Gang Warz

[eyeball]

You sum up the issue very well but we are still left with the problem of people living in fear of winding up in the middle of someone else's gun battle or getting shot because of being mistaken for some gang banger. We can't just give up and hand our streets and neighbourhoods over to these people.

So you suggest we just cave into fear and hand our society over to a totalitarian police state instead?

[scorpio]

The law and order types in my town encourage neighbours to report the smell of pot and any suspicious activity they see to their community watch group and the police.

Sounds a bit like 1984 at best and KGB at worst. My kid has the odd joint in the alley. Do you want to fund cops to try and round up everybody who happens to enjoy a joint in their backyard?

[sharkman]

Sounds a bit like 1984 at best and KGB at worst. My kid has the odd joint in the alley. Do you want to fund cops to try and round up everybody who happens to enjoy a joint in their backyard?

Not I, but the problem is you and your kid. He is funding the criminal element and you are letting him. All of you who smoke an innocent joint now and then are funding the gangs. And then you whine on about how the streets ain't safe no more. Hilarious.

[eyeball]

Sounds a bit like 1984 at best and KGB at worst. My kid has the odd joint in the alley. Do you want to fund cops to try and round up everybody who happens to enjoy a joint in their backyard?

Not me. I'd rather monitor the cops and the state.

Funny you should mention the KGB though, this community watch group I mentioned likened themselves to the generals of Stalingrad in their op-ed pieces on at least three occasions. They were trying to compare Hitler to drugs and the battle of Stalingrad as the war on drugs. It was a bit of a stretch for a lot of people but when this group started talking about people monitoring their neighbourhoods and reporting suspicious activity...well...I only wish the progressive authoritarians amongst our politicians were as nakedly honest about their true feelings because I think there does come a point when Canadians are willing to draw a line and say enough is enough.

[sharkman]

The law and order types in my town encourage neighbours to report the smell of pot and any suspicious activity they see to their community watch group and the police. These folks think if people don't monitor and report their neighbour's behaviour it leaves the police powerless and overworked and as you say, unable to protect us.

Shrugging and looking the other way when you know your neighbours are breaking the law is the scariest edge of the wedge. Social acceptance is the grease that really makes the slope slippery.

So I see by your other comments that this one was pure trolling.

[eyeball]

All of you who smoke an innocent joint now and then are funding the gangs.

So does every politician that refuses to address the demand and throw users in jail.

In today's risk society it should be fairly easy to pump the fear and hype the loathing and turn this into a national security issue. Some people are seriously entertaining the idea of trying, convicting and sentencing people within a half hour of a crime so in that spirit I propose Operation Clean Sweep.

If I was in charge of ridding society of drugs I'd attack the demand head on. Operation Clean Sweep would entail mandatory drug and alcohol testing for all Canadians. Failure would mean instant swift justice.

I'm afraid Id also have to outlaw alcohol and tobacco too because I just wouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously otherwise. It would be like a parent lecturing a kid on the evils of vice with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

[eyeball]

So I see by your other comments that this one was pure trolling.

This post reports the pure truth. This group does exist and they meet with the police every week in a local Church basement and they also liaise with the village by-law officer. They profile drug houses by looking for things such as unkempt yards with garbage piled outside and expensive cars parked out front and report these to the village. They believe that by letting suspects know they are being watched they will drive them out of the community.

I'm not making this up. They are following the advice of local RCMP who report this strategy has worked in Edmonton.

Edited February 28, 2009 by eyeball

[scorpio]

Not I, but the problem is you and your kid. He is funding the criminal element and you are letting him. All of you who smoke an innocent joint now and then are funding the gangs. And then you whine on about how the streets ain't safe no more. Hilarious.

Who's to say I don't have my own plant or two? Who needs gangs? You assume too much I'm afraid.

[sharkman]

So does every politician that refuses to address the demand and throw users in jail.

In today's risk society it should be fairly easy to pump the fear and hype the loathing and turn this into a national security issue. Some people are seriously entertaining the idea of trying, convicting and sentencing people within a half hour of a crime so in that spirit I propose Operation Clean Sweep.

If I was in charge of ridding society of drugs I'd attack the demand head on. Operation Clean Sweep would entail mandatory drug and alcohol testing for all Canadians. Failure would mean instant swift justice.

I'm afraid Id also have to outlaw alcohol and tobacco too because I just wouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously otherwise. It would be like a parent lecturing a kid on the evils of vice with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

Government can not address (do you mean decrease demand, that is what it appears to mean in your sentence) demand. How can they make the public want a substance less? They can up the punishments, but that would not lessen your demand, for example. You would just be more secretive about it. But it's a common response to expect the government to wave it's magic wand and make problems disappear. It's up to us to decide if we can live with drive by shootings so we can have a toke or a pill.

So just don't walk alone down darkened streets at night, drug addicts looking for something to steal might jump you.

[sharkman]

The law and order types in my town encourage neighbours to report the smell of pot and any suspicious activity they see to their community watch group and the police. These folks think if people don't monitor and report their neighbour's behaviour it leaves the police powerless and overworked and as you say, unable to protect us.

Shrugging and looking the other way when you know your neighbours are breaking the law is the scariest edge of the wedge. Social acceptance is the grease that really makes the slope slippery.

This IS trolling. Your last sentence puts it over the top. Don't worry, I'm not judging you.

The other stuff about neighborhood watch activities is comforting though. Maybe people there are sick and tired of seeing drugs wreck their children's lives.

Edited February 28, 2009 by sharkman

[sharkman]

Who's to say I don't have my own plant or two? Who needs gangs? You assume too much I'm afraid.

I was speaking in generalities, but I doubt you have never ever purchased from a dealer. At any rate, for everyone who grows their own, how many buy from a dealer? Specially the young kids who are so easy to upsell, and can consume so much?

Your kid grew up watching you smoke things and this is how the drug problem grows.

[scorpio]

I was speaking in generalities, but I doubt you have never ever purchased from a dealer. At any rate, for everyone who grows their own, how many buy from a dealer? Specially the young kids who are so easy to upsell, and can consume so much?

Your kid grew up watching you smoke things and this is how the drug problem grows.

My God, how do you know I even smoke? More galloping assumptions. My point is/was that the police surely have more things to do than bust the occasional user. And for the record, I quit pot long before I was married some 30 years ago. And my "kid" is 28 years old. Nice try Shark.

[sharkman]

Who's to say I don't have my own plant or two? Who needs gangs? You assume too much I'm afraid.

Who's to say I don't have my own plant or two? Who needs gangs? You assume too much I'm afraid.

My god indeed, more trolling then? With comments like this, you intentionally mislead and then declare outrage. Whatever troller.

The point is, and please notice again that I am speaking in generalities,(This means I am talking about drug consumers who buy from dealers and get stoned or drunk in front of their kids and then wonder why Johnny doesn't have any common sense. If it doesn't apply to you, then why the loud protestations? It applies to many Canadians) that those who use drugs are mostly getting them from dealers(gangs) and are empowering gangs, and then wonder why the streets ain't safe at night. You guys are the problem.

[capricorn]

Government can not address (do you mean decrease demand, that is what it appears to mean in your sentence) demand. How can they make the public want a substance less? They can up the punishments, but that would not lessen your demand, for example.

You are right. Demand is driven by the consumers of the product not the government.

Let's equate the punishment to high taxes and apply it to tobacco. As government increases taxes on tobacco so does demand and accessibility to contraband.

First, the market in contraband cigarettes is back with a vengeance as a consequence of excessive taxes and duties designed to inhibit the behaviours of those who continue to smoke. Then, as now, this is a strategy of failure that forgets an old truth: So long as a demand exists, somebody will supply it at a reasonable cost. If legal product is too expensive and too regulated, contraband product will invariably appear.

Secondly, a variety of actors have appeared to take what profit they can out of the situation. These will range from individuals working to benefit themselves, to organized criminal societies, and worse - particularly given the growing linkages between criminality and fundraising for terrorist groups. In the United States, there have been three cases (so far) where individuals associated with Hizbollah or al Qaeda have been moving contraband cigarettes and using some of the proceeds to benefit terrorism.

http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/2008/sin...lure-082208.htm

Statistics say there are 5 million smokers in Canada. I say the number is higher. The unreported smokers avail themselves of contraband which is readily available. They turn to contraband strictly on the basis of the cost of the product which is sky high due to the "sin tax". When the government reduced the sin tax in the 90s, tax revenue actually increased and smuggling decreased. But greed got in the way as well as pressure from anti-tobacco activists and the tax was upped again. No lessons learned there.

Successive governments have failed at significantly reducing consumption of a legal substance through a series of bone headed decisions. I'm not at all convinced that the government can provide the means necessary to combat gangs and drugs. The tobacco issue serves as an experience. The wild card now is that the government will be dealing with issues around illegal substances and individuals who operate through gangs who peddle those substances.

[Wilber]

So you suggest we just cave into fear and hand our society over to a totalitarian police state instead?

I rest my case, anything that inteferes with you doing anything you want is a police state.

[DrGreenthumb]

Not I, but the problem is you and your kid. He is funding the criminal element and you are letting him. All of you who smoke an innocent joint now and then are funding the gangs. And then you whine on about how the streets ain't safe no more. Hilarious.

No actually the problem is you and your ilk who refuse to stop prohibiting and start regulating the drug supply. You know damned well that those of us that want to smoke pot will do so regardless of what laws morons pass against it, and yet you choose to hand the very lucrative market entirely to the underground economy. You are to blame. Cannabis has been on the earth forever, and people only started dying over it after it was outlawed for very dooby'ous reasons. It is your fault so take responsibility for it and change your ways. Who the hell do you people think you are to decide what god given plants other people can use?

If there is so much money being made off the illegal drugs I guess Canadians are speaking with their wallets to how much they support your ridiculous war.

Edited March 1, 2009 by DrGreenthumb

[eyeball]

I rest my case, anything that inteferes with you doing anything you want is a police state.

Have you read what I've posted about what the community watch group I mentioned? I am not making this up. These are staunch Harper Conservatives, close to your the end of the political spectrum as I recall. These people are invoking the name of Stalin in their op-ed pieces on how to wage a local war on drugs, they're asking people to monitor their neighbours and snitch on one another. They're being advised by the RCMP that the Charter has tied their hands and is stopping anyone from doing anything about the fear that consumes them.

Stalin Wilber, for Christs' sake, Stalin...I rest MY case.

I'm speaking out against this shit by writing letters to the same local paper these people are using. WTF are YOU doing to prevent the progressive authoritarianism that's taking root in your community? Cheering it on by the looks of things.

I'd like to say that anyone who stands by and witnesses this developing in their community and doesn't speak out against it are the scum of the Earth, but I can understand their fear. Given what history records about troublemakers who point out the fact the Emporer is a monster, perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut too.

Fuck that, that's not what my Grandaddies nearly died fighting.

[DrGreenthumb]

Have you read what I've posted about what the community watch group I mentioned? I am not making this up. These are staunch Harper Conservatives, close to your the end of the political spectrum as I recall. These people are invoking the name of Stalin in their op-ed pieces on how to wage a local war on drugs, they're asking people to monitor their neighbours and snitch on one another. They're being advised by the RCMP that the Charter has tied their hands and is stopping anyone from doing anything about the fear that consumes them.

Stalin Wilber, for Christs' sake, Stalin...I rest MY case.

I'm speaking out against this shit by writing letters to the same local paper these people are using. WTF are YOU doing to prevent the progressive authoritarianism that's taking root in your community? Cheering it on by the looks of things.

I'd like to say that anyone who stands by and witnesses this developing in their community and doesn't speak out against it are the scum of the Earth, but I can understand their fear. Given what history records about troublemakers who point out the fact the Emporer is a monster, perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut too.

Fuck that, that's not what my Grandaddies nearly died fighting.

I think you should go to the meeting and take pictures of all the people, get their names and post them on bulletin boards and websites with a sign saying "I belong to the local community snitch patrol.

I think we should start an active "snitch on the snitches" campaign. I bet that would shut up the nosey scumbags, or someone else would. True justice would be a tatse of their own medicine. See how they like being spied on and snitched on for their activities. See how they like men with guns showing up at THEIR homes to investigate them, and interfering with THEIR lives.

Edited March 1, 2009 by DrGreenthumb

[eyeball]

I think you should go to the meeting and take pictures of all the people, get their names and post them on bulletin boards and websites with a sign saying "I belong to the local community snitch patrol.

I think we should start an active "snitch on the snitches" campaign. I bet that would shut up the nosey scumbags, or someone else would. True justice would be a tatse of their own medicine. See how they like being spied on and snitched on for their activities. See how they like men with guns showing up at THEIR homes to investigate them, and interfering with THEIR lives.

Its a small town everybody already knows who's who and what's what. I don't know, we just don't need more fear. I can't see how weighing society down with more folk devils and moral entrepreneurs helps. That said I wouldn't mind seeing some regulations on just what it is the RCMP are allowed to suggest to community groups in their capacity as officials of the state. I think its one thing for a cop to attend a meeting of concerned parents as a parent and suggest the Charter needs to go but when they show up in uniform and say this - to a group that is invoking Stalin's name? It's ironic when you consider how many files the RCMP have on Canadians who might have embraced Stalin's name in their meetings or public pronouncements in the not so distance past.

Oh well, Conservatives are using socialism to bail out capitalism I suppose it shouldn't be any surprise they'd turn to one of the worst socialists on the planet to bail out justice or whatever else it is they're trying to do to it.

[sharkman]

No actually the problem is you and your ilk who refuse to stop prohibiting and start regulating the drug supply. You know damned well that those of us that want to smoke pot will do so regardless of what laws morons pass against it, and yet you choose to hand the very lucrative market entirely to the underground economy. You are to blame. Cannabis has been on the earth forever, and people only started dying over it after it was outlawed for very dooby'ous reasons. It is your fault so take responsibility for it and change your ways. Who the hell do you people think you are to decide what god given plants other people can use?

If there is so much money being made off the illegal drugs I guess Canadians are speaking with their wallets to how much they support your ridiculous war.

Capricorn already addressed the likeliness of government success at regulating your drug of choice for you, so I won't bother to repeat except to add the following thought. You want drugs legalized. Reasonable people can see that legalizing and regulating cocaine, heroin, crack, meth and whatever else would have a devastating effect on society. What the gov. took in taxes it would pay double in medical costs for ruined lives. It wouldn't stop addicts from stealing and attacking people on the street and in their homes to get the money for a fix now would it? And do you think the gangs would just shrug their shoulders at a competitor horning in on their markets? Good grief man, think about what you are saying.

So lets say you just want one drug legalized and regulated, namely, your drug of choice. Again, it wouldn't make the gang problem go away, which is the subject of this thread. They'd still have all the other drugs to market, and then the harder drug users would demand all of the other drugs be legalized, you can't simply legalize one and expect the drug culture to be happy.

No, you're just thinking about your own little world where you want to escape from your reality with drugs instead of facing it and making it to your liking. It doesn't matter that the drug trade is making the streets unsafe for others who get shot up as long as you can toke up.

Everyone, it is this attitude that guarantees Canada will have increasingly unsafe streets and homes.

[eyeball]

So lets say you just want one drug legalized and regulated, namely, your drug of choice. Again, it wouldn't make the gang problem go away, which is the subject of this thread. They'd still have all the other drugs to market, and then the harder drug users would demand all of the other drugs be legalized, you can't simply legalize one and expect the drug culture to be happy.

Isn't this how it worked when alcohol was legalized and the rest weren't? Have you ever seen a parent lecture a kid on the evils of drugs while waving a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other? Its as hilarious as it is ridiculous.

By the way you can try regulating where people of a certain color can or can't sit on a bus and expect much happiness either.

[eyeball]

No, you're just thinking about your own little world where you want to escape from your reality with drugs instead of facing it and making it to your liking. It doesn't matter that the drug trade is making the streets unsafe for others who get shot up as long as you can toke up.

Ah safety...yes, lets allow the state to make the world safe for everybody.

By the way did you happen to notice another 50000 Canadians died from tobacco and booze last year?

Shhhhh....maybe no one will notice next year either.

[Oleg Bach]

Ah safety...yes, lets allow the state to make the world safe for everybody.

By the way did you happen to notice another 50000 Canadians died from tobacco and booze last year?

Shhhhh....maybe no one will notice next year either.

Tobacco I can tolerate - booze I can over come --- but a bullet ....well that's real offensive...maybe they should toss the book at all gangsters who injure an innocent person in the cross fire - but if they kill each other the gov should send notes of thanks to the families along with flowers.

[eyeball]

...maybe they should toss the book at all gangsters who injure an innocent person in the cross fire.

This sounds quite reasonable.

Apparently though some people still think I'm advocating that murder be legalized. I wouldn't want to go that far, not until we try decriminalization first.

[Oleg Bach]

This sounds quite reasonable.

Apparently though some people still think I'm advocating that murder be legalized. I wouldn't want to go that far, not until we try decriminalization first.

If you remember what I said a few days ago...If a gangster is picked up and charged for a gun violation - then they should be released to continue to kill other gangsters untill they are all gone or sick of it - IF they injure a non-member of their little hooligan clan...then I say 15 years - no not here - but in say ....a Muslim facility - I am sure the fingers would be removed - the trigger finger.