Former addict benefitted from a longer prison sentence

The Vancouver Province ran an interesting article about a former drug addict from the Downtown East Side claims they benefitted from a longer prison sentence.

I was one who appeared to be 'hopeless'. For some reason, I got out. Let's be real here - I was on the streets from age 11, addicted to the needle at age 16, and completely and utterly homeless and hopeless by age 21. I slept in alleys, did not eat for days, did not shower, had no home, was high 24/7, and 'tweaked' - or otherwise acted really super weird when I got high (which was 24/7).

I sold dope on the corner of Main and Hastings to feed my addiction - thank goodness for the 'Spanish' dealers out there who let me work for them or I would have had to sell my body on the corner for what $10, thank God I never had to go there!

The reason for my post is that people CAN change. I made a choice, after one more arrest in 1999 in which after working a day selling rock on Hastings on a welfare day, I got busted. I was given 20 months - which really you don't hear about, my opinion is people need to be given longer sentences to enable them to access the help that is out there.

For me, after many years of being busted and sent to jail for short periods of time, I was finally considered a 'long term offender' someone with a longer sentence and was able to access the help I needed - such as anger management, conflict resolution, self esteem, and counseling for all the *** in my childhood.

Yay for me. I was released in January 2001. By mid January I was back on the streets in the DTES. By Feb 7th I was on a bus to a new province and made a change. I left.

I was given the choice to move away (yes - geographical moves DO work), I was shown how to make a resume, and get a job - really If I could work for the dealers, make change, barter, etc etc then I think I could work pretty much anywhere entry level lol).

I think the two points here are 1) A longer prison sentence helped and 2) Access to support services helped. This is supported by the former drug addict at the Surrey Crime Prevention meeting who said incarceration is the best thing for these addicts. We’re not talking about ten or twenty years. Three months with no access to drugs if caught stealing to pay for their addiction is not excessive. It’s in their best interest.

W 5 on Canadian Pimps

W 5 aired a disturbing documentary about under cover operations involving abusive pimps in the Canadian sex trade tonight. It talked about how a guy would wine and dine a girl, tell her he loves her then turn her into a prostitute and making big money for him. How after the honeymoon period was over, the pimp became abusive. Other accounts how they are recruited to be an escort, then recruited to prostitution and give half then money to the pimp. Then it turns into handing over all the money to the pimp. Human slavery in Canada. Disturbing.

Others say how they are lured in to make money as strippers then recruited to become prostitutes and eventually handing over huge amounts of money to a pimp. They didn't get into the tragedy of prostitution to pay for drug addiction like we see here and in Montreal.

Yaletown Brothel stabbing goes to trial

Jeffrey Qi Feng Bian was the owner of a Yaletown brothel and was murdered during the peak of the Vancouver gang war on June 11 2009. Bian had been renting the suite for five months, said Vancouver police Supt. Rob Rothwell, and investigators believe several other massage parlors may also have been targeted in a string of related robberies.

"We believe there may be some organized crime aspect to it, which is still being investigated and explored, but it's not attributed to any specific gang," said Rothwell. Let’s see, if the brothels were run by the Hells Angels, there would have been retaliation. Two punks running around robbing brothels during a gang war and murdering the owner of one brothel is somewhat suspicious.

We know that James Riach, Independent Soldier and Hells Angel associate was renting a suite in Yaletown at the time. What would happen if someone set up a brothel in an area the Hells angels claimed they controlled?

Tyrone McDougall is a flaming idiot

Here's another flaming idiot from Surrey. Tyrone McDougall is on the Dirty alright. Twice. Seems like even the police don't recognize the empire gang as legitimate because in two bit Tyrone’s latest arrest they said it was drug related not gang related. Our Gang’s little rascals known as the empire gang are just a couple of Surrey crack head car thieves.

He wants to be friends with little white rock Ryan and the chipmunks alright. Wait a minute isn't that Larry Amero in little Ryan's display pic? Didn't Larry get shot and isn't he in hiding? A Surrey punk ass car thief crack head using the Whiterock Hells Angels name and reputation to kidnap, torture and rip off a rival crack dealer in Surrey. Imagine that. Perhaps those kids should just go play in traffic.

Wally Oppal seen with Hells Angel Member

Come on guys, give the guy a break. Wally says he didn’t know the guy was a member of the Hells Angels. He was probably just collecting his fee for banning any evidence about the Hells Angels from being admitted into the Inquiry.

For an eminent jurist, Mr. Oppal can be remarkably insensitive. In 1992, when he was a B.C. Supreme Court justice, he appeared at a boozy, men-only dinner hosted by members of the Vancouver Police Department, an annual fund-raiser called the Gentlemen’s Regimental Dinner. He cracked wise about an alleged rape victim, a woman who had come before him at trial.

“In my business, one of the great benefits is that we get to listen to a lot of great cross-examinations,” Mr. Oppal told his audience. “You get a lot of seedy and scintillating material. I want to give you a sample…”

Mr. Oppal then described, in great detail and to much laughter, what the alleged rape victim said she had experienced. The event was tape recorded and was later recounted in the pages of Saturday Night magazine, which also published a reaction from then-VPD chief Bill Marshall, who had attended the dinner. “That was a really difficult night for me,” the chief said. “I’m trying to deal with those attitudes, but I need time. We just can’t have that kind of stuff any more.”

The Shenher manuscript

The bizarre rides of ‘Wally World’ could continue to cost taxpayers

Crews working to contain Alberta pipeline spill

Crews were scrambling to contain a pipeline leak in Alberta that may have spilled as much as 475,000 liters of crude oil into a tributary of the Red Deer River. This is not good. Don't, they have shut off valves within the pipeline? Not a good omen for the new pipeline to the coast. Surely they can build a pipeline with shut off valves every once and a while so they can stop the spill if the pipeline breaks. This is just irresponsible.



Evidently there was another large pipeline spill in Alberta last year.

Three cheers for Jacques Villeneuve!

Jacques Villeneuve, the Quebec-born car-racing champion, is upset at a protest movement that has gone on for months and is now promising to turn up at Formula One Grand Prix events in Montreal all weekend. In a five-minute exchange with reporters Thursday, Villeneuve urged the protesters to go back to school. He suggested they were lazy. He called them an embarrassment to Canada — especially to Quebec. He suggested they were badly raised, by parents who never learned to say, 'No.' Thank god for the voice of reason. What happens when you raise a kid and never tell them no? They turn into spoilt brats.

"It's time for people to wake up and stop loafing about. It's lasted long enough," Villeneuve told reporters at a cocktail benefit that kicked off the four-day Grand Prix festivities. "We heard them. We listened. They should stop. It's costing the city a fortune. It makes no sense."

As for their parents, Villeneuve said: "I think these people grew up without ever hearing their parents ever tell them, 'No.' So that's what you see in the streets now. People spending their time complaining. It's becoming a little bit ridiculous. They spoke, we heard, and now it's time to go back to school."

Three cheers. Someone finally had the balls to say it. So what do the KIDs do? You called us brats? How dare you! We will show you brats. We will throw stones. We will break things. We will kick and scream and throw a tantrum in the middle of the mall and we will Embarrass. You’ll embarrass us alright. You’re embarrassing Quebec, Canada and yourself.

Je me souviens isn't supposed to mean I will remember I am a spoilt brat. Je me souviens is supposed to men I will remember who I am. I will remember I am not a spoilt brat. I will remember that am better than that. A social conscience mean I think about and care about other people than just myself. The elderly, the homeless, a medical system and a pension system ready to collapse. Free university education is a worthy goal not a right. We have to decide which other social, programs will suffer to pay for the brats free ride. Maybe we should tell them no. Maybe that is the best lesson they could possibly learn in their life. Sometimes we have to work hard and sacrifice because we don't get everything we want when we want it in the real world.

Montreal Madness: Little Bo Peep and her mindless lost sheep

I will NOT wear a Red Patch. That represents the wrong side of the Berlin wall.

They may forget but I will remember.

Je me souviens.

Outlaws beat up Hells Angels prospect

Although I don’t support gang violence, here’s a story about some Outlaws in San Francisco who beat up a guy for being a Hells Angels prospect. It just shows you that the Hells angels are not infallible and do have enemies out there.

We remember a member of the Monglos was convicted of shooting and killing the president of the San Francisco Hells Angels. We also remember how the Hells Angels tried to pick a fight with Vagos in Nevada. After losing the fist fight a Hells Angels pulled out a gun and they lost the gun fight too. Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew, the 51-year-old head of the Hells Angels San Jose chapter died as a result. At his funeral they started fighting with and shooting each other. It’s rather messed up n’est pas?

Grow op Degrees and the Hells Angels

The other day I saw an add in the paper for a seminar at UBC on how to get a license for a medicinal marijuana grow op. A few days later the Vancouver Province ran a story about the guy hosting the seminar. Turns out he’s from Kelowna.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that he’s from the Hells Angels retirement village and that he’s hosting seminars in major Canadian cities where the Hells Angels are well entrenched and control the drug trade. Yet the question we have to ask ourselves is if someone gets a license for a legitimate medicinal marijuana grow op, how can they protect themselves from being taken over and extorted by the Hells Angels? What’s stopping this company from giving the addresses of everyone who gets a medical grow op degree to the Hells Angels? That would be the first concern we need to address.

Uncle Joe in Kelowna owned a house that contained a grow op. He got off because he said he rented the house to someone else and the tenants were the ones responsible for the grow op. Even though his truck was parked outside with a Hells Angels bumper sticker on it and the grow op had Hells Angels stickers posted on the walls inside. Since the Hells Angels use such violence to forbid anyone else but them from selling pot in East Van, one has to wonder what Uncle Joe was doing on his way to Salmon arm with a couple of associates and a car load of weapons with a cell phone jammer. Ironic an abandoned grow op was found in Salmon arm shortly thereafter.

Cross border gang forum

Senior police officials from both sides of the border met in Surrey on Monday to discuss border security and to develop co-operative strategies to fight organized crime. Justice Minister Shirley Bond said the purpose of the daylong B.C.-Washington Organized Crime Forum was to share information and strengthen relationships in the face of an increasingly sophisticated gang culture.

Chief John Batiste of the Washington State Patrol added that strong relation-ships will ensure there are fewer cracks in the border that can be exploited. "Whether it is a foreign terrorist, a gunrunner or a drug-dealer, a threat to either of our countries is a threat to both of our countries," he said. "This kind of meeting, this kind of situational awareness, this kind of co-operation, these are our best tools in fighting those who would exploit the border for their own criminal gain."

I have two points here. One from either side of the border. On the south I am convinced that there are some DEA agents who are sincere. Judge Bonner was one of them. From the Robert Shannon conviction and the Trevor Jones indictment, it is clear that the department is sincerely trying to make a difference and address the cross border cocaine trafficking problem.

Yet we cannot talk about the cross border drug trafficking problem without discussing Operation Fast and Furious as well as Operation Wide Receiver. This kind of internal corruption is not new. We cannot discuss the cross border drug trafficking problem without discussing those operations.

Likewise, on the north, we are not free from allegations of internal corruption. The BC liberals have numerous corruption allegations which puts them as a security risk for intel on the drug trade. We need look no further than the Basi Virk case.

Shirley Bond was Deputy Premier when the “deal” was made to chop the (unfinished) trial in order to prevent cross-examination of top politicos and corporate actors and to pay the costs of the convicted men – Dave Basi and Bobby Virk. Her role as Attorney General in blocking the release of documents relevant to that case is suspect.