tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53612254063030137262024-03-18T20:13:58.822-07:00Toronto Drug Users UnionToronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-66165003128936130402015-12-22T15:26:00.001-08:002015-12-22T15:57:15.793-08:00Letter to the Works and John Howard Society Re: Partnership with the Police. <span dir="ltr"></span><br />
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Disclaimer: We encourage all those opposed to this partnership to contact the Works, and John Howard directly. Please voice your opposition. This pilot project needs to end. </div>
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December 21, 2015</div>
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Atten: Shaun Hopkins </div>
Manager, The Works<span dir="ltr">
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<span dir="ltr">Toronto Public Health</span></div>
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</span>Amber Kellen<span dir="ltr">
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Director of Community Initiatives, Policy and Research<span dir="ltr">
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The John Howard Society of Toronto</div>
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We are writing you regarding the current pilot “Street
Outreach” project with the John Howard Society, The Works and the
Toronto Police Services. After discussions with Shaun, it is our
impression that this is a referral based outreach
pilot project in partnership with plain clothes police officers. We are
disappointed and dismayed by this project and are fearful of its
ramifications and are asking for its immediate discontinuation.<span dir="ltr">
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Decades of trust has been built in this city between
people who use drugs and front line harm reduction workers. This trust
is being broken every day that this project continues. We do not need to
explain why bringing undercover officers
on outreach is problematic. The police is the most comprehensive tool in
reinforcing prohibition and we know you comprehend the magnitude of the
negative role the police play in the lives of people who use drugs. As
professionals working in harm reduction,
you should already be aware of these problematic dynamics.
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</span>We would like to see an end to this project. It was never
an appropriate partnership and we are incredibly concerned by the damage
this is causing. We do not want people to be fearful of calling the
Works to access harm reduction
supplies and or overdose prevention. We have heard claims that this
project has had a few meaningful responses. Those small meaningful
responses cannot be measured against the large negative impacts this
project is having. And these impacts are not limited
to The Works and the harm reduction programs it sponsors. There is real
danger that people who use drugs will generalize their distrust to all
harm reduction and needle & syringe distribution programs in Toronto
and beyond, increasing the risk of HIV, hepatitis,
and other BBI among this vulnerable community. <span dir="ltr">
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We would like to offer ourselves as a source for
consultation for future projects. It is obvious that the implications
and ramifications a project like this could have were not thought
through. We would like to help you think
these through in the future so that we do not find ourselves in an
adversarial role. We want to work in solidarity with TPH, towards a
common goal.. In the meantime we ask that this project is terminated
immediately and that both the Works and the John Howard
Society act quickly to repair the damage that has been created by this
partnership with the most coercive tool of prohibition. This project
has to stop before people who use drugs in this city become more fearful
of accessing any of the needle and syringe
distribution programs in Toronto and beyond.</div>
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On behalf of the Toronto Drug Users Union</div>
Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-42437337439060636002013-06-05T09:15:00.002-07:002013-06-05T09:15:47.516-07:00Everybody Uses Drugs....
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Everybody
uses drugs</span></b></span><span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">. </span></span><span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Alcohol,
antihistamines or heroin ... all of us put substances into our bodies to make
us feel better sometimes ...</span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 28pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 20pt 0cm 30pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><b><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 36pt;">Drugs: A Community Dialogue </span></b></span><b><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 36pt;"><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724fsl">with Dr. Gabor Maté</span></span></b><strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 36pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
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<div class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 20pt 0cm;">
<span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Join us to discuss
with Dr. Gabor Maté topics like stigma, discrimination, and criminalization;
the impact of trauma, well-being and self-medication; poverty, gentrification
and services; and harm reduction.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><b><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Franklin Gothic Medium","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Saturday June 8 from 12
sharp to 2 pm</span></b></span><b><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Franklin Gothic Medium","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">All Saint's Church - Community Centre </span><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">315 Dundas St. East (corner of
Sherbourne and Dundas)</span></span></b><b><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Franklin Gothic Medium","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="color: #943634; font-family: "Franklin Gothic Medium","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt;">This is a FREE event.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Franklin Gothic Medium","sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><br />
</span><span class="yiv0517781724fsl"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;">Food, refreshments, and childcare will </span></span><span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;">be provided. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">Space is limited and will be first
come first served. Priority will be given to people who are homeless,
under-housed or experiencing poverty. </span></span><span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;">This space is wheelchair accessible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Maté is the author of a ground-shifting best-seller
about addiction, </span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><b>"In the Realm of Hungry
Ghosts"</b>, and other compelling books about our brains and what drives
them. For seven years he served as Medical Co-ordinator of the Palliative Care
Unit at Vancouver Hospital. More recently he worked for twelve years in
Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside neighbourhood with patients suffering
from hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV.</span><br />
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<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">Visit </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdrgabormate.com%2F&h=9AQFxfDC2&s=1" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><span style="color: blue;">http://drgabormate.com/</span></span></a></span><span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="yiv0517781724msonormal" style="margin: 1em 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sponsored by :</span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
</span></b><span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Toronto
Harm Reduction Alliance</span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force - <a href="http://toharmreduction.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://toharmreduction.org/</span></a></span><br />
<span class="yiv0517781724textexposedshow">Canadian Harm Reduction Network - <a href="http://canadianharmreduction.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://canadianharmreduction.com/</span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<!--[endif]--></span>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-71312147909695450552011-12-07T09:58:00.001-08:002011-12-07T10:00:03.966-08:00A Day Without Art - Poster Campaign AANAIDS ACTION NOW launched the<span style="color: #f252b2;"> POSTER/virus</span> project last Wednesday night at the Art Gallery of Ontario.<br />
AAN and Toronto Drug Users Union member Zoe Dodd talks about her collaborative <a href="http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/JG"><span style="color: #f252b2;">poster</span></a> made with with John Greyson on harm reduction and prisions for the AAN<a href="http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/"><span style="color: #f252b2;"> POSTER/virus</span></a> project. Zoe addresses Bill-C 10 and Harper’s prison expansion (aka Canada’s National Housing Strategy), government perpetrated genocide through defunding the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the collective passion and fighting we need to step up in order to act against these attacks on our communities<br />
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Watch the video here of Zoe's Speech.<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cu_PKcVUw&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cu_PKcVUw&feature=player_embedded</a>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-67043006434141921742011-12-07T09:56:00.001-08:002011-12-07T09:56:57.244-08:00CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Former federal prisoners and their family members/close friends (honorarium offered)<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Hi all,</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Please see the amended post below, with an extended deadline, information about the honorarium, as well as expanded criteria for participation.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Many thanks,</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sandra </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold;">CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Former federal prisoners and their family members/close friends (honorarium offered)</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Video Advocacy Project on Human Rights and Prison Needle/Syringe Programs</span></span></i></b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In Canada, rates of HIV and hepatitis C infections among prisoners are at least 10 and 30 times higher, respectively, than in the population as a whole. One of the main reasons for this is the sharing of used needles to inject drugs. Yet, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of prison-based needle and syringe programs (PNSPs), no Canadian prison permits the distribution of sterile injection equipment to prisoners. Prisoners’ health has suffered as a result — a reality that is costly to public health and to the public purse. It is also a violation of the human rights of prisoners.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">This video advocacy project, being carried out by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (<a href="http://www.aidslaw.ca/" target="_blank" title="http://www.aidslaw.ca/"><span style="color: #0068cf;">www.aidslaw.ca</span></a>) and partners, will put a human face on the prison experience by interviewing both people previously incarcerated in federal prisons for a drug-related offence or who were dependent on drugs while in prison, and their family members and close friends. We will hear firsthand how prison has affected the lives of prisoners and their loved ones, many of whom need treatment for their drug use or mental illness — <i><span style="font-style: italic;">not</span></i> hard time, where they are more vulnerable to violence, overcrowding and blood-borne infections.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Legal Network hopes to raise public awareness of the plight of Canadian prisoners through short, compelling video clips and commentary that highlight the fact that prisoners are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends and contributing members of our community. We want to explore how the failed “war on drugs” has impacted prisoners and their loved ones. </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">We will interview five former prisoners and friends and family members of prisoners about how prison has affected them, and discuss how the absence of PNSPs continues to pose a threat to their loved ones’ health. <b><i><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Because we are focusing our advocacy efforts on getting PNSPs in federal prisons, we will only be able to interview people who have done time in federal prisons and their friends or family members.</span></i></b><i><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></i>Once the video clips have been filmed, the Legal Network and partners will disseminate the clips on websites and through social media. We hope that the general public and policy makers will come to see the importance of having PNSPs and change policy and laws. </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold;">Who?</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">We are seeking individuals in the Toronto area only:</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">who have been incarcerated in a federal prison for a drug-related offence and/or while they were dependent on drugs;</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">who injected drugs behind bars; and</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">family members or friends of those individuals.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">If you fit these criteria, email us by <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday, December 14th, 2011</span></b> at: <a href="mailto:schu@aidslaw.ca" title="mailto:schu@aidslaw.ca"><span style="color: #0068cf;">schu@aidslaw.ca</span></a> with your phone number and tell us also: </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<li class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What factors led to your (or your friend’s or family member’s) imprisonment?</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></li>
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<li class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What was your (or your friend’s or family member’s) experience injecting drugs behind bars? </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></li>
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<li class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What message would you like to send policy makers about the importance of PNSPs?</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></li>
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<li class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Are you willing to appear on camera?</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Given our limited budget, we can only feature five interviews of people fitting our criteria and we strive to interview men and women (including transgender men and women) who represent a diversity of experiences and backgrounds. For each interview, we will offer a $100 honorarium (if this is a joint interview, each participant will receive $50). We are especially interested in interviewing a former prisoner together with his or her family member or friend. </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Interviews will take no longer than 45 minutes.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">After the December 14<sup>th</sup> deadline, we will review all submissions and follow up with everyone who emailed us. While we appreciate everyone’s interest, we will only be able to film five interviews, though we will try to reflect, to the best of our ability, everyone’s perspective on PNSPs in the final videos. </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold;">Why now?</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Under the current Canadian Government, it is highly unlikely that PNSPs will be implemented. Yet, the urgency for PNSPs has never been more pressing. With new legislation expected to add to overcrowding, violence and the number of people using drugs in prison, the public needs to be aware of the health risks associated with inadequate harm reduction measures in prison and how it affects them — especially when prisoners ultimately re-enter their community. </span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<strong><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">____________________________</span></span></b></strong><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<strong><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sandra Ka Hon Chu</span></span></b></strong><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Senior Policy Analyst</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">+1 416 595-1666 ext. 232</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0068cf; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.aidslaw.ca/" target="_blank">http://www.aidslaw.ca/</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Analyste principale des politiques</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">+1 416 595-1666 (poste 232)</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.aidslaw.ca/" target="_blank" title="blocked::http://www.aidslaw.ca/"><span style="color: #0068cf; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;" title="blocked::http://www.aidslaw.ca/"><span title="blocked::http://www.aidslaw.ca/"><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">www.aidslaw.ca</span></span></span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-45701636746851008992011-11-28T13:26:00.001-08:002011-11-28T13:29:25.703-08:00AIDS ACTION NOW! POSTER/virus A fusion of HIV/Art/Activism<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<strong>AIDS ACTION NOW! POSTER/virus A fusion of HIV/Art/Activism </strong></div>
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Launch on November 30th DAY WITH(OUT) ART @ the ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO </div>
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6pm-8:30pm</div>
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Featuring performances by Kiki Ballroom Alliance and the Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy</div>
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Speakers: Allyson Mitchell/Mikiki/Jessica Whitbread/Zoe Dodd/Collin Graham </div>
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DJs: Nik Red/Leila P.</div>
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Featuring works by: Kent Monkman/Allyson Mitchell/Daryl Vocat/John Greyson/Cecilia Berkovic/Mikiki with Scott Donald</div>
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See the posters here:<a href="http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;">http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/</span></a></div>
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It is 30 years into the AIDS epidemic, and we are still struggling. New forms of AIDS-phobia, discrimination and inequality continue to emerge including the increasing criminalization of people living with HIV. In Toronto, we are still facing proposed cuts to municipal funding for essential social services to address HIV, Hepatitis C and Syphilis. Federally in Canada, the climate of fear and austerity are increasing health inequalities for us all. It is clear that now more than ever, activism and art are needed to reinvigorate the response to HIV and AIDS.<br /><br />This year, AIDS ACTION NOW is working to create a different kind of dialogue around HIV, in the art world, and on the street, in ways that hasn’t happened for a long time. Join us on November 30th for the Day With(out) Art: A fusion of HIV/Art/Activism at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 6-8:30pm.<br /><br />In honor of the Day With(out) Art 2011, AIDS ACTION NOW has launched a poster series created by local Toronto artists Allyson Mitchell, Kent Monkman, John Greyson, Daryl Vocat, Cecilia Berkovic, and Mikiki with Scott Donald. The posters were developed collectively with community members working to respond to HIV. The posters aim to address important issues facing our lives as people living with HIV and/or who are co-infected with HIV and Hepatitis C including sexual rights, harm reduction, criminalization of HIV exposure, and the need for political action to address the epidemics. <br /><br />Through merging the worlds of art and activism we are intentionally evoking the history of creative responses to HIV. Our aim is to provoke discussion, controversy and dialogue in a way traditional activism cannot. See the posters here (and watch as they are emerge around the city over the next 2 weeks): <a href="http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;">http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/</span></a><br /><br />AIDS ACTION NOW!<br /><br />POSTER/virus blog: <a href="http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;">http://aan-poster-virus-2011.tumblr.com/</span></a><br /><br />Facebook event page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123780651065997" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;">http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123780651065997</span></a><br /><br />Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy, the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), the Toronto Drug Users Union, the AIDS ACTION NOW Steering Committee, Doe O’Brien Teengs, Andrew Brett, Zoe Dodd, Len Tooley, Nicole Greenspan, Tim McCaskell, Brent Southin, Allyson Mitchell, Kent Monkman, John Greyson, Daryl Vocat, Cecilia Berkovic, Scott Donald, Mikiki, the AGO Youth Council, and the York University Faculty of Environmental Studies Community Arts Program.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.aidsactionnow.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0068cf;">www.aidsactionnow.org</span></a> </div>
</div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-34634398107537848852011-11-28T13:24:00.001-08:002011-11-28T13:25:15.655-08:00Harm Reduction as an Anarchist Practicepresented by the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force<br />
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Friday December 2 Speakers Series Presentation<br /><br />Harm Reduction as an Anarchist Practice: a user’s guide to capitalism<br />and addiction in North America 2 –4 pm. @ 410 Sherbourne Street,<br />3rd Floor Classroom<br /><br />Presenter: Christopher Smith<br /><br />In spite of its origins as an illegal, clandestine, grassroots<br />activity that took place either outside or in defiant opposition to<br />state and legal authority, there is growing evidence to suggest that<br />harm reduction in North America has become sanitized and depoliticized<br />in its institutionalization as public health policy. Harm reduction<br />remains the most contested and controversial aspect of drug policy on<br />both sides of the Canada-US border, yet the institutionalization of<br />harm reduction in each national context demonstrates a series of stark<br />contrasts. Arguing that the founding philosophy and spirit of the<br />harm reduction movement represents a fundamentally anarchist-inspired<br />form of practice, Christopher Smith considers tactics for reclaiming<br />and re-politicizing the future of harm reduction in North America.<br /><br />Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at U Pennsylvania, Christopher’s<br />current research examines consumer involvement in the addiction and<br />mental health sectors, underground harm reduction interventions in<br />Canada and the US, and global drug user capacity building initiatives.<br />His forthcoming book, “ Addiction, Modernity and the City: A users’<br />guide to urban space” will be published in 2012Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-60820530976546422922011-09-29T13:11:00.001-07:002011-09-29T13:11:55.649-07:00In Solidarity with Insite!!!!Join <strong>COUNTERfit</strong> and <strong>The Toronto Drug Users Union</strong> at South Riverdale Community Health Centre <strong>Friday September 30 at 9:30am</strong> as the Supreme Court of Canada’s hands down its written decision regarding Vancouver’s Insite. Insite is North America’s first legal supervised safe injection site. The scientific evidence in support of Insite is undisputable and many, many people’s lives have been saved since it opened its doors in 2003. <br />
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Tomorrow we will gather in solidarity with supporters of Vancouver’s Insite and harm reduction activists around Canada and internationally who all agree that people who use drugs deserve the same rights to health and dignity as every other human being. We will either be celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to support Insite or strategizing ways to organize in resistance.<br />
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Location & Time: <br />
<strong>South Riverdale Community Health Centre<br />
955 Queen Street East, Toronto<br />
9:30am</strong><br />
<strong>See you tomorrow!<br />
COUNTERfit & the TDUU</strong>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-19253135275005284982011-09-07T19:24:00.000-07:002011-09-07T19:24:53.268-07:00Voices From the Margins Drug User Activists in America!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/4lr8hnb5HYI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-2586236993891635382011-09-01T07:58:00.000-07:002011-09-01T07:58:50.521-07:00Wendy Babcock, our Friend, Ally and a Huge Loss to our Community....<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Wednesday August 31, 2011</span></span><br />
<h2 _counted="undefined"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 18pt;">Wendy Babcock</span></span></b></h2><h3 _counted="undefined" id="deck"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Community activist, law student, writer, mentor, sister, mother, friend. Born May 29, 1980, in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Toronto</city></place>. Died Aug. 9, 2011, in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Toronto</city></place> of unknown causes, aged 31.</span></span></b></h3><div _counted="undefined" class="byline"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">HOLLY KRAMER </span></span></div><div _counted="undefined" class="article-date"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">August 31, 2011</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;"><!-- Summary -->Wendy Babcock had a tough, amazing, terrible, wonderful, all-too-short life. It could even be said that she lived several different lives in her 31 years.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">When she died so suddenly, so unexpectedly, a host of diverse people, from sex-trade workers to law students - members of her chosen family - showed up to plan her memorial service, for Wendy had been both a sex worker and a law student.</span></span></div><!-- /Summary --><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Wendy's childhood was less than idyllic, and she suffered sexual abuse at a very early age at the hands of a relative. Eventually she went into the foster care system. By eighth grade she had been raped. By ninth grade she had run away, dropped out and, of necessity, become engaged in prostitution to survive.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">You'd hardly expect that, before the age of 25, a young woman with her history would have the wherewithal to turn such experiences into something good, but that's exactly what Wendy did. She became a harm reduction worker, a mother and, ultimately, a student at <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Osgoode</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Hall</placetype> <placename w:st="on">Law</placename> <placetype w:st="on">School</placetype></place>.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Wendy's goal was to be in a position to effect real change in the lives of some of the most marginalized people in society. With her uncanny ability to zero in on the fault line of any argument, the wisdom borne of her life experiences, her capacity for critical analysis and her persuasive powers, there can be no doubt that she would have been one hell of a lawyer.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Along her way, Wendy founded the Bad Date Coalition - an interagency network of people who advocate for those working in the sex trade. She won the ear and respect of representatives of the Toronto Police Service and worked with them to ensure that sex workers could and would report assault.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Wendy had a razor-sharp wit mixed with the endearing ability to laugh at herself. She was clever, compassionate and courageous; sweet and sassy, lovely and loving. She was tolerant of everything but intolerance in others; her activism on behalf of transgendered people is but one testament to this.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">In 2008, then-mayor David Miller presented Wendy with a Toronto Public Health Champion Award in recognition of her advocacy work, an award she richly deserved.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">On Sept. 15, Wendy's life will be celebrated by a huge gathering of her friends and colleagues. We will continue her work to fight stigma and discrimination, and toward social inclusion for all, in her memory. </span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;">Her son was the most important person in Wendy's world, and she wanted him to be as proud of her as she was of him. Those who knew and loved Wendy are confident that, in a few short years when he's old enough to realize the profound impact his mother had on so many lives, he will be justly proud.</span></span></div><div _counted="undefined"><i _counted="undefined"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">By Holly Kramer, Wendy's friend and colleague.</span></span></i><span lang="EN-CA"></span></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-4684866592427589412011-06-07T13:55:00.000-07:002011-06-07T13:55:14.643-07:00Thursday June 9 6-8pm - The Methadone ProjectWe are moving our next TDUU meeting to the evening. Our next meeting is this Thursday June 9 from 6pm - 8pm. Dinner will be served!!! It will be held at South Riverdale Community Health Centre 955 Queen Street East. TTC will be provided.<br />
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We have invited CounterFit and the researchers with the <strong>Methadone Project</strong> to present to the Union. The findings of their research are of great interest to so many of us. <br />
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The <strong>Methadone Project</strong> explored methadone users’ interactions with doctors, pharmacists and the criminal justice system. In February, 47 people were interviewed who are currently on methadone (31 men & 16 women). They found lots of interesting information relating to the importance of methadone in people’s lives as well as the challenges people face on a daily basis. Here are some stats from the project:<br />
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• 62% of participants were unaware of grievance procedures if they have a problem with their methadone doctor<br />
• 62% of participants reported missing a dose because of hours at clinic or doctor’s office<br />
- 75% of women participants missed doses compared to 55% of men<br />
• When a dose is missed for 3 days in a row 49% of participants reported that their prescribed dose is lowered <br />
• 32% of participants reported that their pharmacies have different hours for methadone clients compared to non-methadone clients<br />
• 30% of particpants reported that they don’t feel they are consistently receiving their prescribed (un-tampered) dose from their pharmacist.<br />
• 31% of women participants reported “very often” being interrupted when getting methadone because pharmacists gave preference to serving non-methadone clients (compared to 19% of men)<br />
• 37% of participants have been stopped, frisked or harassed by police when entereing or leaving their methadone doctor in the last year. <br />
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They also found significant gender differences in length of wait time for people receiving their methadone prescription inside the prison system (a lot longer for women) and in dosage received (women were more than twice as likely to receive a lower dose compared to men). As part of our presentation and next steps we are planning to brainstorm on ways of taking action on inequalities faced by people on methadone.<br />
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Please come out, bring friends who may be interested and join us in this really important discussion!!Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-21575973926708732372011-03-17T23:16:00.000-07:002011-03-17T23:16:06.308-07:00Torontoist: More Jail Than We Need?Article in Torontoist: <a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/03/a_superjail_in_toronto.php#comments" target="_blank">http://torontoist.com/2011/03/a_superjail_in_toronto.php#comments</a><br />
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More Jail Than We Need? <br />
<span class="ecxbyline">By <span class="ecxvcard
ecxauthor">Alex McClelland (Guest Contributor)</span> on <abbr class="ecxpublished" title="2011-03-17T13:00:00-05:00">March 17, 2011 1:00 PM</abbr></span><br />
Across the country there has been a statistical decline in crime rates since 1999. The federal government’s own <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010002/article/11292-eng.htm#a3" target="_blank">data</a> says that Toronto is the third-safest city in Canada. Both <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010002/article/11340-eng.htm" target="_blank">self-reported</a> and <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010002/article/11292-eng.htm#tphp" target="_blank">police-reported</a> crime rates are low in Toronto compared to other municipalities across the country. <br />
In America, prison expansion measures and the "tough on crime" approach have met neither criminal justice nor public health goals. Instead they have led to the widespread incarceration of racial minorities, people living in poverty, people with mental health issues, non-status people, and people who use drugs, all while exacerbating the syndemic of HIV and Hepatitis C. Despite this track record and Canada's own falling crime rate, Harper’s "tough on crime" agenda is rearing its ugly head in Toronto—and it'll come with a big social and economic price tag for residents of the city. <br />
One example: currently under construction—at a cost of $1.1 billion to Ontario taxpayers over thirty years—is the 1,650-bed <a href="http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/corr_serv/ProposedTorontoSouthDetentionCentre/Toronto_South_DC_main.html" target="_blank">Toronto South Detention Centre</a> located near Mimico. The 67,000 square metre facility, a so-called "superjail," aims to replace the 550-bed Toronto Don Jail. <br />
Last week on March 10, about sixty people gathered at Old City Hall on Queen Street with the Prison Moratorium Action Coalition for a rally to protest this government direction. The coalition was formed in opposition to "tough on crime" and prison-expansion measures; it aims to put pressure on the Conservative government, and any companies assisting with their prison expansion plan, until funds are diverted into social services and appropriate social housing. As Justin Piché, a renowned critic of the federal and provincial "tough on crime" agenda, has noted, the cost of this new prison is so great that “those of us in our late twenties… will still be paying for the construction of this facility well into our fifties and its operation likely until the day we die."<br />
<a href="http://tpcp-canada.blogspot.com/2011/02/canada-at-crossroads.html" target="_blank">Piché’s research</a> has found that these new institutions are being developed based on the argument that the “prison population is no longer a homogeneous population,” meaning: politicians and corrections bureaucrats need a way to deal with the increasing number of women, undocumented people, those with mental health issues, and drug users who are being incarcerated, not to mention the many indigenous peoples who have always been <a href="http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20091113-eng.aspx" target="_blank">overrepresented</a> in Canada’s prisons. (While indigenous people make up around 4% of the Canadian public, they make up 17% of the federal male prison population and 33% of the federal female prison population. )<br />
Currently, many prisoners are double-bunked at the decrepit Don Jail, a practice that runs counter to the <a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/treatmentprisoners.htm" target="_blank">United Nations standards</a> governing the treatment of prisoners, which Canada has signed onto. Although officials may have been saying that we need the new Mimico prison to replace the Don, other prisons constructed in the past ten years (e.g., Central East Correctional Centre and Central North Correctional Centre) were also supposedly built to replace the Don Jail, which has been slated for closure for decades. This brings new life to the adage “if you build it they will come.” <br />
And why not build? After all, big prisons are big business. Following in the footsteps of the American-style prison industrial complex, the Mimico facility <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/article/926715--new-mimico-detention-centre-ontario-s-first-prefab-prison" target="_blank">is credited</a> with being Ontario’s first pre-fabricated prison. Tindall Corp., one of the leaders in the American privatized prison industry and the inventor of pre-fabricated prison cells, is bringing its invention to Toronto via Zeidler Partnership Architects. Toronto’s Zeidler Partnership Architects (whose projects include the Eaton Centre, Ontario Place, and the refurbished Gladstone Hotel) have designed the new prison as part of a <a href="http://www.infrastructureontario.ca/en/projects/mcscs/toronto_south/profile.asp" target="_blank">$593-million contract</a> with Toronto-based companies EllisDon Corporation and Fengate Capital. <br />
But while big prisons will make big Toronto businesses more money, they are not economical for the taxpayer: beyond the $1.1-billion price tag for construction, the annual cost of housing a prisoner in Canada can run anywhere from around $52,000 to $250,000 per person, depending on the level of security at the facility [<a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010003/article/11353-eng.pdf" target="_blank">PDF</a>]. <br />
On top of this, Canada’s prisons have become super-hubs of HIV and hepatitis C infection. Rates of HIV and hepatitis C are <a href="http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/reports/r211/r211-eng.shtml" target="_blank">far above</a> the general population, with HIV prevalence at least fifteen times higher in federal prisons than the general public and hepatitis C prevalence almost forty times higher. (Averting just one HIV infection <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19423324" target="_blank">saves</a> approximately $150,000 in lifetime medical costs, not to mention the massive social cost). Building new superjails without addressing the existing health crisis among prisoners will only lead to more of the same.<br />
When it is completed in fall of 2012, the South Toronto Detention Centre in Mimico will be a $1.1-billion super-prison, the first of its kind for our city and province and an acknowledgment that political games and big business mean more than the lives of marginalized residents of our city. <br />
<em>With thanks to Sandra Chu of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Giselle Dias, and Lindsay Hart for support on this piece.</em>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-82386537879852515652011-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:002011-03-14T20:14:06.228-07:00SUPPORT FOR ACTION NEEDED - Email to Zeidler Partnership Architects: Design us homes, not prisons!<div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Following up on our (Prison Moratorium Action Coalition) successful rally in front of their offices last week, we are putting out the wide call to help us to hold Zeidler Partnership Architects accountable for their role in Canada’s prison industrial complex. Zeidler is bringing American-style prefabricated prison cells to Ontario for the new super-jail in Mimico. This prison will be disastrous to our communities. If you would like more details please read the letter below. Also, check out their website: <a href="http://www.zeidlerpartnership.com/" target="_blank">http://www.zeidlerpartnership.com/</a></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">We urge you to send this letter as an email to the partners of Zeidler Partnership Architects. Hearing widely from the concerned residents of Canada could help to get Zeidler to rethink their role in Harper’s disastrous ‘tough on crime’ agenda.<span> </span></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">STEP 1</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">- Copy and paste the following email addresses into an email:</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="mailto:arichardson@zeidlerpartnership.com">arichardson@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:dventere@zeidlerpartnership.com">dventere@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:gstein@zeidlerpartnership.com">gstein@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:jhenze@zeidlerpartnership.com">jhenze@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:pzhang@zeidlerpartnership.com">pzhang@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:reley@zeidlerpartnership.com">reley@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:rnemeth@zeidlerpartnership.com">rnemeth@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:scarruthers@zeidlerpartnership.com">scarruthers@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:amunn@zeidlerpartnership.com">amunn@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:ezeidler@zeidlerpartnership.com">ezeidler@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:vbanelis@zeidlerpartnership.com">vbanelis@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:telkhatib@zeidlerpartnership.com">telkhatib@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Calibri;"><a href="mailto:Acheung@zeidlerpartnership.com">Acheung@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:avafa@zeidlerpartnership.com">avafa@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:ifarlie@zeidlerpartnership.com">ifarlie@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:llokk@zeidlerpartnership.com">llokk@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:mnelson@zeidlerpartnership.com">mnelson@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:tfairlie@zeidlerpartnership.com">tfairlie@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:tli@zeidlerpartnership.com">tli@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:thuebener@zeidlerpartnership.com">thuebener@zeidlerpartnership.com</a> , <a href="mailto:vliu@zeidlerpartnership.com">vliu@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:fkwok@zeidlerpartnership.com">fkwok@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:mpalmer@zeidlerpartnership.com">mpalmer@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:scarroll@zeidlerpartnership.com">scarroll@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:smussells@zeidlerpartnership.com">smussells@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:acaspi@zeidlerpartnership.com">acaspi@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:jastrug@zeidlerpartnership.com">jastrug@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:msmith@zeidlerpartnership.com">msmith@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:alitovitz@zeidlerpartnership.com">alitovitz@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:dcollins@zeidlerpartnership.com">dcollins@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:ewong@zeidlerpartnership.com">ewong@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:gwunsch@zeidlerpartnership.com">gwunsch@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:jchalklin@zeidlerpartnership.com">jchalklin@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:krobinson@zeidlerpartnership.com">krobinson@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:lchow@zeidlerpartnership.com">lchow@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:lwright@zeidlerpartnership.com">lwright@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:mmadsen@zeidlerpartnership.com">mmadsen@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:rjohnson@zeidlerpartnership.com">rjohnson@zeidlerpartnership.com</a>, <a href="mailto:zspodek@zeidlerpartnership.com">zspodek@zeidlerpartnership.com</a></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">STEP 2</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"> <b>- Add this as the subject line:</b><span> </span></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Zeidler: Design us homes, not prisons! </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">STEP 3</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"> <b>– Cut and paste the below letter into your email body. Add your name and contact at the end of the email.</b> </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">STEP 4</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"> <b>– Send, send, send!</b> </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Dear Zeider Partnership Architects,</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I am writing out of concern regarding your company’s involvement in Stephen Harper’s prison expansion agenda.<span> </span>Harper is using the false political rhetoric of being “tough on crime” to waste 9 billion dollars of Canadian taxpayer’s money to support the big business of prison building. Modeled after the disastrous American prison industrial complex, Harper has been working to expand Canadian jails at a time when crime has never been lower in our country. In </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">America, prison expansion measures and the ‘tough on crime’ approach has met neither public health nor criminal justice goals. Instead these measures have led to the widespread incarceration of racialized communities and people living in poverty, while creating greater inequality and exacerbating the HIV epidemic.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">The Zeidler’s are well known in Toronto as city builders. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In the past, your firm has been responsible for designing key landmarks in Toronto including Ontario Place, the Eaton Center, and the refurbished Gladstone Hotel. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">According to your website, you<span> </span>“ believe that a building must fulfil the functional and economic requirements that the owners intend it to serve but, at the same time it must evoke a positive emotional response from its users and the public at large". </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However, now Ziedler Partnership Architects is responsible for bringing the American invention of prefabricated prison cells to Ontario as part of a $593 million contract with other companies including Elis Don Corporation and Fengate Capital. The new </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Toronto South Detention Centre</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> designed by your firm is being built in prefabricated sections as inspired by the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Tindall Corp. who are responsible for building many private American prisons</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">. According to </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Alan Munn, a senior partner of your firm when interviewed for the Toronto Star: “you stack it up and the building's basically done”. </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">In Canada, people from Indigenous and racialized communities are the most targeted and over-incarcerated group. The growth of prisons will only see an increase in the discrimination, policing and imprisonment of members of these communities. Additionally, queer and trans communities, the poor and homeless, drug-users, non-status people, sex worker and other marginalized communities face a heightened risk of incarceration. Additionally, infectious disease rates such as those for HIV can be up-to 10 times higher in prison than they are in the community as a whole. This public health crisis demands a response from the Harper government that is based on scientific evidence, sound public-health principles and a respect for human rights.</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">While Harper expands prisons and firms like Zeidler Partnership Architects profit off the imprisonment of marginalized Canadians with disastrous public health and human rights outcomes, Canada continues to be the only G-8 country to not have a national housing strategy. This is a shameful situation and firms like Zeidler should be critical of the detrimental outcomes that supporting prison expansion will lead to in Canada. </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I call on you, Zeidler Partnership Architects, to stay true your socially responsible mission and stop playing a key role in the Canadian prison industrial complex.<span> </span>End your contracts to design prisons and design housing for people who need it. We need housing not jails!</span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Sincerely, </span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><br />
</div><b><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Calibri;">[Your name here]</span></b>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-13500617604211535792011-03-14T12:35:00.000-07:002011-03-14T12:35:56.019-07:00Rally Against Police Brutality - Tuesday March 15th<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday March 15th — 5PM<br />
51 Division (Front and Parliament St.)</span><br />
One week last summer the police turned the whole City into a prison. But<br />
in poor neighbourhoods, it’s the G20 everyday. Communities are under<br />
attack by the Police because they are poor, homeless, racialized, First<br />
Nations and immigrants. We are further abused when we fight back. Our<br />
communities are under attack because the police exist to maintain a social<br />
order in this country that protects the government, the banks, and the<br />
rich while criminalizing the rest.<br />
<br />
Despite the trillions of dollars stolen, embezzled and extorted by banks<br />
and finance companies that led to this recession, the police are not in<br />
the habit of kicking down doors on Bay St. But they are kicking down<br />
doors, ticketing, arresting, beating and killing people in poor<br />
communities.<br />
<br />
March 15th is the International Day Against Police Brutality. A day to<br />
bring awareness to the violence, torture, intimidation and harassment by<br />
our governments' Police Forces. We, the people, the victims and the<br />
survivors will come together to raise our voices to show that we will not<br />
stay silent!<br />
<br />
The Toronto Star recently revealed that of the 3,400 investigations the<br />
Special Investigations Unit has conducted into the Toronto Police in its<br />
20-year history, only 95 have resulted in charges, only 16 of those in<br />
convictions, and only 3 of those officers actually went to jail.<br />
<br />
Yet we know the police are guilty. Homeless people and people with mental<br />
health issues are routinely harassed, beaten and sometimes killed by<br />
police in this city. Non-status women seeking a safe haven from abuse are<br />
dragged out of shelters by Immigration enforcement officers on tips from<br />
two regular sources: the police, and the very abusers these women are<br />
attempting to escape. Racialized communities are targeted daily by police.<br />
<br />
As part of this internationally observed day, a rally has been organized<br />
for Tuesday March 15th. We will be meeting outside of 51 Division at Front<br />
& Parliament. OCAP and other community organizations invite everyone to<br />
come out and show support for victims of Police violence.<br />
<br />
No more Police brutality! No more impunity!<br />
<br />
~As organized by several community groups, call for more info!<br />
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty <a class="ecxmoz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ocap@tao.ca"><span style="color: #0068cf;">ocap@tao.ca</span></a> 416-925-6939Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-45785081680726912642011-03-14T12:14:00.000-07:002011-03-14T12:14:12.419-07:00Member of TDUU's speech at the rally against Prison Expansion<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>Hi my name is Shawn Gibb. I’m here today as a member of the Toronto Drug Users Union and as a prisoner, currently attending drug treatment court and getting ready to serve this weekend. I have been in the program 7 and a half months. I’m just moving on to my next phase and finding it a struggle to not use drugs. The program expects you to be abstinent and to attend all drug treatment sessions which run three days a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stand in front of a judge twice a week. If you happen to miss any sessions you are sanctioned with community service hours or to serve a weekend. I entered the program to try and better myself but at the same time I should have just gone in and did my time for the simple fact it’s a struggle. They have a lot of expectations. They expect you to change your lifestyle, give you strategies to cope with not using but when you leave there it’s a struggle cause you’re on the streets and every where you go drugs are there. If they catch you in a lie you automatically get thrown in. The intense part is having to go do urine screens while someone’s watching you. It’s very humiliating. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>Financially I’m on welfare, it’s hard to survive. While you’re in drug treatment court you are not allowed to work. Eventually, once you get closer to graduating they expect you to go get part time work. When I’m offered work I have to turn it down because I’m in the program. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>If you miss a urine. You get sent to jail. Every time you go in, it sets you back. It’s depressing. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>I need help with my housing, I need help financially, when the opportunities are there you get turned away. I’ve been turned away in the past year so much. Even finding a doctor is a struggle.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>What I’m asking for is for someone to look at the lifestyle a drug user lives in and don’t degrade them, find out the lifestyle a drug user is living. A lot of people don’t’ seem to understand if you’re raised on the streets you’re gonna do what you know. I grew up in poverty. My mother raised 3 children on her on, on welfare as well and we went hungry and still to this day I’ve gone to a food bank and they couldn’t help me cause they didn’t have food. I go hungry. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>I would like the government to get rid of poverty. Lets find a way to get rid of poverty. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span>People who use drugs who need help need to not be turned away. We need to create more services for those people so they can get the help when they need it. This doesn’t happen right now. Drugs should be seen as a health and social issue not a criminal issue. It is a waste of taxpayers money to send drug users to prison instead of helping people with what they need. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-91603440204285264522011-03-14T12:10:00.000-07:002011-03-14T12:10:54.346-07:00Protesters rally against Conservative government's planned anti-crime legislation<h1 class="title">Protesters rally against Conservative government's planned anti-crime legislation </h1><div class="story-author">March 12, 2011</div><div class="story-author">By <a href="http://www.rabble.ca/category/bios/john-bonnar">John Bonnar</a> </div><br />
<div class="content"><div class="story-content"><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/152/addthis_widget.js" type="text/javascript">
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On Thursday, prison reformers launched an attack on the federal government's plan to implement minimum penalties for "serious drug offences" and increase the maximum penalty for cannabis production.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Bill S-10, an Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) was introduced in the Senate last May. A similar bill, Bill C-15 died in December 2009 when parliament was prorogued which is almost identical to Bill C-26, which died in December 2008 when parliament was dissolved.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Prison Moratorium Action Coalition, organizers of Thursday's rally, formed in resistance to the new legislation and expansion of prisons in Canada. They believe that tax payer money be spent on much needed social justice initiatives like housing, child poverty and settling Indigenous land-claims rather than putting forward a "tough on crime agenda."</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sandra Chu, Senior Policy Analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network predicts that based upon what happened in the United States, Bill S-10 will be "a complete disaster" because it throws drug users into prisons where there are no harm reduction measures in place.</div><div class="MsoNormal">In prison, where sufficient needle and syringe programs for addicts or tattooists don't exist, HIV is 15 times higher than in the community at large and almost four in ten people are infected with hepatitis C.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"But the government refuses to implement these (harm reduction measures) because they see it as encouraging drug use behind bars," said Chu, "and we know that it's not true."</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Conservative plan to introduce minimum penalties will also add significantly to the expenses of the criminal justice system where it already costs over $100,000 per year to house an inmate in a federal institution. Medium and minimum security inmates cost more than $70,000 a year.</div><div class="block block-openads" id="block-openads-7"><div class="content"><script type="text/javascript">
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</script> <div id="beacon_770f04a031" style="left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><img alt="" height="0" src="http://ads.rabble.ca/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=1008&campaignid=633&zoneid=52&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rabble.ca%2Fblogs%2Fbloggers%2Fjohnbon%2F2011%2F03%2Fprotesters-rally-against-conservative-government%E2%80%99s-planned-anti-crime&referer=undefined&cb=770f04a031" style="height: 0px; width: 0px;" width="0" /></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal">If Bill S-10 became law it would surely trigger a surge in new prison construction costing taxpayers billions of dollars, since our federal and provincial prisons are already filled to capacity.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"Investing money into building prisons is not investing in our communities," said Zoe Dodd, a member of the Prison Moratorium Action Coalition. "Nine billion dollars could go to invest in our communities for education and social programs."</div><div class="MsoNormal">Kai’enne Tymerik, with the Toronto Raver Information Project, an organization that provides services to the dance community and beyond, said she sees "young people with mental health issues struggling to self medicate when they are too young and isolated to know what services there are available."</div><div class="MsoNormal">So they use drugs to connect with others in the same situation.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"Between the Valium, Ativan, Prozac, Viagra, alcohol, tobacco and coffee, we are all drug users," she said. In 1916, Ontario passed a law to prohibit the sale of alcohol because "alcohol was popularly criticized as being the cause of all the major ills of society."</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the cost of keeping the drug illegal far outweighed the benefits and in 1927 prohibition was repealed.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the last 10 years, prison reformers say, the number of women incarcerated has jumped 50 per cent. "That will only get worse under the Conservatives," said Dodd. "And these women are mostly poor, homeless and struggling with issues of substance abuse."</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the Netherlands, nine prisons were closed after they decriminalized drugs. "These are the strategies that we should be looking for in our communities," she said. "Instead, our prisons have become a warehouse for people living with mental health issues and substance abuse problems."</div><div class="MsoNormal">Prisons are not a place, Dodd reminded the crowd, where people should be housed. But Canada doesn't have a national housing strategy so prisons have become a convenient substitute for affordable housing and a perpetual source of income for all those involved directly or indirectly in the prison system.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even though Bill S-10 will allow courts not to impose mandatory sentences if offenders complete a Drug Treatment Court (DTC) program, Dodd said, it's just "another way to cast the net wider and keep you engaged in their system longer."</div><div class="MsoNormal">Shawn Gibb, a member of the Toronto Drug Users Union and a prisoner, has been in the DTC program for seven and a half months. Standing on the steps of Old City Hall in Toronto before a crowd of 70 supporters, Gibb admitted he's been struggling trying to stay away from drugs because he enjoys smoking marijuana.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Three days a week, he attends drug treatment sessions and if he misses a session he'll be sanctioned with community service hours or forced to serve a weekend in prison. Although Gibb entered the program to "better himself," he now feels he may have been better off just serving his time.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The expectations are high, he said, and it's humiliating to have to do urine screens while someone is hovering over you.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Gibb gets by for now on welfare because he's not allowed to work while he's in the DTC program. He's even had to turn down job offers.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"It's depressing," said Gibb, who grew up on welfare with his two siblings. "I need help with my housing. I need help financially. Even finding a doctor is almost impossible."</div><div class="MsoNormal">Look at a drug user's life, said Gibb, and try to imagine what it's like.</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then try to imagine how close Canada was to decriminalizing marijuana back in the 70s. But when the United States began its futile war on drugs under the Reagan administration, Canada was forced to play along.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Besides minimum penalties for "serious drug offences," Bill S-10 also introduces mandatory minimum punishments for the production of cannabis depending upon the number of marijuana plants produced.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The proposed changes are due, in part, to the Canadian perception that sentencing for drug crimes "is treated as a minor cost of doing business." In a 2007 National Justice Survey, two thirds of those surveyed said that "they support the strengthening of sentencing laws and tougher penalties for serious drug offenders. Approximately one quarter of Canadians endorse minimum mandatory sentences even for relatively minor crimes."</div><div class="MsoNormal">It's no surprise that mandatory minimum sentences also have the support of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Opponents of the bill say that the measures could turn Canadian prisons into "U.S.-style inmate warehouses" with no allowance for mitigating circumstances and the increased costs to run prisons will pull much needed funds away from social programs that are designed to keep people out of prison in the first place.</div><div class="MsoNormal">An alternative approach promoted by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), who believe that existing drug policies have failed curb drug abuse, crime and addiction, is to move towards a system of regulation rather than prohibition.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"A lot of marijuana users end up in the prison system for small amounts of pot," said Dodd, "and I don't think ingesting a substance should throw anyone behind bars."</div><div class="MsoNormal">(Even former prime minister Paul Martin admitted that he and his wife Sheila tried hash brownies in Montreal during the 60s.)</div><div class="MsoNormal">Davin Christensen, a member of Toronto Hash Mob 420, a loose collection of marijuana enthusiasts who protest pot prohibition, said the proposed bill will put a lot his friends in prison for participating in "a safe activity, less harmful than alcohol or even caffeine."</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the past three years, Christensen has been through the system three times for various cannabis related crimes. Under the new laws, he'd still be serving a prison sentence.</div><div class="MsoNormal">"Even the pot bakers, those cute girls in the kitchen that are doing the baking for us, are now going to be receiving mandatory minimums," said Christensen.</div></div></div></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-37093421261704738982011-03-14T12:05:00.000-07:002011-03-14T12:05:48.392-07:00Tory Bill S-10 sucks<div class="title">Media from the Anti-Prison demo we were invovled in.</div><div class="title"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJd1RBPnKMbS1ixlmmaR9eUXy47MVbesdbApb0xyvtZ0mpw1jOX9o6qFCilxOc8dwyKxgAcDhWa_w7MsQqY_TFRiVtNtr2VnRY-ftJbGptkInzBo7EOUBrajAVtUodM8TMJ24VsnKGm_6/s1600/bills-10_lrg5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJd1RBPnKMbS1ixlmmaR9eUXy47MVbesdbApb0xyvtZ0mpw1jOX9o6qFCilxOc8dwyKxgAcDhWa_w7MsQqY_TFRiVtNtr2VnRY-ftJbGptkInzBo7EOUBrajAVtUodM8TMJ24VsnKGm_6/s320/bills-10_lrg5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="title"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6NpOoV-2Glo_uvE6BoicDXtvINyCusFBiQzbQcYDPAZJkMnsjPP_aO_YD5YA4wmB0bpv043Smk0Tu3Izvy4IO-C2HKzesnUqRbak-MNGAJiH87aH4uZkOxY4s9TMNmsU4tXJjA6Ylw1Y/s1600/bills-10_lrg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6NpOoV-2Glo_uvE6BoicDXtvINyCusFBiQzbQcYDPAZJkMnsjPP_aO_YD5YA4wmB0bpv043Smk0Tu3Izvy4IO-C2HKzesnUqRbak-MNGAJiH87aH4uZkOxY4s9TMNmsU4tXJjA6Ylw1Y/s320/bills-10_lrg1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="title"><strong></strong> </div><div class="title"><strong></strong> </div><div class="text short"><span style="color: #414141; font-family: Arial Black; font-size: x-small;">Time to kill a bill enforcing mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses</span></div><div class="byline">By Ava Baccari </div><div class="byline"> </div><div class="text">There are more drug users walking along the busy Queen Street sidewalk than there are gathered on the steps of Old City Hall for a formal anti-drug law protest.<br />
Check your pockets: aspirin, Adderall, Viagra, Ritalin, cigarettes. Even that cup of coffee warming your hands on this frigid, rainy day contains an addictive caffeine.<br />
You get the point. “We are all drug users,” Kai’enne Turmerik from the safe drug org Trip Project, shouts into the microphone at this rally hosted by the Prison Moratorium Action Coalition, Thursday afternoon (March 10).<br />
The group of 40 is here to protest the Tories’ tough-on-crime laws that are swelling Canada’s prison system with non-violent offenders and specifically, <a href="http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LegislativeSummaries/Bills_ls.asp?lang=E&ls=s10&source=library_prb&Parl=40&Ses=3"><span style="color: #0075aa;">Bill S-10</span></a>, which aims to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act so that there are mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offences. (Think one year for six pot plants).<br />
The bill is currently in its third reading and awaiting royal assent before it passes as law likely sometime this month.<br />
Other voices in the amped-up crowd include a sex worker from Maggie’s, reps from the Toronto Sex Workers Action Project calling for the decriminalization of sex work, an activist from Toronto Hash Mob and a young mother recalling the 12 months she spent incarcerated back in 2006.<br />
All are demanding that the federal government direct attention to community-based response programs, like providing education and rehabilitation to inmates and the funnelling of money into building communities, not prisons.<br />
According to the NDP public safety critic, Don Davies, whom NOW calls later, the Conservative government will spend $500 million on prison construction next year. At the same time, says Davies, rehabilitation programs like the Youth Gang Prevention Fund, which works to keep at-risk youth out of gangs and costs the federal government $6.5 million a year to maintain in penitentiaries, will be cut at the end of the month.<br />
This, he says, is “absolutely immoral” and “stupid economics,” especially because the average annual cost of maintaining a male inmate in a maximum-security prison is $223,687 (females are $343,810 per year), according to a 2008-2009 report from the Parliamentary Budget Office.<br />
When the Conservatives took power in 2006, there were 12,500 people in federal custody. Today, the toll is around 13,500, even though statistically speaking, crime rates have declined 17 percent since 1999, according to a Stats Can report.<br />
“The problem with mandatory minimum sentences is that it’s a one-size-fits all approach,” Davies adds. “Everyone goes to prison, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are.”<br />
Dealing with the skyrocketing rate of re-offenders as well as strained budgets due to housing the influx of inmates, is why many U.S. states are back-peddling on the tough-on-crime laws that were implemented 25 years ago, he says.<br />
“We know there’s no jurisdiction in the world that has seen its crime rate come down and recidivism lowered by locking more people up for longer periods of time. In fact it’s the opposite.’’<br />
The increase in numbers of incarcerated Canadians, says U of T criminologist, Anthony Doob, is partly due to the fed’s passage of the Truth in Sentencing Act in 2010, which limits the credit inmates receive for time served while awaiting and facing trial, as well as imposed restrictions on conditional sentencing (delineating rules an offender must follow in order to remain out of prison.)<br />
It’s still too early to asertain, he says, whether the Harper government’s 2008 Tackling Violent Crime Act, with its harsher mandatory minimum sentences for firearm offenses, is responsible for expanding the federal prison population.<br />
“Increasing punishment doesn’t make communities safer,’’ says Doob. “People need to realize there is a better use of money than putting it into prisons.’’<br />
Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland calls Bill S-10 an “outrageous piece of legislation.’’ He says that the government should instead focus in investing in a plan to deal with mental health and addictions, citing that over 80 per cent of inmates suffer from these problems that are at the root of many crimes.<br />
Back at the rally, Ryerson social work students, Nick Carveth, a recovered addict, and Simona Babiak stick around after the speeches to explain why they’re here. Someday, they’d both like to work with youth coping with substance abuse, and find long-term realistic solutions. “Not put them though the prison system,’’ says Babiak angrily.</div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-91172242447643188522011-03-14T11:59:00.000-07:002011-03-14T11:59:12.521-07:00Interview with TotalHype<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>IInterview with Zoe from TDUU </strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>conducted by Donna Feb.23, 2011</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>What is T.D.U.U?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">TDUU is the Toronto Drug Users Union. We formed 2 years ago to advocate for our own rights. Drug users have been organizing themselves since the 60’s. It’s important for drug users to organize. Decisions, policies, laws are created every day that impact our daily lives, these decisions are more than often made without us. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>Why does it exist?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Drug users are some of the most vilified, scapegoated, over incarcerated, targeted, marginalized people in our society. The war on drugs is actually a war on us. It is a failed war and one that needs to end. Billions of dollars are spent every day keeping the War alive. Instead of investing in this war, we should be using this money to invest in communities. We as drug users need to be organizing ourselves for our own self representation and self empowerment. Liberation never came to those from the oppressed groups who didn’t fight for it. We need to be fighting for our human rights! We have been hard hit by the epidemics of HIV and Hepatitis C, we have lost our family members and friends to violence, overdose and death. We are subjected to archaic drug laws all because we ingest a substance. The illegal nature of what we do puts us at risk for many things. We have a voice! There are drug users sitting on committees, involved in the creation of policies that will affect our daily lives, who are they accountable to? and who do they represent? Being part of a union means you are accountable to us and that’s how it should be. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>Who is on it?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We have over 90 registered members. We come from all different backgrounds. Some of us are current users, some of us are former users, we are different ages, genders, ethnicities, some of us smoke crack, some of us inject, etc etc. We are all different but we all have one common thread… we are current and former drug users who want to be treated with dignity, with humanity and we want the war on people who use drugs to end. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>Why are you involved?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I started using drugs really early on in my life. I experimented a lot as a teenager but when I was 15 I had a lot of really intense things happen to me. They were really hard to cope with and I used drugs more heavily to help me through those years. I always enjoyed doing drugs, the experience, the pleasure and they worked as an amazing escape. In my early twenties I decided I couldn’t handle my life as it was any more and I wanted to do something different. I came to <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Toronto</place></city> with a few months of sobriety under my belt. I felt extremely guilty, self loathing, isolated, depressed. I knew I was young and I knew I didn’t want to stay “sober” for ever. I felt ashamed of shit that I had done and shit that had happened to me. I was living a big secret when I came here, no one knew the secrets I was keeping. In 2004, I decided to go to college. I never thought for a moment that I would ever go to college. I was really poor, had little direction and felt pretty lost. Going back to school changed my life. It was while I was in school challenging someone about drug use that I first admitted publically about being a drug user and I blurted out in class “drugs saved my fucking life!”. I believe that. I know that using drugs through some pretty traumatic stuff helped keep me alive. In 2005 I started publically talking about my own personal drug use. I started talking to Raffi about drug user activism and he encouraged me to get involved. I was doing lots of coalition work and activism in the community, needle exchange, the safer crack use coalition, hepatitis C advocacy and education, the crack users project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I joined the International Network of People Who Use Drugs and felt super empowered. It’s empowering being around like minded people who are fighting for their own liberation from this war. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The illegal nature of drugs has also taken many of my friends away. The first overdose I witnessed was when I was 13. I lost my first love to an overdose when I first moved here, his name was Darryl. I have lost so many important people in my life from overdose, violence and incarceration. It fuels me to want to fight this war on us and end it. I want to see a day where we aren’t casualties in this war but where we are all thriving, not just surviving. This is why I am involved with the Drug Users Union. To fight for OUR human rights! For all people who use drugs. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>What are the main things that T.D.U.U are working on?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We are on the city of <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Toronto</city></place>’s drug strategy implementation panel. We are involved in an anti-stigma campaign. We have been asked to speak at conferences, consult on projects. We are involved with AIDS ACTION NOW!, opposing prison expansion, involved in the methadone project being carried out with CounterFIT, our members are<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>harm reduction workers, our members are working on other projects with awesome organizations like the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force, Queen West Community Health Centre, TRIP to name a few. We are involved with organizing a demo being held March 10 at <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Old</placename> <placetype w:st="on">City Hall</placetype></place> courts at noon to oppose the prison expansion, we are also involved with organizing a demo for March 15, International Anti- Police Brutality Day. We are building a movement! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>What is a typical meeting like?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A typical meeting involves about 30 people, we have food and shoot the shit for a few minutes and then we get to business. We discuss issues in the community and then move on to our agenda. We sometimes have guest speakers, to educate us on certain topics. We discuss our priorities, and give report backs on the work we are involved in. They are pretty lively discussions. We try and share roles, taking turns chairing, taking minutes etc. We offer TTC for those who need it. We also attend other meetings, demos and events on a regular basis as union representatives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>When is it and where (time of meeting and location)?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We meet the second Thursday of the month from 2-4pm at South Riverdale Community Health centre in the A/B room. If you are a current or former drug user, are committed to the principles of harm reduction and want to fight for the health and human rights for people who use drugs, please join us!!! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><strong>Last thoughts?</strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for the interview Donna!! We want to build our union stronger and bigger. We have just applied for some more money which will help us in our organizing efforts. One day we’d love to be able to hire a community organizer to assist with all the amazing work we are involved in. Nothing about us with out us!!!! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-39750953214017730742011-03-06T17:26:00.001-08:002011-03-06T17:26:58.741-08:00Build Homes! Not Prisons!<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">What Could we be Building Instead?? </span></strong><b><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">The Prison Moratorium Action Coalition calls for the defeat of Bill S-10 and for a halt to the planned prison expansion!</span></strong></b><br />
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Please Join us on March 10th to confront the Government's planned prison expansion and their 'anti-crime' legislation! We will be marching from Old City Hall to other locations in Toronto central to the prison expansion plans to voice our anger about the further criminalization of communities in Toronto!<br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">RALLY AND MARCH</span></strong><b><br />
</b>Thursday, March 10th<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif';">Meet at Noon</span></strong><br />
Old City Hall Courthouse<br />
60 Queen Street West, Toronto. <br />
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We are speaking out at this particular moment to oppose the Conservative government’s push to enact legislation that will put their prison expansion to use. Bill S-10 is currently being debated in the House of Commons and, if passed, would implement mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offences. Mandatory Minimums were also put in place in the U.S, where they proved to be unsuccessful in combating the War on Drugs. The construction of new prisons, while crime, and specifically violent crime, has been steadily decreasing over the past ten years, is a ludicrous idea. The severity of the majority of crimes has lessened. Both the property crime rate and the youth crime rate have also dropped. We know that this is a waste of taxpayer’s money and a waste of financial resources that could be allocated to more important needs. Opposing MPS are also beginning to realize, and a serious debate over Bill S-10, and the Conservative approach to Crime and Punishment, has begun. <br />
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We demand that all members of Parliament defeat all the new ‘anti-crime’ bills proposed by the Conservatives, conscious of the fact that this tactic of fighting crime has proven unsuccessful in America. We demand that the government scrap Bill S-10, focus on harm reduction programs, and begin treating drug use as a health matter, not a criminal matter. We further demand an increase in harm reduction services, and adequate health service, in prisons. We demand the decriminalization of sex work. We wish to see policy alternatives proposed; to see an end to overcrowding in prisons by decreasing incarceration as a strategy; to see the development of education and training programs for those incarcerated to develop tools and strategies for living post-incarceration.<br />
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Though the numbers continue to fluctuate, this expansion has an estimated 5 billion dollar price tag per year, and will total a 9 billion dollar expenditure before it’s finished. The Conservative government refuses to listen to reason and look at the facts laid out before them. Community organizers like us, who witness the over-incarceration and criminalization of many communities in this city, are vehemently opposed to increasing prisons and the continuation of the prison industrial complex. Instead of developing programs that work through a restorative justice model, that consider alternatives in incarceration (which are also less costly), the Conservative government wants to put more and more people in prisons, at a cost of anywhere from $88,000- $250,000 per prisoner every year.<br />
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This tougher approach to crime adopted by the Conservatives is akin to that taken up by America in recent years, which led to overcrowding in prisons and a recent repealing of this approach, due to its obvious failure. Their planned prison expansion will be met by our anger and protest over an obvious misuse of public funds and a continuation of the historical and institutional oppression of marginalized communities through police violence, criminalization and over-incarceration. In Canada, people from Indigenous and racialized communities are the most targeted and over-incarcerated group in the prison industrial complex. The growth of prisons will only see an increase in the discrimination, policing and imprisonment of members of these communities. Additionally, queer and trans communities, the poor and homeless, drug-users, non-status people, sex workers, people living with HIV/AIDS and those with disabilities and mental health issues are targets for police violence, mistreatment and repression. They face a heightened risk of incarceration as well. The planned prison expansion will have serious consequences for many communities and people in our city. <br />
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As the Conservative government continues to push their ‘tough on crime’ agenda and while the debate continues over Bill S-10 in Parliament, the communities of Toronto, in conjunction with other cities, will not remain silent. We are here to voice our outrage and disgust at the Conservative agenda! We will not accept an agenda that will spend billions of dollars over the next few years on the expansion of prisons, diverting these funds from services like health care, education and social assistance, which are facing drastic and devastating cuts in the wake of a recession and brutal austerity measures.<br />
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BUILD HOMES, NOT PRISONS! FUND SOCIAL SERVICES, NOT PRISONS! </span>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-31527543149728007832011-02-14T12:00:00.000-08:002011-03-14T11:46:22.840-07:00Prison Moratorium Action Coalition Meeting this Thursday evening<div class="ecxMsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;">Statement from the Prison Moratorium Action Coalition:</span></b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Please join us on <strong>Thursday February 17 from 6-8 pm</strong> at the<strong> 519 Commuity Centre</strong>, 519 Church street, to contribute your ideas, thoughts and energy to organizing a rally and other demos/events directed at the federal government's proposed crime bill legislation and prison expansion.<br />
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We are a group of activists, ex-prisoners, drug users and activist scholars who believe that prisons do not make our community safer. In canada, people from Indigenous and racialized communities (Black and African diasporic<span class="ecxtextexposedshow"> people in particular) are the most targeted and over-incarcerated in the prison industrial complex (PIC). Additionally, queer and trans communities, people living with disabilities, people with mental health issues, homeless people, people who use drugs, people living </span><span class="ecxtextexposedshow">with HIV/AIDS, non-status people are at greater risk of incarceration.</span><br />
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<span class="ecxtextexposedshow">The canadian government is enacting legislation that will continue to incarcerate these populations but at a much faster rate. This includes Bill S-10 (mandatory minimum sentences for drug 'offences'). All evidence shows that mandatory minimum sentences do not work and only increase the repression of the War on Drugs and People Who Use Drugs (specifically Indigenous and Black communities). Furthermore, the canadian government has increased spending on the construction of new </span><span class="ecxtextexposedshow">prisons to punish and control these populations despite falling crime rates and a decrease in the severity of crime.</span><br />
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<span class="ecxtextexposedshow">We believe that the government knows what they are doing and despite its ineffectiveness continues to move in the direction of the united states whose tough on crime agenda is now bankrupting some u.s states.</span><br />
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<span class="ecxtextexposedshow">The Prison Moratorium Action Coalition formed in resistance to the new legislation and expansion of prisons in canada. We demand that our tax payer money be spent on much needed social justice initiatives including: housing, child poverty, settling Indigenous land-claims, effective harm reduction programs, education, HIV/AIDS and HCV, programs for non-status people .....</span><br />
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<span class="ecxtextexposedshow">For more information to sponsor this event please contact: PrisonMoratoriumACToronto@<a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank">gmail.com</a></span></span></span></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"></div><div class="ecxMsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="ecxtextexposedshow"><span style="color: black;">Link to the facebook event </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=187853704568592" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=187853704568592</span></a></span></span></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-86092233519419600582011-02-14T11:55:00.000-08:002011-02-14T11:55:40.110-08:00First Monthly Film Screening<div style="text-align: center;">This <strong>Thursday February 17 at 2pm</strong> at South Riverdale Community Health Centre<strong> </strong>955 Queen Street East:<br />
The Toronto Drug Users Union presents <strong>"I'm Dangerous With Love</strong>", <br />
The first of our monthly film screening series.<br />
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<strong>"Im Dangerous With Love"</strong> is an underground adventure that traces one man's risky journey into the world of shamanic ritual. Dimitri Muglanis had been a heroin user for over 20 years when a single dose of ibogaine, a powerful hallucinogen derived from the root of a West African plant stopped his use cold.<br />
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Filmmaker Michel Negroponte enters the ibogane subculture and follows Dimitri over three years, as he takes drug users through the same detox. Problem is, ibogaine is an illegal drug in the U.S. When Negroponte tries ibogaine himself, he experiences firsthand its propensity to "break open the head."<br />
To see the trailer and for more information visit <a href="http://www.michelnegroponte.com/">http://www.michelnegroponte.com/</a><br />
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<strong>Free and all are welcome to attend!</strong><br />
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For more information please contact <a href="mailto:torontodrugusersunion@gmail.com">torontodrugusersunion@gmail.com</a><br />
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<strong>Toronto Drug Users Union (TDUU)</strong></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-61249245198271049402010-12-22T14:01:00.000-08:002010-12-22T14:01:06.820-08:00Ending the Drug War: 8 Top Stories of 2010 in AmericaTaken from the Huffington Post December 22, 2010<br />
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It's been a difficult year for progressives, and most other Americans as well. While I feel discouraged about many things happening in our country and around the world, and have lost lots of my "Yes We Can" glow from only two years ago, the issue that is closest to my heart -- ending the war on people who use drugs -- continues to bring me hope and cautious optimism. <br />
The debate around failed marijuana prohibition and the larger drug war arrived in a big way in 2010. Below are some of the most significant stories from 2010 and the reasons why I'm encouraged that we can start finding an exit strategy from America's longest running war. <br />
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<strong>1) California's Vote on Legalizing Marijuana Inspires Worldwide Debate:</strong> Proposition 19, the initiative to control and tax marijuana in California, was arguably the highest profile voter initiative in the nation. It generated thousands of stories in the United States and around the world about the pros and cons of marijuana prohibition. Millions of people for the first time had serious conversations about whether we should continue to arrest and incarcerate people for marijuana or if we should take it out of the illicit market and regulate it. In the end, Prop. 19 received more than 46% of the vote, more votes that GOP Governor Candidate Meg Whitman. The take-away from California is not will marijuana ever be legal, but when. <br />
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<strong>2) President Obama Signed Historic Legislation Reducing Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity: </strong>In August, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, reforming the draconian disparity between crack and powder cocaine prison sentences. Before the change, a person with just five grams of crack received a mandatory sentence of five years in prison. That same person would have to possess 500 grams of powder cocaine to earn the same punishment. This discrepancy, known as the 100-to-1 ratio, was enacted in the late 1980s and was based on myths about crack cocaine being more dangerous than powder cocaine. Unfortunately, the Democrats made serious comprises to get Republicans to support the Fair Sentencing Act. The original bill that would have completely eliminated the 100-to-1 disparity, but instead the compromise reduced the disparity to 18:1. Most troubling was that that the reform was not applied retroactively - which means that none of the tens of thousand of people unfairly languishing in cages will find any relief from the new law. That said, the reform of these laws is the first repeal of a mandatory minimum drug sentence since the 1970s.<br />
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<strong>3) Media Coverage is Fair, Balanced and Thoughtful: </strong>For the first time, the media consistently covered the marijuana debate seriously and without the jokes and giggle factor that accompanied stories in the past. For the first time they started including anti-prohibition voices that pointed out that much of the violence in the drug trade is due to prohibition and not the drug itself. There were cover stories in a range of outlets and magazines, including Time Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and the Nation. The Associated Press deserves a Pulitzer Prize for its "Impact Series" on the Drug War. Back in May, AP dropped a bombshell on America's longest war and the headline said it all: The US Drug War Has Met None of its Goals. The extensive piece reviewed the last 40 years, starting with President Nixon's official launch of the War on Drugs all the way to President Obama's annual strategy released this year. The piece packed a punch from the start: "After 40 years, the United States' War on Drugs has cost $1 trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence more brutal and widespread." <br />
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<strong>4) Portugal Shows Us Decriminalization of Drugs Works: </strong>A new study, published in November in the British Journal of Criminology, shows that Portugal's decriminalization of drugs in 2001 has led to reductions in student drug use, prison overcrowding, drug related deaths and HIV/ AIDS. In July 2001, Portugal decriminalized the possession of up to ten days' supply of all types of illicit drugs. Before the law went into effect the pro-drug war zealots predicted that the sky would fall and chaos would reign if drug were decriminilazed. Nine years later, the sky hasn't fallen and having drug use addressed as a heath issue instead of a criminal issue has been proven to saves lives and money. Portugal shows us that drugs can be decriminalized in the real world, not only in theory. <br />
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<strong>5) Facebook Founders Fund Drug Policy Reform: </strong>While the Social Network movie about Facebook was the number one movie in the country, two former top Facebook executives featured in the film, Dustin Moskovitz and Sean Parker, both became major funders of drug policy reform by donating $50,000 and $100,000 to the California marijuana ballot iniative. The drug policy reform movement has greatly benefitted from the generous support of funders like George Soros, Peter Lewis and John Sperling. Mr. Moskovitz and Mr. Parker can also play a crucial role in supporting the reform movement. <br />
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6) California Makes Possession of Under One Ounce of Marijuana an Infraction--Similar to a Speeding Ticket: </strong>In addition to the debate, coalition building, and public education that Prop. 19 generated, it also led to concrete victories: Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill that will reduce the penalty for marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to a non-arrestable infraction, like a traffic ticket. That's no small matter in a state where arrests for marijuana possession totaled 61,000 last year -- roughly triple the number in 1990. It's widely assumed that the principal reason the governor signed the bill, which had been introduced by a liberal state senator, Mark Leno, was to undermine one of the key arguments in favor of Prop 19. <br />
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<strong>7) Leaders from Around the World Call for Legalization Debate: </strong>Although President Obama and his Drug Czar have repeated said that legalization is not in their vocabulary, the L-word is being talked about like never before among leaders around the world. This year Mexico President Calderon called for a debate on drug legalisation to help reduce the bloody war in Mexico. Former Mexico President Vicente Fox has since gone further and called for an end to prohibition. Just last week, United Kingdom's Bob Ainsworth, the former drugs and defense minister, called for the legalisation and regulation of drugs. All of this follows a 2009 report by three former Latin American Presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, where they called the drug war a failure and emphasized the need to "break the taboo" on an open and honest discussion on international drug policy. <br />
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<strong>8) New and Powerful Voices Join Movement to End Failed Drug War: </strong>Prop. 19 inspired an unprecedented coalition in support of reforming our futile and wasteful marijuana laws. A diverse coalition from across the political spectrum came together to "Just Say No" to failed marijuana prohibition. Law enforcement, including the National Black Police Association and National Latino Officers Association, spoke out in support of Prop. 19. Moms spoke out powerfully for tax and regulate because if is safer for their children than prohibition. The California NAACP and the Latino Voters League endorsed Prop. 19, specifically citing the chilling racial disparities in the enforcement of marijuana laws. Students for Sensible Drug Policy organized on campuses around the state. Finally, organized labor - from the Service Employees International Union to the longshoremen to food to communications workers -- for the first time offered endorsements because controlling and regulating marijuana will mean jobs and revenue that the state currently cedes to criminal cartels and the black market. <br />
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<strong>There's More Opportunities for Reform than Ever, But the War on Drugs Grinds On:</strong> For all the recent progress, drug policy reformers are under no illusion that the drug war will end any time soon. With the Democrats' "shellacking" in November, it is even more unclear how much change will be coming out of Washington in 2011 and beyond. We know that drug prohibition and our harsh drug laws - fueled by a prison-industrial complex that locks up 500,000 of our fellow Americans on drug-related offenses - are poised to continue for some time, wasting tens of billions of dollars and leading to thousands of deaths each year. But we are clearly moving in the right direction, toward a more rational drug policy based on compassion, health, science and human rights. We need people to continue to join the movement to end this unwinnable war. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.<br />
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<em>Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance </em>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-53837489382494114312010-12-22T13:55:00.000-08:002010-12-22T13:55:44.977-08:00This Years Top Ten International Drug Policy StoriesTaken From <a href="http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/">http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/</a><br />
Written by <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmith">Phillip Smith</a>, December 22, 2010, 12:35pm, (<a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/664">Issue #664</a>)<br />
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<div jquery1293053884496="9">This year saw continued turmoil, agitation, and evolution on the international drug policy front. While we don't have the space to cover all the developments -- the expansion of medical marijuana access in Israel, the rise of Portugal as a drug reform model, the slow spread of harm reduction practices across Eurasia -- here are what we see as the most significant international drug policy developments of the year.<br />
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<strong>The Mexican Tragedy</strong><br />
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<strong></strong>Mexico's ongoing tragedy is exhibit number one in the failure of global drug prohibition. This month, the official death toll since President Felipe Calderon deployed the military against the so-called cartels in December 2006 passed 30,000, with 10,000 killed this year alone. The multi-sided conflict pits the cartels against each other, cartel factions against each other, cartels against law enforcement and the military, and, at times, elements of the military and different levels of law enforcement against each other. The US has spent $1.2 billion of Plan Merida funds, mainly beefing up the police and the military, and appropriated another $600 million this summer, much of it to send more lawmen, prosecutors, and National Guard units to the border. None of it seems to make much difference in the supply of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine coming over (under, around, and through) the border, but the<em> horrorific</em> violence of Mexico's drug war is eroding public confidence in the state and its ability to exercise one of its essential functions: maintaining order. The slow-motion disaster has spurred talk of legalization in Mexico -- and beyond -- but there is little chance of any real movement toward that solution anytime in the near future. In the mean time, Mexico bleeds for our sins.<br />
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<strong>The Rising Clamor for a New Paradigm and an End to Drug Prohibition</strong><br />
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The critique of the international drug policy status quo that has been growing louder and louder for the past decade or so turned into a roar in 2010. Impelled in part by the ongoing crisis in Mexico and in part by a more generalized disdain for failed drug war policies, calls for radical reform came fast and furious, and from some unexpected corners this year.<br />
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In January, the former French Polynesian President <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/jan/29/south_pacific_leading_tahiti_pol" target="_blank">Oscar Temaru called for Tahiti to legalize marijuana</a> and sell it to European tourists to provide jobs for unemployed youth. Three months later, members of the ruling party of another island nation spoke out for reform. In traditionally tough on drugs Bermuda, leading <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/apr/16/bermuda_ruling_party_members_cal" target="_blank">Progressive Labor Party members called for decriminalization</a>.<br />
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In February, an <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/feb/26/feature_mexico_conference_calls" target="_blank">international conference</a> of political figures, academics, social scientists, security experts, and activists in Mexico City called prohibition in Mexico a disaster and urged drug policies based on prevention, scientific evidence, and respect for human life. By August, as the wave of violence sweeping Mexico grew ever more threatening, President Felipe <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/aug/09/mexican_presidents_talk_drug_leg" target="_blank">Calderon opened the door to a discussion of drug legalization</a>, and although he quickly tried to slam it shut, former President Vicente Fox quickly jumped in to call for the legalization of the production, distribution, and sale of drugs. "Radical prohibition strategies have never worked," he said. That inspired Colombian President Juan Manuel <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/aug/27/new_colombian_president_joins_ca" target="_blank">Santos to say that he supported the call for a debate on legalization</a>. The situation in Mexico also inspired two leading Spanish political figures, <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/15/former_spanish_prime_minister_sa" target="_blank">former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales</a> and <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/23/former_spanish_drug_czar_says_le" target="_blank">former drug czar Araceli Manjon-Cabeza</a> to call for an end to drug prohibition in the fall.<br />
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Midsummer saw the emergence of the <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/jul/09/feature_drug_war_devastating_fai" target="_blank">Vienna Declaration</a>, an official conference declaration of the World AIDS Conference, which called for evidence-based policy making and the decriminalization of drug use. The declaration has garnered thousands of signatures and endorsements, including the endorsements of <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/jul/13/latin_american_expresidents_sign" target="_blank">three former Latin American presidents</a>, Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia. It has also picked up the support of public health organizations and municipalities worldwide, including the city of Vancouver.<br />
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Great Britain has also been a locus of drug war criticism this year, beginning with continuing resignations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Several members of the official body had quit late last year in the wake of the firing of Professor David Nutt as ACMD after he criticized government decisions to reschedule cannabis and not to down-schedule ecstasy. In April<a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/apr/09/europe_more_british_drug_policy" target="_blank">, two more ACMD members resigned</a>, this time in response to the government's ignoring their recommendations and banning mephedrone (see below).<br />
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The revolt continued in August, when the former head of Britain's Royal College of Physicians joined the growing chorus calling for radical reforms of the country's drug laws. <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/aug/17/top_british_doctor_and_lawyer_jo" target="_blank">Sir Ian Gilmore said the government should consider decriminalizing drug possession</a> because prohibition neither reduced crime nor improved health. That came just three weeks after Nicholas Green, chairman of the Bar Council (the British equivalent of the ABA), called for decriminalization. The following month, Britain's leading cannabis scientist, <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/15/legalize_marijuana_says_britains" target="_blank">Roger Pertwee called for cannabis to be legalized</a> and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, and <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/20/more_marijuana_law_reform_talk_b" target="_blank">the chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officer's drug committee said marijuana should be decriminalized</a>. Chief Constable Tim Hollis said decrim would allow police to concentrate on more serious crime. The following day, the Liberal Democrats, junior partners in a coalition government with the Conservatives, were lambasted by one of their own. Ewan Hoyle called for a rational debate on drug policy and scolded the party for remaining silent on the issue. And just this past week, former Blair administration Home Office drug minister and defense minister <a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/20/more_marijuana_law_reform_talk_b" target="_blank">Bob Ainsworth called for the legalization of all illicit drugs</a>, including cocaine and heroin.<br />
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From Mexico to Great Britain, Vancouver to Vienna, not to mention from Tahiti to Bermuda, the clamor for drug legalization has clearly grown in volume in 2010.<br />
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<strong>Opium and the Afghan War</strong><br />
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More than nine years after the US invaded Afghanistan in a bid to decapitate Al Qaeda and punish the Taliban, the US and NATO occupation drags bloodily on. This year has been the deadliest so far for Western occupiers, with 697 US and NATO troops killed as of December 20. And while the US war machine is fueled by a seemingly endless supply of borrowed cash -- another $160 billion was just authorized for the coming year -- the Taliban runs to a large degree on profits from the opium and heroin trade. In a Faustian bargain, the West has found itself forced to accept widespread opium production as the price of keeping the peasantry out of Taliban ranks while at the same time acknowledging that the profits from the poppies end up as shiny new weapons used to kill Western soldiers and their Afghan allies. The Afghan poppy crop was down this year, not because of successful eradication programs, but because a fungus blighted much of the crop. But even that is not good news: The poppy shortage means prices will rebound and more farmers will plant next year. The West could buy up the entire poppy crop for less than what the US spends in a week to prosecute this war, but it has so far rejected that option.<br />
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<strong>The Netherlands Reins in Its Cannabis Coffee Shops </strong><br />
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Holland's three-decade long experiment with tolerated marijuana sales at the country's famous coffee shops is probable not going to end under the current conservative government, but it is under pressure. The number of coffee shops operating in the country has dropped by about half from its peak, local governments are putting the squeeze on them via measures such as distance restrictions (must be so far from a school, etc.), and the national government is about to unveil a plan to effectively bar foreigners from the shops. The way for that was cleared this month when the European Court of Justice ruled that such a ban did not violate European Union guarantees of freedom of travel and equality under the law within the EU because what the coffee shops sell is an illegal product that promotes drug use and public disorder. Whether the "weed pass" system contemplated by opponents of "drug tourism" will come to pass nationwide remains to be seen, but it appears the famous Dutch tolerance is eroding, especially when it comes to foreigners. Do the Dutch really think most people go there just to visit the windmills and the Rijksmuseum?<br />
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<strong>Russian Takeover at the UNODC</strong><br />
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In September, there was a changing of the guard at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), one of the key bureaucratic power centers for the global drug prohibition regime. Outgoing UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa, a former Italian prosecutor, was replaced by veteran Russian diplomat Yury Fedotov. Given Russia's dismal record on drug policy, especially around human rights issues, the treatment of hard drug users, and HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as the Russian government's insistence that the West resort to opium eradication in Afghanistan (Russia is in the throes of a heroin epidemic based on cheap Afghan smack), the international drug reform community looked askance at Fedotov's appointment. But the diplomat's first missive as ONDCP head talked of drug dependence as a disease, not something to be punished, and emphasized a concern with public health and human rights. Fedotov has shown he can talk the talk, but whether he will walk the walk remains to be seen.<br />
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<strong>US War on Coca on Autopilot</strong><br />
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Coca production is ongoing, if down slightly, in the Andes, after more than a quarter century of US efforts to wipe it out. Plan Colombia continues to be funded, although at declining levels, and aerial and manual eradication continues there. That, and a boom in coca growing in Peru, have led to Peru's arguably retaking first place in coca production from Colombia, but have also led to increased conflict between Peruvian coca growers and a hostile national government. And remnants of the Shining Path have appointed themselves protectors of the trade in several Peruvian coca producing regions. They have clashed repeatedly with Peruvian police, military, and coca eradicators. Meanwhile, Bolivia, the world's number three coca producer continues to be governed by former coca grower union leader Evo Morales, who has allowed a limited increase in coca leaf production. That's enough to upset the US, but not enough to satisfy Bolivian coca growers, who this fall forced Evo's government to repeal a law limiting coca leaf sales.<br />
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<strong>Canada Marches Boldly Backward</strong><br />
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Canada under the Conservatives continues to disappoint. When the Liberals held power in the early part of this decade, Canada was something of a drug reform beacon, even if the Liberals could never quite get around to passing their own marijuana decriminalization bill while in power. They supported Vancouver's safe injection site and embraced harm reduction policies. But under the government of Prime Minister Steven Harper, Canada this year fought and lost (again) to shut down the safe injection site. Harper's justice minister, Rob Nicholson, in May signed extradition papers allowing "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery to fall into the clutches of the Americans, in whose gulag he now resides for the next four years for selling pot seeds. And while Harper's dismissal of parliament in January killed the government's bill to introduced mandatory minimum sentences for a number of offenses, including growing as few as five pot plants, his government reintroduced the bill this fall. It just passed the Senate, but needs to win approval in the House of Commons. The Conservatives won't be able to pass it by themselves there, so the question now becomes whether the Liberals will have the gumption to stand against it. This as polls consistently show a majority of Canadians favoring marijuana legalization.<br />
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<strong>A New Drug Generates a Tired, Old Response</strong><br />
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When in doubt, prohibit. That would seem to be the mantra in Europe, where, confronted by the emergence of mephedrone, a synthetic stimulant derived from cathinone, the active ingredient in the khat plant, first Britain and then the entire European Union responded by banning it. Described as having effects similar to cocaine or ecstasy, mephedrone emerged in the English club scene in the past 18 months, generating hysterical tabloid press accounts of its alleged dangers. When two young people supposedly died of mephedrone early this year, the British government ignored the advice of its Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which called for it to be a Schedule B drug, and banned it. Poland followed suit in September, shutting down shops that sold the drug and claiming the power to pull from the shelves any product that could be harmful to life or health. And just this month, after misrepresenting a study by the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction, the EU instituted a continent-wide ban on mephedrone. Meet the newest entrant into the black market.<br />
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<strong>Heroin Maintenance Expands Slowly in Europe</strong><br />
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Heroin maintenance continues its slow spread in Europe. In March, Denmark became the latest country to embrace heroin maintenance. The Danes thus join Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and, to a lesser degree, Britain, in the heroin maintenance club. In June, British scientists rolled out a study showing heroin maintenance worked and urging the expansion of limited existing programs there. The following month, a blue-ribbon Norwegian committee called for heroin prescription trials and other harm reduction measures there. Research reports on heron maintenance programs have shown they reduce criminality among participants, decrease the chaos in their lives, and make them more amenable to integration into society.<br />
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<strong>Opium is Back in the Golden Triangle</strong><br />
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Okay, it never really went away in Laos, Burma, and Thailand, and it is still below its levels of the mid-1990s, but opium planting has been on the increase for the last four years in the Golden Triangle. Production has nearly doubled in Burma since 2006 to more than 38,000 hectares, while in Laos, production has more than doubled since 2007. The UNODC values the crop this year at more than $200 million, more than double the estimate of last year's crop. Part of the increase is attributable to increased planting, but part is accounted for by rising prices. While Southeast Asian opium production still trails far behind that in Afghanistan, opium is back with a vengeance in the Golden Triangle.</div><div class="image_holder left"><img alt="" class="imagecache imagecache-300px" height="225" src="http://stopthedrugwar.org/files/imagecache/300px/malverde3_0.jpg" title="" width="300" /> <div class="image-caption" style="width: 300px;">San Malverde, Mexico's patron saint of narco-traffickers</div></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-7602518155616822612010-12-22T13:51:00.001-08:002010-12-22T13:51:30.154-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Do-RCrOrkpY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-22729052193225942622010-12-15T13:59:00.001-08:002010-12-15T13:59:38.279-08:00Bill S-10<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Zhz2nkQ-t-r-UAWcN4k-svyad2mGeCjQKk7qIA_ferPnQbc41OJxvCpX1B2C0EG71lSdEfJUS7VGxjn6aO53xl4wJ7JBHHKVV7exAey18O3zC_qmJK1VSy31GFxXP2Wk3mUkJHn5qWdy/s1600/harper%252Bdeath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Zhz2nkQ-t-r-UAWcN4k-svyad2mGeCjQKk7qIA_ferPnQbc41OJxvCpX1B2C0EG71lSdEfJUS7VGxjn6aO53xl4wJ7JBHHKVV7exAey18O3zC_qmJK1VSy31GFxXP2Wk3mUkJHn5qWdy/s320/harper%252Bdeath.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Toronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361225406303013726.post-45814961569261563012010-12-14T14:28:00.000-08:002010-12-14T14:28:19.802-08:00Bill S-10 passes on third reading in the Senate! Fuck.Bill S-10 has passed third reading at the Senate, meaning it will move on to the House of Commons soon. Bill S-10 are mandatory minimum sentances for drug related offences ( aka US style "justice"). Passed today with no media attention.<br />
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"According to the Canadian Bar Association, which represents lawyers and judges across Canada, Bill S-10’s mandatory minimum sentences “…would not be an effective deterrent to crime”, the sentences would be “unjust and disproportionate”, a...nd ultimately the new law “would not achieve its intended goal of greater public safety.”<br />
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Specifically, the Canadian Bar Association warned the senate that the provisions of Bill S-10 “…subvert important aspects of Canada’s sentencing regime, including principles of proportionality and individualization and reliance on judges to impose a just sentence after hearing all the facts in the individual case.”<br />
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Under Bill S-10, judges are stripped of their power to make a compassionate ruling."<br />
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From what I understand some drugs will be reclassified. Ecstasy is slated to be reclassified, get caught with more than one pill, get charged with trafficking, get chucked in jail without the discretion of the judge, mandatory minimum imposed. Shits gonna get worse. Just look at the US, who has the highest incarceration rate, majority drug related offenses. I can't even believe that only a few years ago we had almost decriminalized marijuana and if this bill passes and you are caught with 5 plants you will serve a mandatory minimum. I can only imagine how much damage this bill will cause to our communities and the over incarceration of them.<br />
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We need to get organized and fight the passing of these new laws. <br />
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-ZToronto Drug Users Unionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09085963037437488970noreply@blogger.com0