Much about my hometown of Vancouver I love. But there’s also a whole lot to be embarrassed about. Vancouver Courier columnist, Mark Hasiuk, succinctly outlines some of the most egregious recent examples, including giving out crack pipes to children.
Update: The parasites have won a victory. They must be so incredibly proud of themselves to be instrumental in continuing the destruction & exploitation of the lives of the downtrodden. — h/t TJ & The Phantom
Speaking of crack pipes, Insite is now legal. Trudeau the bastard lives on in Vancouver and elsewhere.
Yep. Passed the Supreme Court today. Awesome.
News is not yet available on whether or not we are allowed to object in a loud voice when being robbed by a drug addict. I do know that hitting is right out.
Yep, and no contradiction whatsoever in the fact that the same people who want to give crack pipes to children are the same ones who banned those little tasty licorice-flavoured cigars and pipes in the convenience stores that we used to buy for a nickle when we were kids.
“Don’t let ’em buy those evil imaginary pipes made out of licorice, ’cause they might be influenced to smoke tobacco some day; Give ’em the real thing, filled with good ol’ crack cocaine — that way they will rob the convenience store instead, and they won’t waste their nickel! Save your kids from tobacco early — get them hooked on crack first! And don’t forget you will be providing more jobs for our graduating social workers, child psychologists, and prison guards — it’s a win-win situation, moms and dads!”
(Sponsored by “Working Families”)
The feds could solve the insight problems; simply reduce health transfer payments 10 to 1 for every dollar spent on it.
Clearly BC health is over funded, surely all the long time tax payers have had their hips replaced and don’t wait in lines at the ERs…
I wish, sometime, somewhere, some Canadian politician had the balls to use the notwithstanding clause, and pin the ears of the Supremes back.
Doubt it will happen in my lifetime, though; Maggie Thatcher’s retired.
If Liberals weren’t so stupid, then I would be tempted to think that there was an “intelligence” behind it all — to deliberately demoralize Western civilization, and collapse the system to the point of anarchy so the Socialists can take over.
If there were such an “intelligence” behind it then Liberals are stupid twice-over: the first thing Socialist dictators do when they take control is abolish all the namby-pamby stuff — i.e. no more injection sites (much less crack pipes), and drug addicts go straight to jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200.00. Socialists as dictators deal with human failings quite differently than they do when they are in opposition under democracy: there is no room for human compassion or tolerance for even minor crimes such as drug dependency — human failings are viewed as conspiracies against Socialism.
Talk to someone from Communist China if you don’t believe me. By the way, if you read some of the early Chinese communist material during the era of Mao you will discover that one the methods that Chinese agents theorized for the successful demoralization and collapse of the capitalist West, was through their promotion of illicit drug use and the undermining of Westernmoral standards in general. I read that stuff way back in the ’70’s (published in the ’60’s). Coincidence that the theory is reality today?
Might as well hand out free heroin and crack while they’re at it.
If we’re going to give them free shoot-up sites,why force them to steal from us to support their habit?
Just wondering,WHEN do the OTHER three pillars start up?
Yep, and no contradiction whatsoever in the fact that the same people who want to give crack pipes to children are the same ones who banned those little tasty licorice-flavoured cigars and pipes in the convenience stores that we used to buy for a nickle when we were kids.
~richardo
You can buy cases of the cigars at Costco.
Where I live there is a Korean family owned convenience store/gas bar that sells them at the checkout counter.(lowest gas prices in Southern Alberta too)
The obvious question is-
“What’s this, are the Supremes on crack?”
Thanks Oz. I don’t think I’ve seen them in Ontario though (Political Corrections Central Headquarters).
Unless Dalton gets booted from power in elections next week — in such case I hear they are moving Headquarters to BC.
This, on first look, seems another atrocious decision by the SCC. If the argument is that the provinces are responsible for health care and should be able to pursue it as they see fit, I could support that; but the SCC would not take the same attitude toward provinces that would not regard abortion services as “health care”, even though such a reform would “save [far more] lives” than Insite will ever do.
What other applications of the criminal code will the SCC set aside for different parts of the population?
Sharper gets to appoint a couple more Supremes in the next while…..they better be good picks. We need some Roberts and Alitos…
I think a chain of Insite shops should be setup. Ypu could put a nice one in the SCC building. Just move all those dusty law books, they aren’t being used. Then you could put the next ones into the progressive neighborhoods, after seeing the picture I would say that these people aren’t from DTES,and the travel time and carbon footprint that is encoured would be cut to nothing.
Ricardo makes a great point IMO. Same goes for e-cigarettes, despite them being more effective than other nicotine replacement therapies for smoking cessation, Health Canada is against e-cigarettes for the same reason licorice pipes or candy cigarettes have been banned, yet handing out real crack pipes and needles to children is ok.
It’s all about the money, after-all the poverty industry is recession proof.
“I hope someone out there steps up and firebombs that place.”
Something like that usually happens when you have to deal with drug addicts — but not by design: I’ve lived in public housing for the past four years, and three times already the dam place has near burned to the ground because of the crack heads living here. Fortunately it’s a low-rise and easy to escape (in last year’s fire a pregnant woman was saved when tenants piled up some mattresses she could jump onto from the third floor).
But you’ll never have such luck as being able to jump and survive from a high-rise, and there are several high-rise public housing buildings here that have had fires, probably because of people high on crack as usual.
There have been so many bad decisions out of the McLachlan SCC that I think its time the govt simply ignored the court, since it really has no practical authority over the govt anyway. Another SCC change that is needed as well, that cases that do not have unanimous agreement of the justices, the FCA decison that lead to the SCC should stand. FCA case decisons are being overturned by a supreme court that is not in agreement. That means the law remains contentious and uncsettled, and therefore the lower court decision should carry. Precedence should not stand on a split decision within the highest court.
Give addicts free drugs, and as much as they want. It’s the most logical and most effective approach to true harm reduction.
The high cost of drugs fosters property crime and prostitution to feed the habit and organized crime gets rich off the ludicrous mark-up on street drugs. If drugs are free to registered addicts then they have a chance to get their life together out of the crime world.
Yes, some will undoubtedly OD; they probably would have anyway.
There are more addicts than the system can treat; adopt a triage approach to save the savable and make the end as painless as possible for the others.
The ones that overdose will reduce the cost to our overused health care system and make room for people with treatable illness who want to get better. For others, if they don’t have to resort to crime and prostitution to support their addiction, then they might have a chance to get their lives back together. At the very least it will reduce property crime.
Just giving out free paraphernalia only makes the drug lords richer.
All of these do-gooders who support useless ‘harm reduction’ programs using taxpayer dollars should spend their own money on programs they think are worthwhile and invite the addicts to come live with them.
It’s always easier to spend someone else’s money isn’t it?
WOW! firebomb a building full of other human beings? well Kate you let comments like this appear on your blog, and it just re-inforces the perception that this is NOT a conservative blog, but just a place for hate-filled people to hang out in.
Maybe you should talk to the parents of the kids who have been helped by insight to get off of the drugs that had controlled their lives.
Maybe you should take the comments in scripture a little more literally, I.E. “what so ever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.”
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
etc. etc. etc.
And we call the muslim religion the religion of hate….
Yeah, RIGHT!
Leo G:
Typical – jump to an erroneous conclusion, and then slur everyone here.
NME didn’t say “firebomb a place full of people”; he said “firebomb the place”. Presumably they are not busy 24 hours a day – a simple warning would allow anyone inside to get out.
Why don’t you make sure of what other people are saying before you jump down their throats?
Saw on the news today, a Dr. Patricia Daly beaming about the courts decision – she then so matter of factly, claimed that shooting drugs is basically the same as having an addiction to cigarettes, and many addicts need many attempts before they actuallly quit. No Doc,there is a difference, cigs are legal, herion, crack etc is illegal. Typical wing nut justification.
I must admit the only thing keeping me sane after reading the despicable supreme court decision on Insite is the comments here. Thank goodness there are still a few sensible people in the world left.
Well, I tend to agree with North of 60 on this one, but there is one other approach the Feds could take. Order the RCMP to surreptitiously spy on the Insite location, taking videos of entrances and the streets nearby. After a few weeks, it would be easy to identify regular “clients” (heh!).
Then, run the videos backwards, and see where the “clients” “go”. Right to their dealers, most likely. Add additional surveillance cameras as the need arises, until they are pretty sure they have identified the cohort of dealers servicing the shooting gallery.
Then have the RCMP swoop down and bust as many dealers and junkies as possible on a single day. With most or much of its clientele in the slammer, and the remainder spooked by the now-revealed surveillance, the “clinic” would probably cease to operate for lack of clientele.
I’m certainly no fan of random street video surveillance as is used in Britain, but mission-oriented surveillance in support of detecting known ongoing crime in a restricted area is OK by me.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/pubs/_sites-lieux/insite/index-eng.php
Have a look at this report. In puts InSite into perspective.
All the studies are observational and have no real control group. And mathematical modelling is used to predict outcomes. Where have we seen this before?
It’s not all bad but I think many of the people who go to InSite ere more likely to be open to help in the first place. It’s a pre-selected sample, I believe.
But it’s the outcome of the SC decision that worries me the most.
Leo G:
NME expressed a frustrated emotion. I tried to divert it back to the issue: the real danger is the crack, and what people do when they are high on crack such as start real fires — which I have personally experienced.
The danger of crack is what you should focus on instead of exaggerating the meaning of NME’s comment — the point is nobody has ever firebomed an injection site and nobody probably ever will, unless it is one of its own crack addicts.
FYI, injection sites don’t help youth get off drugs, rehab programs do.
In BC, the government is playing with the idea of charging higher MSP premiums to smokers now. What kills me though is I know a low income family who have a diabetic child and they struggle to pay for the needles and testing supplies and these scumbags get free needles.
I’m trying to figure out how they went from 8 or 9 ODs a year to 300 ODs a year in the same article.
You watch. Soon Victoria will be suppling cocaine, Heroin, or any drug they can conceive of. From your tax dollars, free to addicts who will never stop. The true facts are more than 80% give up this behavior. With free needles & all the other accompaniments the Government is make addicts stay longer in this debasing life style. The excuse will be it will stop crime. It won’t because these bums need shelter & food as well. Since work is a dirty word the crime will stay the same. You the citizen will be made a drug pusher.
How dow “harm reduction” occur when you inject poison into their bodies?
The good doctors and nurses reducing the harm of others’ children should be force to watch others inject the heroin into their own children to ensure their harm is reduced.
What the addicts need is rehab programs…forced or voluntary.
Incite is still aiding and abeting a criminally illegal activity. The SCC said it was a health issue, move it to a criminality issue.
The following comment comes from a Vancouver Facebook friend of mine. She isn’t stupid but rather is par for the course amongst Left-think there these days:
“Just because someone has an addiction & the problems that come with it doesn’t mean that they should be denied healthcare. You don’t know every addicts story and how they got there. Insite also helps prevent the spread of disease from dirty needles thus preventing further illness/diseases from being spread . Drug problems will never go away. Yes, prevention is the best way but we can’t ignore those that have current problems. As well, showing compassion to someone may have far more reaching effect that one might think. Negatively does the same thing so why not try a harm reduction approach? It’s a complex issue with no easy answer, however, in my opinion I think harm reduction is something that should not be overlooked.”
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, she’s loudly applauding today’s Supreme Court decision.
Hongcouver? More like Van Francisco…
I don’t really understand the reason for the supreme court decision. Is the government obliged to provide/permit a service if it is deemed that without this service someone loses life, liberty or security of the person? Maybe some lawyerly type can better explain that.
Brian M: 300 ODs a year and they prevent 8-9 ODs a year which seems like a pretty miserable success rate. If the rate of ODs have come down by 1/3 [Libby Davis (NDP)] since inite opened, I could be wrong, but it just doesn’t seem to me that insite contributed that much to it.
Here is the Lancet study that looked at decrease in ODs
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)62353-7/fulltext
Note that the number of ODs went down 88 per 100,000 person years withing a 500m radius of the site (a 35% decrease). No data on 1000m radius. In the two years prior to the opening, there were 56 OD deaths in the neighbourhood; in the two years subsequent, there were 33.
Note that the average age is 40 years old. These are chronic addicts, most of which would like to quit. So I think the data on InSite are for older junkies.
It used to be that drug use abates in your 40’s and that it was rare to see an addict who started in their 40’s.
Progressive loons handed another win by our pathetic judiciary, I am purdy positive this ruling opens up the door for lawful polygamy and prostitution. If they think the charter provides junkies with the right to get high in a safe place the same will apply to the other groups. On the upside whole milk is banned and selling it is a criminal offense but you can head on down to your state funded crack/shooting gallary and get high on taxpayer’s dime. Watch the left shove their incite francises down our throats Canada wide.
The only “parasites” here are the idiots who want to promote the WOD. The SCOC, in its relative wisdom, has punched a hole in the WOD. It’s unfortunate that InSite’s managers keep taking public money but it’s still better than shutting it down.
I love Leo G’s selective scriptural exegesis. I’ve heard it a thousand times “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” They never mention that Jesus then turns to the prostitute and say “Go thy way, and SIN NO MORE.”
Ricardo, you must be a youngster, we used to get the licorice pipes for about two-a-penny. And if you think the pipes were politically incorrect, you can imagine how aghast they were when they heard what we called the little black licorice babies!
Vancouver is called San Francisco North for good reason. Nothing a rise in the Ocean level wont cure.
I understand from the news reports that the SCC decision was unanimous, so they all must have agreed with the decision. A rare occurrence.
Sad day.
Another reason not to vote Fiberal in BC! They have already stated they will continue the services and look at additional shooting galleries.
Bring in John Cummins and his Tories, and he will shut that drug den down for good!
The Feds don’t have to fund it, but the SOC, a law unto itself, has said they can’t revoke the license.
Excuse me, but who is running the country, the court system, or the government?
“The parasites have won a victory.”
What? Didn’t you know? It is the Supreme Court’s mandate to remove the natural consequences of bad decisions people can make. And it’s our jobs, as citizens, to subsidise those bad decisions.
larben, exactly. the compassion of Christ is seen perfectly in that sentence. actually in one version of the bible that I have He says, “go now and repent”
Fine, let us assume that NME was just talking about firebombing an empty building, still hypocritical, as this would also be considered a crime, or sin.
That some here cannot see the humanity that still resides in these dregs of society, that these people still have mothers’/fathers’ etc. that love and feel the anguish just goes to show me that you may have never walked in their shoes.
these dregs are still human beings, and as such are still filled with the divinity of Christ, we may just have to look a bit harder to see it.
For shame
Time to tell the PM to exercise the notwithstanding clause.
Leo
Those choirboys shooting heroin, are breaking into LAW ABIDING citizens homes, their cars, ripping off businesses, etc, to support their “honourable” habit.
And all you can do is sympathize with the dopes.
I don’t think Christ advocated heroin use, don’t see that in the good book anywhere!.
The Body is a Temple…..tell where shooting heroin is abiding by that!
The NDP should run canada why? because everything they wanted has come to past. From:
Gay marriage
transgender
drug illicit clinic
gay pride parade
and so on.
They have gone against the crimes that protects all canadians
they are against our troops calling them in fact ‘war-criminals’
they went against budgets that was for the public.
Yep this country is runned by leftist judges, ndp and what have you.
Thanks for the link, Robert. Its always fun when you guys come and read my ravings. ~:D
They have gone against the crimes
correction: They have gone against the crime bills.
Linked. Robert, Thanks for the story and pointers to Hasiuk and the Vancouver Courier. I was unaware of either.
First of all, for years Methadone treatment has been available across Canada to all heroin addicts – free of charge to those on disability or on social assistance who admit to having a drug problem that has been confirmed by a physician, so drugs are being freely given away already, yet the crime rate has not been positively impacted one iota.
Methadone is more addictive than heroin and much harder to withdrawal from. Methadone is used because it is made by ‘reputable’ pharmaceutical companies. I strongly doubt that the government will ever agree to making an addicts drug of choice freely available to them.
There are other options such as Naltrexone implants, but as far as I am aware they are not used to help those addicted to opioids or alcohol. Even with a Naltrexone implant, psychosocial supports are needed.
Insite and other government funded harm reduction programs are just for show, they have a negligible impact on the crime rate or overdose as methadone treatment has proven, but these programs are infinitely cheaper than treatment which is the real reason they are being implemented.
The controversial nature of these harm reduction programs provide an excellent smokescreen/distraction from the real problem which is a serious lack of effective treatment facilities. If we can build new prisons, we can build new treatment facilities or expand the existing ones. One could even argue that building/expanding new/existing treatment center’s would result in the need for less jails.
Harm reduction is like putting a band-aid on a punctured artery and then pretending/claiming you have provided medical care to that person and possibly saved their life.
If you get the chance, view the GlobalBC website for the video clip of the news of the shooting gallery staying open.
Its like an alternate universe exists, where heroin addiction is celebrated as a wonderful thing, along with the related crime and baggage that comes with it.
Of course the poverty pimps and unionists are leading the cheering section too.
Funny thing, there has been no surge in crime along with InSite at all. That idea never made sense Insite just provides needles.
Somewhere there must be pedophile support groups just rubbing their hands with glee. After all , they must know they are next in line for acceptance in our very liberal society.(As long as they are non smokers). After all, what’s left out there ?
Oh yea, I almost forgot the beastiality thingy but then again, the century is still young. Some of them really love their sheep, horses and dogs etc.
Will never happen you say ? 20 years ago, even in your wildest dreams did you ever think we would have legal heroin shooting galleries. Same sex marriage ? A hefty tax on nothing at all.(Carbon) A government run by activists? A CHRC that fines you for speaking without thought. Transgendered ? Many more fine examples of how far we have come.(?)
Ahh yes grasshopper, we still have a long way to go. Ask anyone from NAMBA. (North American man boy association) They love children and actually have lobby groups. They have feelings too.
And it’s only 2011.