Thread: CAN: UN Tells Ottawa to crack down on crack

http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisp ... x?e=934377

Editorial

UN tells Ottawa: crack down on crack
Posted By Blizzard, Christina

Good morning, and welcome to crack central.

Yep, Toronto and Ottawa are the crack capitals of the world, according to a UN report on the international drug trade. It slams Ottawa and Toronto for their free crackpipe programs, and says the cities are contravening international drug trafficking control treaties by providing drug paraphernalia to addicts.

"The distribution of drug paraphernalia, including crackpipes, to drug users in Ottawa and Toronto, as well as the presence of drug injection sites, is also in violation of the international drug control treaties, to which Canada is a party," says a report by the UN's influential International Narcotics Control Board released in Vienna on Wednesday.

The report asks the federal government to step in.

"The Board calls upon the Government of Canada to end programs, such as the supply of 'safer crack kits,' including the mouthpiece and screen components of pipes for smoking 'crack,' authorized by the Vancouver Island Health Authority, as they are in contravention of article 13 of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988," the report says.

Both Toronto and Ottawa provide mouthpieces and screens for addicts. And while Ottawa's city council voted last year to end the crackpipe program after residents complained about drug paraphernalia littering the streets and harassment by spaced-out addicts, the province recently provided $287,000 to keep the crackpipe distribution going. Kingston and Guelph have similar programs.

A spokesman for Health Minister George Smitherman said the ministry is interested only in the health of Ontarians, not the enforcement of international drug control treaties. Laurel Ostfield said another UN agency, the World Health Organization, supports the 'safer crack use policy' that the INCB criticizes.

"We are concerned about keeping Ontarians healthy and we look to WHO and they support the use of safe injection and inhalation sites," she said.

Anyone with a smattering of common sense knows that's so much fuzzy logic claptrap.

You've only got to trip over some pathetic crack addict in downtown Ottawa or Toronto to know there is no such thing as safe crack use. It's an oxymoron. Crack use is dangerous no matter how you use it. It not only hurts the person with the addiction, it destroys the entire neighbourhood.

Ottawa residents were so outraged by the program last year that residents and business owners marched on city hall armed with tax-funded crackpipes they had picked up in their neighbourhoods.

Opposition Leader Bob Runciman has raised the issue in the legislature for years.

"Here we are using tax dollars to fund activity that I think most people would find repugnant," he said, pointing out that the Ottawa council pulled out of the crackpipe program and the police chief is opposed to it.

"Ottawa has a growing problem with street gangs and drug-related crimes are up dramatically," Runciman said.

The report says that every year, 15 to 25 tons of cocaine enter Canada, mainly from Colombia via the United States or in shipments from the Caribbean.

Those of us who've been complaining about these lunatic crackpipe policies of our left-wing councils for years have been told that we're out of touch. All those raving do-gooders know what's best - so they've been handing out drug paraphernalia to addicts. You might just as well pour gasoline on an inferno.

Now, no lesser authority than the UN says these councils are little better than drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced this week that his government will step in and stop parents who smoke in cars when children are present. Well, good for him. Most smokers I know, though, have become sensitive to the problem of second-hand smoke and tend to keep their butts away from children.

Fancy that, though. You have a government that on the one hand will stop parents from consuming a legal product in their cars. On the other hand, it uses our money to pay for crackpipes so drug addicts can consume an illegal and highly destructive substance.

For shame! We must be the crackpots to let it continue.

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Added note: Mexico is the principal source of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana in the United States.

the NAFTA superhighway will keep canada's crackpipes full and hot! i can see it now, semi-trucks from SA loaded with coke heading north! oh, and pipes too!, made cheaper in mexico.

I remember that in the early 1970s there was a lot of crystal meth coming in from Canada.