Drug War Madness: Canadian edition

Most of the time the most lunatic examples of Drug War mania, at least in the English-speaking world, come from the United States. but not always! Today’s villains are Canadian. Chris Snowdon has the details of the murderous contempt police in British Columbia have for their citizens.

It seems there is a batch of contaminated Ecstasy on sale in western Canada. Five people have been killed. The police know what colour of pills are likely to have caused these deaths and they know what stamps are on the pills. So what are they doing? Nothing at all.

Police in British Columbia are reluctant to tell the public what unique, colourful markings are on ecstasy pills suspected to be packed with a lethal additive linked to five deaths in the province over concerns users will believe they’re sanctioning the rest.

Lisa Lapointe said while some police agencies have been voluntarily handed samples of the suspect pills, they’ve decided against putting photos online.

“We don’t want to give the impression that these are the tablets that are risky, and other tablets are safe,” she told reporters.

“At any time, any tablet can be contaminated with anything.”

RCMP and police in Vancouver and Abbotsford have all promoted the message that no drugs are safe, while shying away from providing specific details around tracking the substance’s source or revealing what stamps the pills bare [sic].

In their desire to ‘send a message’ that all drugs are bad, these negligent imbeciles are prepared to conceal information from people that might save their lives. Why is there PMMA in the Ecstasy supply in the first place? Because of the War on Drugs. Why won’t they give users health information that will drastically reduce their risk? Because of the War on Drugs.

It is true that taking ecstasy is not a wholly risk-free business even when you can be reasonably sure you’ve bought clean goods. But the risks are tiny (at least in the short-term) as is obvious from the fact hundreds of thousands of young people take the drug wthout suffering any ill-effect whatsoever.

These poor Candian kids are, then, the latest victims of a futile War on Drugs that is not merely misguided but, in this instance, actively wicked. If any more Canadians are killed by this adulterated batch of pills reasonable people may reasonably conclude that the Canadian authorities are accomplices to their deaths. The logic of the Drug War, however, is that such deaths are useful. The prohibitionist agenda needs more, not fewer, drug-related deaths. In this respect, perhaps the Canadians are taking a grimly honest approach and pursuing the logic of the Drug War to its bitter, unhappy end.