They Call This Health Care

I was a victim of the super virus back in 2003.It was the most painful thing imaginable and I was never put in hospital and never given proper pain medication for what was chronic and horrible pain.I foolishly thought that as I had been addicted to opiates for most of my life that it would be a no brainer to put me on an opiate pain medication and allow me to manage my pain for whatever time was left to me.I had my 60th birthday last month.The only thing the medical system has done is with hold any real help and to claim that they are doing this because they don't want me to be addicted.They have been giving me methadone for the last 10 years?Methadone is a lousy pain killer and the reason it's used in heroin treatment is that after a relatively short time it has no effect on you at all.So it does very little if anything to help with my pain and because it was designed to block the effects of heroin and other opiates it reduces whatever possible good I may have received from the morphine they give me.In fact morphine is what methadone is the most effective at blocking.I have to take the methadone and the morphine together in a witnessed ingestion daily.Just what a person in chronic pain really needs,a daily trip to the drug store.I have been on a waiting list for St.Paul's pain clinic for almost 15 months.I was just informed that that is not even half of the time I'm expected to wait for an assessment at St.Paul's.I lost the entire lumbar section of my spine and lost 5 and 1/2 inches in height.I am forced to spend 18-20 hours a day in bed or suffer incredible pain.I am depressed,have panic attacks which are becoming more frequent and suffer 10 times as much in winter.I have been getting by on the assumption(based on what I was told by my neurosurgeon)that I would be accepted by the pain clinic in 6-18 months.Now I'm told this is only the warmup for the real wait.I stopped all street drugs when I was first put on pharmaceuticals in the belief that I would rec eive timely and proper medical treatment.This is worse than a bad joke.I have been told that pain of a chronic nature shortens a persons life expectancy in direct relation to the time the persons pain goes improperly treated.I have been in pain since 2003 for a number of reasons.Some were of my own making through misunderstanding and most are because the system doesn't care one whit about my suffering.All they are concerned about is how it will look if an addict is given the necessary pain medication.I have never once been asked if the medication is working or how the pain is.I was crawling into my doctors office with two umbrellas as canes and not once was I asked why.Every practitioner I've seen has either lied to me or been deceptive to where it could pass as a lie .I have been met with concern for their careers and nothing else.What kind of medical system do we have when treatment is withheld out of fear of reprisals by the governing body.Specialists won't prescribe at all.Regular doctors know nothing about pain or how to deal with it.I was forced to take 20 full strength ibuprofen just to stop the spasms that were so painful death would have been welcomed.Now it looks like I'm to be left to suffer because I might get addicted to something other than the government approved medication.They've even taken to using methadone as a painkiller in short term cases so they can justify this kind of brutality.I'm sure the reasons they would give would be different but it's a known fact that as a painkiller,methadone is the worst possible choice. So why else use it.The methadone clinics even tell their cilents that they are to be considered as clean and should be allowed in 12 step and other programs that require sobriety.Do you get the feeling there's a whole lot of malpractise going on.Damn right.I seriously doubt that I'll live through two more years of the kind of misery that is my life.I guess I just wasn't punished enough in prison.We have no pain management in B.C.What there is is overburdened and underused.Waiting lists vary from over two years to your guess is as good as mine.Don't get hurt in this province.I don't know about other places but here they would rather sit back and watch you die than do anything humane.I have no idea how much pain medication I need to control my pain to where I have some semblance of a life.I do know that as long as I have to go through a methadone clinic to get it it will never do me any good.Have I asked to be taken off the methadone.You bet but it seems a methadone doctor can only prescribe medication to a methadone patient.Catch 22.I've seen the way the elderly are treatwed in this province and we all know how insane government gets when the word drugs is brought into the picture.Better everyone suffer than one guy get high on a lie.That leaves those of us with legitimate need and a neurosurgeons reference waiting for endless years while our health goes steadily down the toilet.

After 100 years of drug prohibition

It's amazing how little has changed when you look at the time and background of our current drug laws.Because hard drugs haven't changed in percentage of population in that 100 years and really are the same as they were before the tax act that began the prohibition.It's hard to see what all the fuss is about?There's also the fact that drugs were kept in the poor areas and amongst the blacks and hispanics until the sixties when all manner of social change split the continent in half.With more than 50% of the people either using or having used drugs it is puzzling that the other half of the population gets their way and the half that uses and to a small extent abuses drugs is persecuted to the point that it's considered alright to do all manner of despicable things to them.Now we once again have a conservative government that loves to tell us how to live and does not hesitate to use force to get it's way.Even though a majority of the public is and has been ready for decriminalization for almost 35 years,this bunch of born again zealots has introduced mandatory minimums even as the US is beginning to see how disastrous this kind of sentence is.The government has apologised for almost every racist action taken in the early 20th century.The one exception is the laws against drug use that were the result of racism and fear of other races.The government never mentions this and always alludes to some non existant cause that demanded that anti drug laws be passed.This is not true and the evidence is all over the web if you have the notion to look it up.Or you can continue to be prejudiced towards a majority of Canadians who just want to live and let live.Prohibition is the most expensive,least effective and most cruel way to not deal with the drug issue.It suits Harper and company just fine.They think that a lie becomes truth if it's repeated often and loudly enough.It's working for them so far because you let it.

Welcome to Afghanistan

With the war in Afghanistan going right into the shitter where anyone that's ever read anything about that country knew it would go.NATO has decided to take a firmer stance against the poppy trade.Afghanistan's one true cash crop on which farmers can make enough to feed their families for the year.Telling people that it was not so and that it was rich power brokers in Kabul was only the first step.As usual,the US goes in with the big lie and fear mongerers and then backs it up with their most powerful weapon,the almighty dollar.Training for erradication squads and military back up.The Afghans are masters at playing this game.The NATO commander claims they'll be going after the big landowners but this is exactly who they'll never touch.As long as Karzai has the final say on who does what to whom,there will be no touching the wealthy land ownres.There will be the usual dog and pony show with some truely pathetic erradication for the press and the real work will be left to the hapless Afghans who do what they are told and not one thing more.The guys erredicating the poppies are smoking hashish before and after every raid.This much has been widely displayed in documentaries from the scene.Drugs are seized and then dissappear,never to be seen again.They hold an annual burning of the seized narcotics but who knows how much of that fire is actual narcotics.The Afghan people are too smart and far too poor to be burning much cash in a fire for the US media.If the NATO forces are actually dumb enough to go in and start putting a hurt on the major growers they will find out what a real war looks like.This is a billion dollar industry in a dirt poor country.If NATO thinks that the Afghan people will just lay down and be told how to run their business,they're going to find out what makes the Taliban tick.The Taliban is far more philosophically opposed to opium than is the US or NATO.They had the trade down to a trickle and addiction at home was fatal if found out.These are a very hard people that live in a really hard country.To think that the US or NATO has the will to destroy their economy is ridiculous.This will be a big mistake in a war that has been filled with nothing but.

When is enforcing the law a criminal enterprise?

When you use the law to steal peoples property when there is virtually no evidence to support the proceeds of crime statute other than that the onus is now on the property owner to prove their innocence.Take the recent case of a reclusive gulf islands resident who's paid for,$600,000 dollar home was seized by the crown for the horrible crime of growing marijuana.Had this man actually been growing for profit he would have been aware of the law and the inherent danger of using his own property for the deed.The man,a 59 year virtual hermit,had been growing pot for his own use for 22 years.He freely admitted this thinking it would be in his favor.If he was a true criminal he would have said nothing and called a lawyer.The crown,in it's zeal to show how B.C. has a zero tolerance policy(unless your an aid to a government minister or a developer with a penchant for hookers and cocaine and the police chief for a friend)chose to take the mans every possession in spite of the obvious doubt that crime had anything to do with this property purchase.Since the passing of this act the Province has stolen 4 million dollars in just under two years.I'm sure a lot of this property was seized justifiably,if you think ownership a crime.If every drug dollar was pulled out of the province tomorrow,half of every new project would fall into the hands of whoever the drug lords chose to offload it on.How much of the recent construction boom do you think is being used to launder criminal proceeds?Not just drug profits but white collar crime prostitution,gambling,protection.Look at the recent activities of this government on the issue of patronage and lobbying.How much illegal money is involved in the ICBC scandal,the Dobel cases,the recent disclosures about the deals in Washington,not to mention Basi-Virk?Why is the only crime that's punishable by the forfeiture of property the drug crimes?It's a known fact that the majority of Canadians want an end to prohibition,especially marijuana prohibition.That's what's in play here.I don't know the man involved.I am only taking the word of him,his lawyers and his neighbors that he almost never has visitors or is even seen.Doesn't sound like a drug dealer to me and I was a drug dealer for almost 35 years.This law is double punishment for a property owner and nothing else.It puts the police in an obvious conflict of interest as the proceeds of the sale of seized property goes to the law enforcement community.What's to stop a police officer that sees something he likes from planting evidence and seizing it then having it purchased in a sweetheart deal for pennies on the dollar?Not possible you say? where have you been for the last 40 years.The drug war has corrupted more police officers than during alcohol prohibition when whole forces were on the mafia payroll.Do you really believe this isn't happening as we speak.We had a police chief working for a major drug ring in the late 50's before drugs exploded onto the scene.Does anyone think things have changed as much as they have with no concurrent corruption?What are you smoking?

Killings,shootings,grow ops and corrupt cops

It's been a really good month in the drug war.There have been two shootings in town.One was a fight amongst street level dealers and ended with one man shot in the leg,one arrested for gun possession and a third in the wind.The other was a gang land hit and will not be solved as the police have a zero for god knows how many killings in gang land.In Ontario,the arrest of two officers led to a case involving cops prison guards and drug dealing and use.It seems the crown took too long getting it's case together for a judge so the whole corrupt mess was tossed out.What else can you expect in a war whose only enemy is it's own people.The country is divided down the middle on the issue and the government acts as if it had a mandate to act as if it's own personal agenda was the law of the land.They have stiffened penalties for crimes that half the country doesn't even see as crimes.Prohibition was a disaster with alcohol because people love to drink.The prohibition of drugs succeeded for a time because the usage was mainly in the ethnic communities.Drug laws were aimed at ethnic peoples because whites in power feared that their women would fall victim to "negroes,hispanics and jazz musicians".The genie was let out of the bottle in the 60's when a generation rediscovered them in a counter culture that formed around war protest and a few college proffessors that thought the whole world would be better off if every one dropped acid.Marijuana has since become the intoxicant of choice of many people and has been tried by even more.It is less harnmful than alcohol and those that claim we have one problem and don't need another are probably never going to try drugs anyway.It is simply unfair to allow one of the most harmful intoxicants on the planet to be government distributed while less harmful substances are prohibited.It is obvious,to all but the right wing leaning and the moralists,that pot should be legal and other drugs should be controled and distributed by physicians.The prohibition of drugs has been a terrible and expensive failure.How much longer are we to be held prisoner to a failed and very costly experiment in human mind control?

Informants just weren't enough

The Vancouver police department wasn't satisfied with turning addicts into informants and putting their lives at risk by ratting out their friends.Now they've taken some poor sucker that was so desperate for drug treatment that he turned himself in,into a poster boy for duplicity.This obvious mental patient was coerced into making a video in favor of police chief Chiu's jailing of chronic offenders for more than two years.The deputy,a fellow named DePard actually said that crime was the worst it has been ever in the history of mankind.I won't even comment on the banality of this overstatement.There is no question that the Vancouver police have abandoned any attempt at truth or keeping the argument at a meaningful level.Parading this poor and obviously sick individual,even with his voice altered and his face obliterated,in front of the public is a desperate and contemptuous act.If this guy actually had to turn himself in to the police and beg for a federal sentence it points out the pathetically small choices an addict has in this Province.While on the one hand we are told that there are now drug courts offering treatment instead of prison.We have the police saying we need to send people to prison and this person agreeing with them.Where is this treatment we've been inundated with stories of?Why does this person,who admits that he has his addiction under control and is only doing drugs a few times a week,so unable to access a treatment program?Something is rotten here and we are not being told the truth.The fact that different drugs have different courses of treatment and different success rates for the programs is confusing the issue and there seems to be little will to sort out the differences.This man is a cocaine addict.I don't know what the success rates are for cocaine treatment but I'm sure they are far and away more successful than any heroin programs.We need people that understand the differences and can make relevant suggestions to be asked for input.If we continue to make policy based on hysteria,even police hysteria,we will get nowhere.It's time we stopped asking representatives from the treatment community for suggestions as they have a vested interest in keeping things just as they are.It becomes more obvious every day that there are holes in our safety net.Having the police make this video was a mistake as it doesn't show what they think it does.This video shows we need more treatment,not more prison.To the contrary,it points out the necessity to open up more facilities that can offer the treatment that some addicts are obviously looking for.

Vancouver Police Chief Is lying

Jim Chiu wants people to believe that sending addicts to prison is going to magically transform the city into a bright new future.He is well aware that he is lying.Prison is not a new solution to the drug problem.In fact it is no solution to anything except to warehouse human beings.No-one is claiming that we should close down the prison system and find something better.There are people that are simply too dangerous to allow them to live freely among us.Chiu says he's talked to addicts that have told him that prison saved their lives.He wants us to believe that they meant that they were grateful for federal time.(2 years or more)I have been at this long enough to know exactly what he is referring to.We often say that if it wasn't for all the time we've done we'd probably be dead.This is not a declaration in favor of the federal prison system but a comment on the violence of the addict lifestyle.For Chiu to suggest anything else is dishonest and disingenuous.Prison is a twisted and often brutal place to be and it warps the mind.Sending petty criminals and that is who we're talking about,to prison will only make them more dangerous when they get out.Even Chiu won't say how long he wants the sentence for these "super chronic offenders"(addicts)to be.One only has to look to the south to see what happens when you implement such laws.Prisons fill up and over flow and costs go through the roof.Do we want to have private prisons and long sentences for people who have a disease and steal to feed it?If there was anything new here it might be worth a try,even though it offends the soul.This is something that was done in the past with the result that it was found to be cruel and unusual punishment.I think the police chief knows this.If he doesn't he should look for another job.The Province also tried to have addiction declared a crime and to throw every one in prison for mandatory treatment.When confronted with the facts about the success rates for treatment of hard core addicts they were forced to withdraw the bill.This is a terribly difficult problem and there has,to this date,been no satisfactory solution.That is no reason to go back to imprisoning people for a sickness for long periods of time.It stops them from stealing for the duration of their sentence but it costs a lot of money and makes better criminals out of them.There is also the fact that people who do petty crimes to support their drug habits will turn to more serious crimes if the time they face is the same for both.The chief won't tell you that either and he's well aware of that as well.

dog and pony show losing it's zeal

It used to be that when the police made a major bust of any kind they would drag out all the seized property,run the perp walk,display a table loaded with drugs,money,guns and bundles of cash.They would have some officer with the sternest face in the division give a statement about how this was a _ year investigation costing$-millions of dollars and that it had dealt a major blow to the drug scene and to organized crime.On the street no-one even noticed.Today we saw another low in the dog and pony show era.One tattooed guy with an RCMP entourage went to the airport where they did a one man perp walk and then made the speech with nothing in the way of evidence as he was being deported by their con-air plan to rid the city from as many street people before the Olympics.This was a sad replica of bygone days when they actually solved crimes before they pandered to the public via the media.A few days ago they set up two addicts for murder by making sure the dealers they had just ripped off were aware of who robbed them and when they were being released.When the police do something like this and laugh about how much hurt these guys are in for they have sunk to using the street to attain the justice they are unable to deliver.This is a cowardly act and is no better than hiring a hit man to eliminate someone they dislike.This is just another example of the twisted logic that is the drug war and the total lack of morality or human decency that exists under prohibition.

Cops cry fowl,safe injection site to be judged

Over 500 police representatives from the western hemisphere got together in Vancouver this week to swap stories and scare people.There were all kinds of allegations and very little evidence to back it up but then they were preaching to the converted.There was talk of the terror of Central American gangs and how easy it was for them to cross borders.They wanted one individual locked up on zero evidence and weren't afraid to give the mans name and where he lived.Of course they "knew" this was a really bad guy they just didn't have any of that damn tricky evidence thingy figured out yet.Not to be dissuaded the cops alluded to all manner of horrific crimes that this guy must have committed.They released a whole bunch of figures that showed that they haven't actually done much to put a crimp in gang crime.That wasn't their take but 5 kilos of pot and one of cocaine is not exactly a dent in organized crime.Meanwhile, the feds have released their long awaited report on Insite,Our safe injection site and there is nothing in it that is any thing but positive .Now I guess it's going to be about whether it's positive enough.Tony Clement,our health minister says he'll let them know sometime in the next four months.The only possible reason he could have for denying them their extension now would be personal or dogmatic.Either way,these conservatives have never been shy to let their personal view cloud an issue.We'll know by June 30.

The Poppy is also a Flower

Not if you live in Alberta and have nosy neighbors it isn't.A 63 year old immigrant from India found that out the hardest way possible when he found himself in an Alberta court charged with cultivation of a narcotic product?I don't know if I'm the only one that's aware that hundreds of people have poppies growing in their yards and gardens every june and some of them are the most powerful poppies in the world.Is our government going to start arresting every person with a patch growing in the back yard?According to the judge in this case this is a terrible crime and must be crushed harshly to send a powerful message to anyone of a like mind?So all you criminals out there with a poppy patch in your yard can expect your door to fly off the hinges at any time because the drug war has entered a whole new era.It's zero tolerance to the max and no-one is safe.This 63 year old fellow has been growing poppies for a medicinal tea since he was a child in India and is shocked at the way he's being treated.Although he was aware it was against the law he thought that because it was on his own land and he was using the product himself he would not be bothered.He underestimated the psychotic nature of anti-drug warriors and their bottomless pit of a soul.The paranoia that the word drug elicits in the cruel and pitiless legions of the anti-drug thought police is never ending and without mercy.How this case could effect society in any manner is beyond even my wildest dreams.Some 63 year old man drinking a cup of tea each day is such a threat to us that we have to crush this poor man with the full weight of the law.I don't know what the drug war is trying to show here,unless it's that they are without mercy and that none are safe?That's pretty much their message all along so I don't know why this one hits so close to home.If you've been listening to the recent dialogue from Texas you'll have heard all the talk of brainwashing and how horrible it is to feed young minds with false information that ill prepares them for the realities of life.The drug war is the biggest and most insidious brainwashing of a people since Hitler did a number on the Jews.One day the lies and fear will disipate and we'll be able to live our lives without the fear of the jack boot at the door.This case just may display to more people the insanity that is the drug war.The Poppy is Also a Flower is a book I saw somewhere but it is also the truth and my mother used to grow them all down the side of our house in the east end of Vancouver.If she was still alive I'm sure she would shrug her shoulders and say"they wouldn't arrest me".Sorry mom but the world is a meaner and nastier place because in a province called Alberta,they do just that.