3857 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

In October, The Bureau published an investigative story of mine which recounted how safer supply programs in Nanaimo, British Columbia, are being widely defrauded and flooding communities with opioids and crime.

 

This story follows up with more testimony from Nanaimo illustrating how bad government policy is destroying lives and blighting cities.

 

Widely available in Canada since 2020, safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free, taxpayer-funded pharmaceutical alternatives to potentially-tainted illicit substances. Canadian programs typically dole out hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin, to mitigate consumption of street fentanyl – supervised consumption is rarely required.

 

 

https://www.breaking...crime-wave-amid

[JimV]

Now the Auditor General has piped in.  (Full disclosure, I get distracted by his bulging, bald skull and likely miss some of his remarks.)  Anyway, he criticizes the safer supply program not because it results in more deaths, addiction and public disorder, but because we don’t keep better records.  It turns out, Pickup declares, we need more consumption sites and an extended program.  What a god idea! Anyone can see from the hunched over zombies stumbling around our downtown streets that they definitely need more drugs and a more reliable supply.  

[Victoria Watcher]

A new study led by a B.C. criminology professor says people jailed in the province who have addiction and mental health issues are at high risk of being reincarcerated within a few years of being released. 

 

Amanda Butler, an assistant criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., says former inmates with substance use disorders and mental health issues are more likely to end up back in jail than those without addiction or "mental health needs" on their own. 

 

The study published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior says 72 per cent of people with both substance use and mental health disorders ended up back in jail within three years of being let out.

 

 

https://www.timescol...n-study-8492629

 

 

 

Butler said in an interview Thursday that people let out of provincial jails often find themselves without adequate housing or employment options.

 

She said jailing people with mental health and substance use disorders often exacerbates their problems. 

 

"The reality is that for many of these folks, they are ill and they haven't had their needs met and it's not serving anybody to continue to put them in institutions that will continue to fail them," Butler said. 

 

Substance use disorders, Butler said, are the strongest indicator that someone will likely reoffend and end up back in custody, and the corrections system is not designed to get at the root causes of criminality.  

 

"In Canada, we still have a system where our purpose and principles of sentencing are largely focused on denunciation, deterrence, retribution," she said. "It still largely is a system that is focused on denouncing criminal behaviour (and) separating people from society."

 

She said the correctional system is focused on reducing crime and addressing public safety, "but the reality is that so many of the factors that are related to offending don't fall within their mandate."

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder what she proposes as an alternative.   Some people just have to go to jail.   And they only end up back there if they break the law - again.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 March 2024 - 01:24 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Editorial: Province must limit drug use in public places

Prohibiting drug users from shooting up in public places where children may be present is nearly the definition of a reasonable limit.

https://www.timescol...-places-8493997

But this process could take years, and all the while, drug use in public places will continue.

There is a simpler solution. The province should invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.

That clause enables the provinces to exempt their legislation from challenges based, among other things, on sections 7 and 12 of the Charter.

Premier David Eby has already said he finds it absurd that the province can regulate where alcohol and tobacco may be consumed, but not dangerous drugs.

We agree. So put an end to this needless litigation, and invoke the notwithstanding clause.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 March 2024 - 04:24 AM.

[JimV]

^Exactly right.  I’ve been advocating this for a while now.   Too Tall, of course, will never do it.

Edited by JimV, 22 March 2024 - 10:06 AM.

[JimV]

 

The study published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior says 72 per cent of people with both substance use and mental health disorders ended up back in jail within three years of being let out.

 

 

https://www.timescol...n-study-8492629

 

 

Must be hard to identify a control group since the number of incarcerated offenders who abuse dugs must be very close to 100%.  “Mental health disorders” also needs an operational definition.  Nearly all of them could be said to have some degree of mental impairment.  I don’t know how the study authors dealt with these issues.

 

Point is, though, is the recidivism rate is very high for all prisoners.  By the time someone has had enough convictions to earn themselves room and board on the king’s shilling it’s not likely that any correctional policy is going to make much difference.

[Nparker]

...By the time someone has had enough convictions to earn themselves room and board on the king’s shilling it’s not likely that any correctional policy is going to make much difference.

This. True rehabilitation is pretty rare for repeat offenders.

[Mike P.]

Editorial: Province must limit drug use in public places

Prohibiting drug users from shooting up in public places where children may be present is nearly the definition of a reasonable limit.

https://www.timescol...-places-8493997

But this process could take years, and all the while, drug use in public places will continue.

There is a simpler solution. The province should invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.

That clause enables the provinces to exempt their legislation from challenges based, among other things, on sections 7 and 12 of the Charter.

Premier David Eby has already said he finds it absurd that the province can regulate where alcohol and tobacco may be consumed, but not dangerous drugs.

We agree. So put an end to this needless litigation, and invoke the notwithstanding clause.

 

100% 

Also, did you know the CRD "Clean air bylaw" doesn't cover smoking crack/fentanyl within 7 meters of any airways? Only tobacco and marijuana. 

[Victoria Watcher]

A Victoria man who was caught by police delivering ­fentanyl has been sentenced to a federal prison for two years plus ­­one day by B.C. Supreme Court ­Justice Robin Baird, who ­chastised the man for his role in B.C.’s overdose “disaster.”

Dana Stanly Gordon Carlson, 50, was found guilty of a single count of possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking on Nov. 16, 2023.

Carlson had been caught delivering seven ounces of 14 per cent pure fentanyl worth $24,000 to the Victoria Police Emergency Response Team on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Baird said Carlson’s role in the fentanyl supply chain was “limited to that of a courier or delivery driver” and noted Carlson had no prior criminal convictions and was remorseful, the judge declined a conditional sentence sought by Carlson’s lawyer.

https://www.timescol...-prison-8527081

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2024 - 08:23 AM.

[Nparker]

But it's OK when the government delivers taxpayer-funded opioids.

[Nparker]

#clownworld - hypocrisy edition

[Victoria Watcher]

Oh don’t worry, we were also paying for this guy:



Carlson, who ended up living most recently in a social housing complex, told the court that he was paid $500 to deliver the fentanyl on behalf of a “contact” from Nanaimo.

“But none of that alters the fact that in a case like this, the preeminent principles of sentencing are those of denunciation and deterrence,” Baird stated.

“The devastating effects of fentanyl distribution and use are by now notorious. We all know what is going on, Mr. Carlson, and you do, too. Drug addicts are dropping dead all over the place from the abuse of this substance, and living at Our Place in Victoria you must see it with your own eyes every single day.”




Now we will pay for him in prison.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2024 - 08:29 AM.

[Sparky]

3 years from arrest to trial. 

[max.bravo]

 

Carlson had told the court of a tough childhood, obtaining only a Grade 8 education, and how his drywalling business dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading him to make, as Baird described, “a disastrous choice while he was in this straitened financial situation."

Too bad he couldn't find any First Nations ancestry in his family tree - the Gladue principle would've got him off the hook for sure.

 

Also - never trust a drywaller..

[Nparker]

...we were also paying for this guy [at Our Place]...Now we will pay for him in prison.

It's probably less than paying to keep him at Our Place.

[Victoria Watcher]

Too bad he couldn't find any First Nations ancestry in his family tree - the Gladue principle would've got him off the hook for sure.

Also - never trust a drywaller..

He’s 50, with no prior criminal record. Is the 8th grade education and tough childhood relevant?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2024 - 09:02 AM.

[lanforod]

Lawyers pull everything in to try make judges sympathetic I guess. This case I agree with the sentence for once.

[Nparker]

...This case I agree with the sentence for once.

It seems odd though when far worse crimes (than supplying addicts with what they want) get much more lenient sentences.

[lanforod]

You’re just saying the same thing I said with different words.

[Nparker]

Actually I am not. I think the sentence was too harsh compared to other sentences I have seen recently.