REVscene Automotive Forum - Marc Emery: B.C. Liberals, NDP can’t stop gang violence with prohibition

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Marc Emery: B.C. Liberals, NDP can’t stop gang violence with prohibition

Just read this interesting article off the Straight. Just want to know people's view about this, primarily about prisions being recruiting centers for gangs. Biased? Bullshit? Truth? Discuss.

Quote:

The B.C. Marijuana Party was formed in 2001 because the B.C. NDP and B.C. Liberals both were enforcing the prohibition of marijuana and other substances with increased gusto. In 2001, both the Ujjal Dosanjh NDP government and Gordon Campbell’s Liberals wanted more police on the streets, longer sentences, more convictions, more raids, more “Grow Buster” teams, more anti-gang integrated units.

How did that work for British Columbia? What any scientist of prohibition would have predicted. The more marijuana growers and drug dealers the government and their police put in jail, the more the violence in the street increases as young people and others fight over the vacuum created by the arrest of the dealer, producer, or consumer of illegal substances.

Today, in 2009, we have dozens of crime gangs, crime gang violence, and murders like never before (since alcohol prohibition, anyway). The gangs run all the jails, and every young person sent to jail for any crime is pressured and given incentives in jail to join a gang. More gang members come out of jail than go in. Jails are the number-one recruiting centre for gangs; in fact, the Red Scorpions gang was formed in jails of the Lower Mainland.

To maintain a prisoner in a Canadian federal prison costs the Canadian taxpayer $75,000 a year. It cost tens of thousands to convict him. Yet it does nothing to prevent the crimes from continuing. If prohibition did not exist, drugs and marijuana would have no particular value above their cost of production. There would be no money in it. Young men are attracted to gangs and drug dealing precisely because there is a huge amount of money in it. A young man can be assured of flashy clothes, a great car with lavish rims, drugs, women, and ready cash once he adopts the gangster life. So can we change human nature that seeks material things or can we change the law so we no longer manufacture crime?

Since 2001, over a thousand more police have been hired in the Lower Mainland, but gang crime still carries on unabated. Marijuana and drugs are still dealt with in the black market, the taxpayer has spent billions on incarceration, police are everywhere in Vancouver but cannot prevent the crimes, and the B.C. NDP and B.C. Liberals are helpless in dealing with the gangs. Mike Farnworth of the NDP has explicitly called for longer sentences, more police, more jails, and more enforcement of the drug laws—but those are precisely the reasons we are in a greater problem than ever before.

The more the drug laws are enforced, the more gang violence there is. The more young people sent to jail, the more gangs recruit more members and introduce them to violence, and then their membership in the gang continues when they are on the outside. The more we enforce the drug laws, the higher the price of drugs remain, and so invariably that is the leading recruitment incentive to join a gang. The more we enforce the drug laws, the more police budgets explode and take up more of the public’s treasury. The more we enforce the drug laws, the more police corruption there is. The more we enforce the drug war, the more we see an end to our civil rights and constitutional law. We get asset forfeiture of homes of pot growers, “safety” inspection teams snooping in every home based on electrical use, cops stopping any young person with a nice car or coloured skin.

In fact, enforcing the drug war brings us the worst of all worlds.

After running 79 candidates in 2001, and 45 candidates in 2005, the B.C. Marijuana Party is endorsing B.C.’s third party, the B.C. Green party, for this election. I have met B.C. Green party leader Jane Sterk and she is a wise and compassionate advocate for the party’s principles, calling for social justice, nonviolence, diversity and sustainability. On page 39 of the Green Book, the B.C. Green party platform, is a policy calling for the repeal of marijuana prohibition and regulating substance use. The B.C. Greens don’t just make it a policy, they actually advocate it and mean it. It has been a centerpiece of their election campaign currently underway. They have appointed my wife, Vancouver-Fraserview Green candidate Jodie Emery, the policing and prohibition critic of the party. Sterk is comfortable explaining the policy of repealing prohibition to the people of British Columbia, because it is a rational and fact-based policy and will actually resolve the problem of gang violence.

For this reason, as president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, I am extremely delighted and excited to declare that all of our support is behind seeing B.C. Green party leader Jane Sterk elected, and to call on all supporters of the BCMP in elections past to vote, volunteer, and donate to the B.C. Greens in the May 12 election.

Source

Marc Emery is a hell of a smart man.

waiting for Jason's reply

Marc Emery is a criminal, has a well-know pro-marijuana agenda and I can't wait to see him get shipped to the US to face drug charges. I'm sure he will enjoy doing time in an American jail.

And it's interesting that he is advocating striking down marijuana prohibition laws since he is one of the groups (along with gangs), that profit from the drug trade.

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Originally Posted by RTS (Post 6394661)

Goto hell traitor...I love how you treat your fellow countrymen...crimes commited here should be dealt with here....ow right...mailing seeds isn't a crime here...makes more sense to hand him over to Americans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTS (Post 6394661)

when every third house is a grow-op there are more people then marc emery making illegal profits off it.

i've never voted in my life.

But i will vote for the Green party this year.

When is the election?

the green party is not the marijunana party.

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Originally Posted by Hondaracer (Post 6394725)

the green party is not the marijunana party.

It is now as Marc Emery is about to drop the marijunana party because the green party has the same views of legalization.

And yes this article is right on the money!

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Originally Posted by RTS (Post 6394661)

hey, go !@*& yourself buddy.

prisons are like summer camp for criminals in all honesty...

its a time where they dont have to worry about anything and their minds are let loose

they actually end up enjoying themselves

sure there will be the odd fight but that happens everywhere

its a place where they meet new people and the low rung guys get to meet some bosses and they'll likely have jobs when they come out

The only solution is to turn Vancouver Island into a penal colony and ship prisoners convicted of Indictable Offence there never to return. Three summary convictions and you also qualify for a life time banishment. Drastic times call for drastic measures. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTS (Post 6394661)

Its true that he's a criminal, but his viewpoints are quite logical. Its quite obvious from the past several years that the authorities have absolutely no handle on the situation.
With several economists estimating that the Marijuana industry is worth more than the Lumber industry, I think they should just legalize it, and tax it to hell.
Its really quite obvious - the incentive for growing and the associated crime cashflow would be cut, the arrests/justice clog up would be cut down, and that money could be plowed back into the system.
I really don't believe that people already smoking weed would move to hardcore drugs just because weed is no longer illegal.

The only other way to defeat the drug trade is via draconian penalties like in China or Singapore, but the Canadian legal system is based on freedoms and there is no way the public or gov would vote for mandatory death penalty for drug possession.

If weed was produced and sold very cheaply by the government, the market price would drop so much that there'd be zero incentive to grow.

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Originally Posted by achiam (Post 6395290)

I'm not going to bother posting anything, because this is pretty much what I was going to post.

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Originally Posted by quasi (Post 6395163)

Not my island!

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Originally Posted by achiam (Post 6395290)

good summary...
why spend millions fighting over something that can't win? Why not just legallize it and make some money from it through sales and taxes?

Even if its legalized here, crime would still occur as people try to smuggle it into the states and overseas.

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Originally Posted by StylinRed (Post 6395137)

werd. society as a whole are way too focus on reacting rathering than preventing. having longer sentence or even the death penalty DOES NOT DETER!!! well actually it does, it deter law abiding citizen with jobs and responsibility from committing a crime that will land them in jail, it does not deter true criminal which are the ppl we really want to control.

once in jail, the true criminals (ie gangbangers hard croe drug dealers) meet and network with other hardcore criminals. On the other hand regular joe who for whatever reason lands himself in jail is now stigmatize for the rest of his life and is likely bullied in jailed or "hardened" up and is no less violent than the other inmates, worse case scenario he kills or hurts himself in jail.

The reason why some criminal got into crime is because of their surrounding, they maybe in poverty and the only way they see around them to hustle is by doing crimes. Is it really a good idea to put these people into a concentrated place as a punishment?

when doctors gather they talk abt doctors stuff, when lawyers gather they talk abt the law, when criminals gather is it only natural they exchange information abt their own profession.

The US will never allow Canada to legalize marijuanna. That would defeat their drug policies. Can you imagine how much trafficking that would create on the border? The way I see it, if we're gonna legalize Marijuanna, the entire North America would need to do it as well. I don't see that happening anytime soon. There's too much money to be made in the US for putting criminals in prisons.

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Originally Posted by willystyle (Post 6395574)

x2.

Sadly this is the truth...we're Americas biatch....it has to start with them first.

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Originally Posted by willystyle (Post 6395574)

There's too much money to be made in the US for putting criminals in prisons.

I don't get it....As per the article it costs $75,000CND to maintain a prisioner. On top of that you gotta pay all the guys at the law enforcement level (DEA, FBI, municipality cops) And then there's bringing the accused to court. And then there's the cost of putting these guys thru rehab. And then...The list goes on.

As stated, they're pumping money into a fight they can't win.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flameboy54 (Post 6395615)

a large percentage of the US prison system is operated by private corporations - they wouldn't be in the prison business if it didn't make them a lot of money. they can even afford to lobby governments to create tougher drug laws so more people can fill their prisons.

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Originally Posted by Blaupunkt69 (Post 6395667)

Ahhh, ok. I had no idea the prisons down there were private.

Marc Emery is a wise man. Everything he says is the truth.
More gangsters come out of jail, then go in.

Illegal marijuana is the primary source of income for all organized crime groups.
Legalize the herb, and you cut money for the birds.

Yo, bricks of the white
Pounds of the purp
And for the right price, come around to the turf
We don't keep tucked outside with the work
I strap it on a bitch make her fly with the work
Ya boy want 17-5 for the work
23 in the south take a ride with the work
Fuck what you heard, I'm a grind till it hurt
Knock on wood, I get caught won't say a word
We call it a brick, they call it a bird
We call it a corner, they call it a curb
I got a hotline, you can call for the herb
Mathematics with the addicts, you can call me a nerd
I don't get money nikkaa, that is absurd
I passed it like magic, then ball like Byrd
You can find me in the hood from the first to the third
Goin hard for them clear diamond stones and in them furs