "those"people asking for amnesty.They included Czechs for some unknown reason.My thought is that they wanted to deflect any talk of racism,that brother to drug war politics.So now we have to build more prisons.The more they build the more the need to fill them.It's worked really well for the US as it's become their only growth industry with a lobby in Washington asking for tougher laws and more prison time.Canada's Prime Minister is a known supporter of private prisons.Our country is on a mad dash to privatise everything all at the cost to the taxpayer that we can't even begin to see at this point.Nothing I can do or say is going to change the direction we are headed in.It's time for everyone that sees the harm done by a war on people disguised as a war on drugs.I did my time and I'll never get all those years back.I will ,however,fight this criminal assault on peoples right to put in their body whatever they choose.There are simple ways to deal with the abuse of drugs.This can be done medically without resorting to inflicting the most inhumane conditions on people for so called crimes that they commit trying to stay well.Addiction is a disease but laws will never cure the problem.Most drugs are just a pleasurable pause in a tough day.To take away a persons life for years and brand them forever is the real crime here.That and the total disrespect for law and order because cops have to enforce laws that many of them commit themselves.