B.C. Green party's platform promises to end drug prohibition, strip police of tasers

by Carlito Pablo on March 20th, 2009 at 10:26 AM

The Green Party of B.C. will work to end drug prohibition, and would kick the RCMP out of the province.

These policy positions are contained in the party’s platform released yesterday (March 19).

The party stated in its “Green Book” that it is “prepared to support an end to prohibition on psychoactive substances and begin regulating and controlling modes of production and access”.

The BC Greens also promised to bring back a provincial police force, which British Columbia had until 1950, when the RCMP was brought in to do contract police work for many jurisdictions.

The party stated that its “Green Strategy for Substance Use” will “take away power from organized crime without criminalizing those who struggle with addictions”.

The provincial Greens also pledged that they will work toward “regulation and control of the production and distribution of cannabis through licensed outlets” as well as support “regulated access to currently illegal drugs through a physician’s recommendation”.

“We believe that enforcement can and should play a role in a public health approach to substance use,” the Green Book read. “However, it should be focused on protecting the public from serious crime, rather than on personal substance use.”

B.C. Marijuana Party leader Marc Emery has said that his group is throwing its support behind the Greens in this year’s provincial election.

His wife Jodie Emery is running as the Green candidate in Vancouver-Fraserview.

In the area of law enforcement, the Greens said that aside from bringing in a provincial police force, they would also appoint an “independent Provincial Police Commissioner to oversee investigations of police conduct and process for all jurisdictions”.

Under the present setup, RCMP officers are not subject to provincial oversight processes.

In their platform, the B.C. Greens also stated that they would remove tasers “from all law enforcement agencies” in the province.

Comments

5 Comments

seth

Mar 20, 2009 at 7:05pm

seth

greenies for gordo

With some far left exceptions, there is little in this green platform that would not be acceptable to most centre left NDP members at a policy convention - largely a ripoff of NDP policies. The greens seem running as solely a Neocon/BCLib supported scheme to siphon off NDP votes.

This neocon/BCLib tactic was very successful in the last federal and provincial election. Remember how the Neocons's persuaded useful idiot Jim Green to run against Jim Green in the Vancouver election a few years back.

For example fish farms and IPP's are shut out in both the NDP's and greenie platform.

I still remember with amusement the two TV debates in the last election where Adrian Carr and Carol James ganged up on Gordo and ripped him a new one. No real differences there.

Foresight

Mar 21, 2009 at 11:29am

The Greens just got educated! They're using the correct name for the plant, Cannabis. The RCMp should have their name changed to the, "Sovereign Candian Mounted police". Royal my _ss! "Royal f__k-ups" is what they are. We have a website dedicated to these "perfidious public servants".
Police Integrity Guarantees Sovereignty, www.thepigs.ca

Mike Hansen/politician
Sovereign Vanguard

Marc Scott Emery

Mar 21, 2009 at 7:21pm

The NDP is uncritical of police malfeasance, police brutality, taser-overuse, police budget acceleration. The BC NDP has been an appallingly deficient opposition. The NDP has not offered any alternative to the disastrous Olympic spending over-runs. The NDP is entirely in the pocket of the unions in this province, you can see that in the financing of local Vision & COPE parties, as well as the provincial NDP. At the provincial level, the NDP has proxies who spend millions of dollars on "third-party" advertisements, while the BC Liberals have their third party business proxies do the same. The BC NDP supports organized crime by supporting prohibition. The BC NDP supports the "safety inspections" that affect thousands of homeowners in the lower mainland with unwarranted, unconstitutional and intrusive house searches. In action, the BC NDP would simply reward their union base with generous taxpayer pay-outs and continue all the regressive drug, police, Olympic policies of the BC liberals. On social justice issues, the BC Greens hit all the right notes by demanding an end to prohibition, banning tasers, demanding civilian oversight on the police, promising never to host these scandalous mega-projects again, stopping the implementation of on-street surveillance cameras in BC towns and cities, restoring the Legal Aid program to its proper funding.

Carole James is a Tony Blairite with pragmatic statist -the government is always dominant- views on all matters. She is playing to govern; Carole James is merely the next stooge of the status quo without a single relevant modern policy in her brain. The BC NDP also tolerates no opposition within the Party on the House of the Legislature. You either vote with Carole James or you are frozen out.

thecossack

Mar 23, 2009 at 1:55pm

Well that will certainly get the greens elected. From fringe to government in 3 easy policies. Marc Emery for Attorney General, Jodie Emery for minister of finance so none of this costs the taxpayer a dime. Can hardly wait to zip down to the liquor store for a bottle of yellow tail and a couple of hits of meth.