From today's National Post comes a letter from an addict's relative, saying enough with the pity parties and poverty pimps.

As a family member of one of Victoria's junkie population, I do not agree that "most wish their main remedy did not have to be a dose of crack or heroin injected in an alleyway." As many a family member of a junkie will tell you, until the day they actually reject a dose in favour of detox, addicts wish for little besides more and more doses of crack or heroin, and the fewest possible distractions from getting on with them. The feelings, needs and rights of other people are distractions that junkies very readily dispense with.

Junkies are pretty ruthless about acquiring the means to get more drugs, and one of the means they need is territory. They need a place to hang out with their cronies, a place to connect with dealers and a place to shoot up. They don't care if it's an alley, as long as no one hassles them. As both Vancouver and Victoria have shown, any territory not aggressively defended by civilized society will be lost to the drug scene.

It is very convenient, but not at all believable, to assert that mental illness is behind the majority of drug use, panhandling and street life. If drug use were not so generously supported by society, via the generous supply of free food and shelter that allows junkies to concentrate better on their drug-seeking rather than on self-care, I think a lot of purportedly mentally ill people would recover their sanity quite quickly (leaving services available for the truly mentally ill).

It is also convenient, but, again, not believable, to assert that drug users are victims of urban society. If lack of services caused drug addiction, then there would be a lot more addicts. To see addicts as hapless victims forces the conclusion that they are powerless over their actions, in which case they should not be autonomous. If we consider them as autonomous as other citizens, free to use the streets, then they need to be accountable for how they use them.

Drug use isn't easy to beat by any means. But making excuses for drug users and supporting their drug use doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it makes it nearly impossible.

Labels: Drugs, Personal Responsibility

While dumpster diving late last night for something to blog about, I happened upon an article over at Rabble, where Krystalline Kraus (described as writer and activist) laments the violence on the streets and turns due process on its head.

The situation is similar in Vancouver. Last month Peter Collins, a 79-year-old church patron, was mugged by a homeless man in a downtown Cathedral. His assailant, 43-year-old Darcy Lance Jones, was apparently unsatisfied with the money Collins gave to him, and has now been charged with one count of robbery.

In regards to Collins' mugging, Vancouver Police spokesperson Constable Howard Chow commented to CityTV.ca: "I'm to understand that (Jones) touts himself as a bit of a professional panhandler... He's well known in the area and he is known to police."

Comments such as these are not the first times that the media has tried to link 'social ills' and violence.

Comments such as these? You mean, the facts of the case? The guy was known to cops, and had a history of this kind of behavior. That makes him a criminal.

But Toronto Councillor Michael Thompson, who claims he himself was the victim of an assault near Toronto City Hall last year, is calling for a complete city-wide ban on begging (in Toronto, aggressive panhandling is already illegal).

He claims to have been a victim. But he's a rich white guy, so he can't ever be a victim. Ever. Just like Ross Hammond. He deserved what he got, right? Oh, and by the way, shooting someone is also already illegal in Toronto, but that doesn't stop the progressive left from adding gun law on top of gun law. Maybe we need a panhandler registry...

Similarly, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has launched Project Civil City, aimed at tackling 'public disorder' problems in time for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. In a press release describing the initiative, Sullivan lumps the scourge of panhandling in the same category as open drug use.

Actually, in many cases they are one in the same, but our narrator doesn't bother to mention the drug addiction that leads many to the streets in the first place.

In another demeaning article, Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno suggests that the rights of panhandlers now trump the rights of ordinary citizens. She mocks homeless advocates who, in the aftermath of the [Ross] Hammond killing, called on the public not to lose sight of the socio-economic issues at play.

The whisper of sanity can barely be heard over the hysteria. Never mind that it has been repeatedly proven time and again that it is actually the poor who are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators.

Certainly the death of Hammond and the assault of Collins were tragic. But countless acts of violence - many fatal - are visited upon the urban poor every year.

Yup, very true. Usually homeless-on-homeless crime though. How come this isn't mentioned in the article?

Oh, and my favorite part: Ms. Kraus has decided that a charge is the same as a conviction when it comes to the middle classes harming the quirky and beloved street folk.

Sadly, such reactions are all too rare. Consider the August 2005 death of a homeless Toronto man, Paul Croutch. Croutch was bludgeoned on the park bench upon which he regularly slept by three Canadian army reservists - an apparent case of homeless bashing. All three reservists are members of the Queen's Own Rifles, based at Moss Park Armoury, and all were charged with second-degree murder and assault causing bodily harm.

They have not been convicted. They may never be convicted. They may be innocent. But the law is applied differently to those for whom Ms. Kraus crusades. Had it been a homeless man who had beaten a reservist, Ms. Kraus would have screamed for due process and reminded us that all are innocent until proven guilty. But in this case, she is willing to be judge and jury, and convict these men in the progressive court of the left-wing press.

Toronto has a problem on it's streets and in its ghettos where violence is too often overlooked in the search for "root causes". It's time to punish those who wreak violence on the population at large - and on each other - before this city becomes completely uninhabitable.

Labels: Drugs, Homeless, Murder, Toronto, Violence

The bleeding hearts of the Toronto Star would have you believe that yesterday's dawn raid on the black gangs of North Toronto (which netted 95 perps, guns, drugs, and dirty money) were bad because they scared the children.

Here's a different perspective on yesterday's police raids.

It comes from Andrene, who is 10 years old and experienced the first minutes at the end of police guns after officers burst into her bedroom just before dawn.

She was there with her mother, Sharon Mitchell, 32, and baby sister, Alexandra, 2. Down the hall in another bedroom were her cousin, Joanna, 9, and Joanna's mother, Charmaine Osbourne, 30.

"This morning, the police officers, they came and they were kicking down the doors," said Andrene in a solemn voice. "And they came in with their guns and they were pointing at my sister and me.

"My sister got scared and she was crying."

Alexandra was trying to coax Boss, a little white poodle-mix, to play. But the dog whined. The fur on its left side was burned to the skin.

***

She is angry that police had children at gunpoint. A supervisor for the Toronto school board, Osbourne said police should have known better than to do that, especially when she believes their surveillance would have shown children lived there.

Osbourne and her daughter, Joanna, hit the floor at the first blast, but police ordered them back up on the bed. "They had both of us on the bed with high-powered rifles pointed at us," said Osbourne, claiming they were held at gunpoint for about half an hour before being allowed to wait outside the house.

"My daughter was crying like there was no end to it. She was there crying and they had a gun on her.

I would be far more worried about having my criminal brother in the house with my little girls than having the cops come in. No children were harmed yesterday, but Toronto has seen little kids caught in gang crossfire many times over the past couple of years, some even losing their lives. As a matter of fact, child services should take those kids away and charge the mother with endangerment just for letting a gang-banger in the house with them.

As for little Andrene, let me tell you a little story...

It was 1984 and I was eight years old when we heard the banging and the boot steps that seemed to come from everywhere. It was winter, and it had darkened early. I was in the living room, in front of the bay window through which there was only blackness and the reflection of the TV, watching Three's Company. My father was in the next room, on the phone. He looked out the window, slammed down the phone, and ran out to the living room. I was grabbed unceremoniously from the La-Z-Boy and herded to my bedroom just as the pounding began on our front door. "Stay here" he said. "Don't you dare leave this room!"

The noise coming from the upper duplex above us was deafening. Yelling, a scream, more boots. I hid under the bed, terrified. What was going on? Who was at the door? What was happening to my daddy? Soon the door was opened by my mother, and our doberman was shoved in with me, the door closed again. Valentine (the dog) crawled under the bed with me (classic misconception that dobies are scary animals - really they're big pussies), shaking and whimpering. I put my arm around her and we cowered there for an hour, until the noise stopped. Until Daddy came back to get me.

I've just told you a story from an 8 year old's perspective - scared, unsure, clutching her dog, wondering if her daddy would ever come back. That little girl was me. Now I will tell you the adult version of what happened, which was explained to me that night and that I have never forgotten. Robert Mingo, our upstairs neighbor, with his two brothers Melvin and Nelson, had stolen $68 million of stocks and bonds from Merrill Lynch. They hid the suitcases in our shared garage, in an old car my father had up on blocks. That night, after thorough investigation, our duplex was descended on by the Montreal SWAT team, who surrounded the building, guns pointed at every door and window. They busted into Mingo's upstairs, ordering everyone, including Robert's heavily pregnant wife, face down on the ground. The team ransacked the house, and all were arrested. They came to our door and dragged my father outside, down into the garage, to present him with his suddenly valuable car, and to do preliminary questioning. Obviously he had no idea what was going on, and he was free to return to his terrified family (and dog).

I learned a very valuable lesson that night. I learned that if you commit crimes, bad things happen. You might be a nice person (the Mingo's were extremely nice people, and used to have barbecues with us), you might be friendly and family oriented. But bad things will still happen if you break the law. The cops came to my house, heavily armed. I was afraid. But ever since that night, I have not feared them. Once it was explained who they were and what they were looking for, I knew I was in no danger from them. Twice more in my life I have been in situation where the SWAT team were involved, and I was never afraid. I merely did what I could to protect myself should there be shooting (get in a room without windows, stay low), and I knew that when it was over the bad guys would be gone.

I hope Andrene realizes that they weren't coming for her - they meant her no harm. She was just in a dangerous place at a dangerous time, but that the police are not to blame. Her mother and her uncle are to blame for putting her in that situation. The police are responsible for getting her out of it. Good for them.

Labels: Drugs, Gangs, Jamaicans, Law Enforcement, Merrill Lynch, Mingo, Police, Rexdale, SWAT, Toronto

Keith Richards snorted his dad.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. . . . It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002 at the age of 84.

Labels: Celebraties, Drugs