Pubdate: Tue, 11 May 2010
Source: Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1248
Author: Travis Erbacher

DRUG BILL FILLS GANG COFFERS

Dear Editor,

The gang problem will continue unless we stop subsidizing gangs 
[Fighting gangs in Langley, May 7, Langley Advance].

The Conservative federal government is subsidizing gangs. It even has 
a gang bailout bill that will cost the taxpayers $10 billion per year!

Isn't that great? Your tax dollars are being used to artificially 
inflate the price of drugs so that gangsters can buy more flashy 
things and attract your kid.

Maybe they will have so much money that they can even buy bigger guns.

The bill is called S-10. Before, it was called C-15. It brings in 
mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

This might sound like it will hurt gangs, but it won't. The people 
who get caught for drug crimes the most are college kids, medical 
marijuana providers and patients, and small-scale dealers - in other 
words, the people who provide competition to the gangs. Mom and pot 
operations, if you will.

When you make the sentences tougher for drug crimes, it raises the 
price of drugs.

Therefore the bill will both jail the only competition to the big 
gangs, and make the drug trade more lucrative for those not getting caught.

Prohibition is a subsidy for organized crime. Bill S-10 is the Gang 
Bailout and Recruitment Bill of 2010.

Which politicians stand to gain from increased violent crime? Would 
it happen to be the "tough on crime" party?

Those who claim to be "tough on crime" need crime. Otherwise they 
appear as they are: dumb on crime.

Travis Erbacher,

Langley
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom