seth

Remember Greenies for Gordo.

Yes Jody many excellent points but poorly researched like a lot of Greenie initiatives. This sort of provincial tinkering with federal law would simply result in your neocon friend - you know the one your federal Greenies almost handed a majority government - Stephen Harper ordering the lieutenant governor to refuse your proposed ultra vires legislation.

If the attorney general refused to enforce federal drug laws your friend Harper would simply toss him in the can.

The Social Credit party in Alberta in the 1930's tried to get through some enlightened banking legislation and got a thorough butt kicking from the feds at that time.

Still some excellent points and many NDP party members agree with you. You could have contributed immensely by working for change on the inside helping the NDP defeat Gordo in Vancouver - Fraserview by seeking and undoubtedly winning the NDP nomination. Instead you are actively seeking to attract left leaning NDP votes to your lost cause ensuring the reelection of Mr Brown himself Gordo "the ogre" Campbell. Rest assured Gordo and gang would love to see all the province's ganga users locked in some federal prison.

The BC NDP is identical on all policing and justice issues to the BC Liberals. It is a myth that this province has an opposition to the Liberals! Carole James and her silent and feckless MLA's support more police, more tasers, more drug war, more "safety" inspections (warrantless invasions of peoples home due to electrical bills), more incarceration. The BC NDP in power and out never advocate civilian oversight for policing. The BC NDP want to keep our national occupation force -the RCMP- as the BC police force.

The BC Greens are true champions of safe streets, reduced crime, and reined in police. End prohibition, ban tasers, end the surveillance cameras on Vancouver streets, abolish the RCMP and reinstate a BC provincial police service, establish a powerful board of civilian oversight on policing, ban all future megaprojects requiring massive tax subsidies, end fish farming in BC, complete primary, secondary and tertiary treatment of the sewage systems throughout the province. No more Olympics, convention centers or transit lines to nowhere that soak the resources of this province and impair the ability of BC to have optimum hospital, school and housing care. Spending priorities under the BC Greens are clearly more transparent and consistent than the NDP's self-indulgent spreading of taxpayer largesse to the public service unions and their ilk.

By the way, if you want to find out what happens to drug-law reformers like Jodie who decide to help the NDP, look no further than Dana Larsen and Kirk Tousaw, both drug-law reformers who won an NDP nomination meeting fair and square in 2008 only to be bounced out because of youtube videos showing them -gasp- smoking pot.

The federal NDP has blessedly wonderful MP's in Ottawa by the names of Bill Siksay, fearless on the issues like his mentor Svend Robinson was, and Libby Davies, a courageous and correct woman on crime, policing and justice issues.

The BC NDP has no such luminaries in Victoria, no such visionaries of social justice. And for voters who place value on principles and correct theory, the BC Green Party is the choice for change.

So by "drugs" you mean marijuana - is that not only a small piece of the pie? I somehow can't believe there would be no more gangs in Vancouver just because people can grow/sell pot - as long as all other drugs are legal this solution would only be a drop in the bucket.

seth

You just don't get it Mark.

Greenies are for Gordo. A greenie vote simply attracts low information voters from the left to vote Green not NDP and thereby insuring Mr Brown Gordo "the Ogre" Campbell wins reelection. He then gets to spend the next four years damning up rivers all over the province for his pirate power projects wasting tens of billions in taxpayer revenues and wrecking hundreds of pristine rivers, building fish farms in every inlet that can support them thereby destroying countless salmon runs, drilling for oil off the coast and leaving more kids starving than in any other province in Canada. One thing for sure he will be throwing all his support into Harper's tough new drug laws and do his best to throw you and Jodie and Dana Larsen and Kirk Tousaw in the slam. None of those things would happen under a Carole James government. As much as you despise her I can't believe you like Gordo more.

As I stated earlier most NDP rank and file support a lot of your police/ ganga issues and you and homies would help the people of BC a lot more if all joined the NDP attended policy conventions and overwhelmed the law n' order/labour wing off the party. Carole James has to get elected and she can't do it with candidates openly breaking the law. Your friends in the neocon mainstream media would eat her alive.

You Emery's need to compare yourselves to another well meaning Greenie idiot named Ralph Nader who by attracting 5% of the progressive vote in 2000, singlehandedly gave the world one million dead Iraqis and the worst economic crisis since the 1930's. You really need to think of the damage you will do to BC by reelecting Gordo "the Ogre" Campbell.

This is old news. Plagiary is the product of lack of their own research. Marc's new 'princes of pot' is just saying what most of us have been saying for years. When did she become "princes of pipe dreams"? The 'herb Cannabis' is NOT the problem in prohibition. It's the manufactured drugs, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy and a host of other poisons. Back to reality. We Canadians don't need to look at the # 1and #2 most corrupt nations, the u.s.a. and Mexico to see that prohibition won't work. Americans boast an appitite of 350 metric tons of cocaine, 20 metric tons of heroin each year and Mexico is their 'drug corridor'. We won't even touch on the corruption problems in Mexico.
The NDP did themselves a favor by 'bouncing' the "crystal methamphetamine promoter, Dana Larson" (Cannabis Culture Sept-Oct, 2000) from their nominations. Hey, Marc Emery owns that rag, is he a 'promoter of crystal methamphetamine' also? Most uneducated don't understand that it's these "dangerous drug and their promoters" that are the biggest "players in prohibition", not the 'healing herb Cannabis'.
Charge the 'players' with 'tax evasion' and take their product and give it to those that need it, under a very supervised program, weaning them off the 'poisons' on a weekly basis. This might not be the right answer or the best way to proceed, but it's a lot better than what the federal, provincial and Vancouver's health professionals and providers are doing about these 'dangerous diseases', drug addictions.
Jodie sure writes a lot like Marc, using the Spanish American colloquialism, 'marijuana', in favor of the botanically correct name 'Cannabis". Does she belive like Marc, that The Sovereign Canadian border is 'just an imaginary line'? Imagine going to the u.s.a. every time you want to see him. All over his "own stupidity". Don't be misslead by those that don't know.

I presume you mean "as long as all other drugs are ILLEGAL"

And no, it wouldn't mean there would be no more gangs. But they will definitely be kneecapped financially, thus reducing their ranks drastically, and once again relegated to the dank corners of society from whence they came.

With a little work she could almost sound like a politician. The motherhood statements need a bit of work though. The figures for tax income are ludicrous at best. The pot industry already pays huge taxes on its paraphernalia, fertilizers, vehicles, rentals, purchases of property, etc. As for "kneecapping" the criminal organizations, what a laugh. The triads have been around since recorded time. As long as there is a market for anything cheaper there will be a black market and there will be organized crime making a buck. You cannot even count the local John Gotti wannabes as real organized crime, just a low level fly by night bunch of two bit in your face hoods. Which, interestingly enough have had some rounding up by the often desecrated "lazy bums" police departments.

Pornography and gambling are regulated and taxed and we even have gaming grants to kids sports regimes like Little League. So why is the real organized crime into gambling? Because its a money maker and if you keep a low profile the cops do not pay any attention to it. That's why its been around for so long, as opposed to the local in your face riff raff.

Carole James is a vapid, ineffectual puppet whose strings are pulled by the Unions and CUPE. If she gets elected, it will just be one OUTRAGE after another over shit that doesn't matter. Oh, and 30% raises for union workers when everyone else is having their salary or jobs cut. That's about all the NDP are good at: complaining and bitching, with their only solution being higher union wages. Great, that's just what B.C. needs in this worldwide economic climate.

Just look what our NDP Mayor has given Vancouver so far: Chickens, spy cameras on every street corner, turning City Hall lawn into a garden, canceling the moratorium on deadly Tasers, and lots more homeless shelters. Yes, that's what Vancouver needs most.

Seth, the rank and file have no power over elected MLA's, they do what Carole James tells them to do, and nothing the BC NDP party membership wants ever gets translated into action on the floor of the Legislature. Nice guys like Nicholas Simons (Powell River - Sunshine Coast) have turned into total wimps and can't bring themselves to propose a ban on tasers, or a reduction in policing, or make a bill to beef up civilian oversight, or ridding the surveillance cameras from Vancouver streets, etc.

As to repealing prohibition, it would start with ending marijuana prohibition, then once a regulatory regime has been tested and verified, the repeal of all other prohibitions would proceed.

Very little gambling has organized crime involved, because legal gambling is virtually everywhere, including online and in licensed facilities everywhere. It used to be called 'running the numbers' when the various mobs controlled it, but its been a while since I heard someone in BC go to a "bookie", when they can buy lottery tickets on every street corner, play poker in 10 casinos in the lower mainland, etc.

I haven't seen many liquor bootleggers either since BC ended alcohol prohibition in the early 30's and put in place the regulations on alcohol we see today.

With all the legal escorts permitted to advertise, the number of pimps in this town is pretty small relative to the thousands of women operating as escorts.

All these casinos, lotteries, escorts, alcohol outlets are subject to regulation, tax collection, age restrictions, etc.

This is simply the way that drug distribution will be done also, to similar beneficial effect to BC.

The BC NDP is mostly likely to change for the better if the NDP under Carole James is defeated this election and a new BC NDP leader is chosen from amongst their admittedly gutless and cowardly caucus. Perhaps if that new leader develops a backbone, vision, and some new ideas, perhaps the BC NDP of the future will be worth a look. But certainly not in 2009.

Once we get STV in the province, then electing Green MLA's is a certainty and we can finally be rid of this lose-lose paridigm of having to select the lesser odious of two stinky corrupted, parties.