An Open Letter To Campbell River Council

An Open Letter To Campbell River Council

Deny the RCMP Request for DARE Funding

Dear Mayor Jakeway and all Members of Council:

Re: D.A.R.E. program needs funds

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/238519421.html

Please deny this request. The purpose of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program as run by the RCMP has little or nothing to do with educating youth . That is simply the justification for an extended period of physical interactive contact by police officers with the pre-teen age children of Campbell River. It is intentionally timed as they emerge from elementary school and prepare to enter middle school. There they will become exposed to and contaminated by the anti-cop reality of their next ten years in the teenage world. This is a pre-emptive presentation of a more positive RCMP image before the favorable one cultivated in childhood gets exposed. This is how the intimate contact time with students is designed and works.

D.A.R.E. provides opportunities to establish positive relationships between police, children, parents, teachers and other community members. This is a friendly time between the class and usually a pair of very nice personable young cops in uniform. These individuals have been specifically selected and trained in the cultivation of personal relationships. Their task is creating a bond of trust with each student to not only the instructors but also to the uniform they wear. This is successful in a subliminal establishment and belief that if a police officer asks you a question you should answer because he can be trusted. That is false: the worst instruction a child can be given.

So: Who Is This Guy?

That friendly young Instructor is a Cop. Never doubt it. He’s a complete stranger from someplace else who knew nothing about your community until the day of his arrival, and the community knows nothing about him. He’s not so young: he’s probably a university graduate; he’s completed his basic training, served his street apprenticeship. He’s been with the force about five years and has intensive training in Investigation, Interrogation and has mastered his observation and detailed reporting skills. The majority of the time in contact with students is a time totally devoted to questions and answers about all kinds of topics while he takes notes and leads the questioning.

The instructor not only listens but observes and records minute details that can disclose not only an individual’s history but also his personality and his social relationships in the class. Interrogation training notes body language: facial tics and nervous movements in reaction to pressure. Innocent questions can identify members who are his closest friends, his confidants, and all this is on file.

So What’s The Problem?

If as the instructor requested, a student “Bill” at some point in the future say 6 years later after graduation, Bill gets a call and consents to answer some questions about a “friend” in an interview. All of this information will have been reviewed by the Inquisitor on the other side of the table beforehand. Bill knows that the questions concern his good friend “Jack” but not what they are about. His friend Jack has been caught on camera in the commission of some crime in town XYZ 200 miles away the day before. He was identified and a check on his DARE details revealed a link to Bill as a close buddy

The Interview Process

In the course of the interview Bill is asked Jack’s whereabouts and honestly answers he didn’t know where he was. He volunteers Jack was going to XYZ to collect some money he was owed: he also admits he knew that for a week because he had been pressuring Jack for payment of a debt. To the interrogator that moves Bill into a Person of Interest category because he has knowledge connected in some way to their investigation. The crime may have been planned in advance considering the time frame. Considering the motive was money for Bill that also raises the possibility of a conspiracy and Bill now gets advanced into the Suspect category. Woe is him because he is now a target and the inteerogator presumes him guilty. All future relations with the Cops are on the basis of their attempting to bully him into incriminating himself into an admission of his presumed guilt.

How Can This Happen?

The sad part of this story is that Bill had never been informed of his rights as a citizen of Canada. He has the right to refuse to answer any questions on the grounds he might incriminate himself. but despite his completion of his formal Canadian schooling he, as every other student in this country, has never been exposed to any course dealing with their Civil and Charter Rights as citizens and how to protect those rights when they are threatened. Supporting DARE is a contribution to a program that increases the vulnerability of your youth to the misuse of the Law by some authority and a violation of their rights without the knowledge to protest and protect themselves.

If you still can’t understand, or will not accept advice from a nobody, I suggest you pay attention to the following damnations of the program by authorities far more knowledgeable than either you or I will ever be.

40+ years ago in 1972 the LeDain Commission blasted the criminalization of marijuana by DARE and recommended the removal of cops from the classroom. The US National Academy of Sciences, the US Surgeon General and the US General Accounting Office have all condemned the DARE program as a failure!

Since 1998, 16 years ago, the US Department of Education prohibited schools from using federal funds on DARE.

12 years ago the Nolan Reoprt of the 2002 Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs concluded that "prevention strategies in schools should not be led by police services or delivered by police officers" and that “the RCMP should reconsider its choice of the DARE program that many evaluation studies have shown to be ineffective;”

I can’t understand why Council is considering a program that has demonstrated itself to be nothing but an RCMP Propaganda and Intelligence Exercise.

Council should be much more interested in creating and funding a program to advise these same teens in their rights as citizens in the legally bewildering world they are entering in their transition to adulthood.

In Closing:

I suggest the council defer to the conclusions reached by my cited experts and refuse more funding for DARE.

I also suggest that you recognize the shortfall in our education system and its failure to teach students properly with regard to their rights. You can render our youth far more service by pressuring the Province, at some point before their graduation, to include a compulsory course in the value and purpose of their Civil and Charter Rights.

While you’re at it, add an additional request for another compulsory course in Financial Management. At the current time a High School graduate has had neither training nor experience with money management beyond spending what he can pry out of Mom and Dad. They have no idea of how to assess and determine a budget to survive paycheck to paycheck much less create an investment strategy to prepare for retirement 40 years in the future.

Our children need training in both these areas in order to successfully survive in the complex Legal and Financial jungle they are entering with adult independence. The world seems heading for a global disaster and almost inevitable shortages of almost everything that hasn’t already been polluted and rendered useless. Inflation and old age are inevitable and their rights and money are basic tools for successful survival in the world ahead: and the next generations need to know how to use both to their advantage.

On that note I leave you. Do as you will.

I would be remiss if I did not advise you that this letter in its entirety is being published in my blog:

Medical Marijuana with TheSmeeGoanGuy

At

http://goan-smee.blogspot.ca/

Regards

BlaineBarrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

The Year Ahead- Bumps and Hazards

( Shotgun Kiss by Megan Allard of Vancouver )

WHERE THE HELL ARE WE GOING?

Good Bloody Question.

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting more but this New Year poses some real new questions. I’ve been sitting her brainstorming trying to sort the crap out with regard to what I have already got going and what to start looking at.

1. <><><><><><><> Extensions <><><><><><><><><>

We’re only 3 weeks into the New Year and the game is changing again. FB rumor has it that HC is going to start granting extensions for what? Growth? Nobody knows what’s happening or is going to happen. When does the Crime for growing more than six plants take effect? Is Justice going to delay its implementation to help HC defuse the price crisis that is going to happen in April? We know there isn’t going to be any subsidization as long as Mr. Harper is in the Driver’s Seat: The Government he’s driving does have a reverse gear: he’s just too dumb to find it.

2. <><><><><><><> Doctors <><><><><><><><><>

Regardless of what the HC does, what are the Physicians going to do now? It doesn’t matter what HC does with licenses as long as Physicians are the only ones who can sign applications to get them and they refuse and stay on strike. I can’t see them backing off and that is going to cause very severe problems in the not too distant future.

Canadian doctors are totally hung up on their self image as a member of a Brotherhood: a brotherhood worthy of respect and admiration for its dedication to the welfare of their patients. They are not. The Brotherhood is in violation of its Oath.

Members of the Physicians’ brotherhood in ancient times were granted the honorific title Doctor to precede their name. This was more than recognition of the honor and respect due them for their physical sacrifice and service in the care of the community. They were an integral component of a village size pool of patients within which they voluntarily wandered, and lived with as they rendered their medical treatment. As a semi-family member these physicians were privy to all social relationships of the community he serviced.

The title Doctor was granted more in recognition of an individual’s wisdom and guidance as an empathetic counselor and source of comfort and understanding. He alone was intimately aware of all the pressures in play both on the individual patient, and the community dependant on that patient. He knew his patients from birth until death; he knew their contribution and what their loss would mean to every member of the community.

Now I get to criticize our Modern Members of the CMA for their arrogance in demanding the impossible knowledge that is already available and refusing to sign. They have no idea of the damage they are inflicting on the patient pool they are sworn to support and not harm. I think I am going to enjoy pointing their short comings out.

3. <><><>< More Criminal Cop Crap ><><><>

Whatever happens with Harpo, Health Canada and the doctors: it has bugger-all influence when it comes to the CCC (Corrupted Canadian Cops): They’ve got the Blue Brotherhood; the Only Cops investigate Cops restrictions, and the abuse of self incrimination pleas to escape any penalty or incriminate others. They have become callous, arrogant and abusive and now face no deterrent to their violations of law and rights. I will continue to press for prosection of the OPP for Criminal Negligence.That will be a continuing focus over the coming year.

I just sent a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Justice asking for the complete file of my refused complaint and appeal. That will take 30 days? So I have time to investigate the possibilities of a weapon that will scare the hell out of cops. I think we have one at hand but it is only useful if it results in making all cops apprehensive about their job security and bad conduct penalties TBA.

4. <><><><> Grow-op Bylaw Exemption ><><><><><><>

In regard to my Questions to Surrey City Council about an exemption for Personal and Dedicated Growth in the city Bylaw structure I spoke to a lawyer for the City of Surrey this week and I didn’t get very far with obtaining an answer. I could not get answers to specific questions and I honestly didn’t know if he had read my complaint so I asked him if he had. He said he had so I advised him I wanted a lot more specific answers and I wanted them in writing. He agreed and I am now waiting for that. TBA

5. <><><><><> The Israeli Photo Op <><><><><><><

So Monday, Parliament is back and we get to watch the Circus in motion when they get down to business.

Now we don’t have to wait for Stevie boy to get back and down to business, the break has been business as usual. He just got back from a trip to Israel and Arabville. He did his usual spouting of lies and throwing away of money that should better be spent at home.

He just kissed his buddy President Benjamin’s arse and bought the Israeli public with his show of support and anti- Muslim rhetoric. Then, to deal with a stupid war with no end, dumps a half billion bucks split between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. He’s handing out money to sworn enemies like a fucking drunken sailor does a whore. One side’s going to finance illegal settlements and the other is going to buy arms. Israel, Palestine, Jordan can now expect a whore’s treatment and get a fucking of some sort sooner or later

That Photo Op pretty much was a sheer waste of money but I don’t think that was the point of the trip. The point of the trip was an attempt to impress the average Jewish voter that should there be an election in Canada, Hanukkah Harpo is the guy to promote. How I think he attempted to accomplish this is another post to look forward to. LOL

6. <><><><>Too Much Shit To List<><><><>

While the foregoing items are the focus of interest at the moment, this year will see the continuance of all the contentious issues that have resulted from the Conservatives attack on our social system with its built in protections of the citizenry. We have problems in almost every area of Government. Stephen Harper has intentionally invaded and corrupted departmental systems to control more and more of the functions of government. Shuffling personnel, changing departmental structures, changing committees to influence their decisions to favor the government: altering deadlines and reporting requirements to restrict or control information flow to the opposition.

No-one knows in what order they will surface but all of the areas neglected by the government are going to fester more in the next two years of King Harpo’s reign. Not much more to say now: we just get to sit and watch and hear what Stevie the Weevil is going to lie about next. On that depressing note, once I hit Publish on this post I’m going into the bathroom to have a little cry.

What a fucked up future!

I know!

“This too shall Pass”

but

NOT SOON ENOUGH!

I Just Avoided Disaster

I Ran Out of Pot

but

I Got Creative and Diverted Disaster

I have Depression andI had a major problem with my pot supply this week. I use pot to keep a lid on my mood and this is a crisis

I am happy to report that my pot crisis is over. I ran out day before yesterday and yesterday was no fun because I could feel my depression setting in and my mood changing as time passed. I too am a casualty of the Down East Freeze. My shipment of super pot from Toronto is stuck and I was facing a whole week shortfall this morning.

In panic and in search od some secret stash I had forgotten I ran across a bag of twigs and stems I had considered using to make oil. They were small twigs and stems, drier than hell and tough as rocks but they were covered with hard little green balls of leaf and resin. I needed a toke badly so I got my mortar and pestle and I pounded the hell out of a pile of lumber bigger than my fist until it was reduced to shreds and then ran it through a sieve.

I got ½ a cup of fine leaf and resin that I proceeded to pestle 200 strokes into a fine powder. I put a pinch in my pipe and did a good hit. Great Jumpin Jesus! A miracle: Really good and I’m back to normal in no time flat and I’m looking at about a two week supply of some pretty decent hoot. My panic vanished.

I decide to tell you about all this because a FB friend sent me a link to an article on FB by a girl, no a mature woman, describing her problems with depression. It was excellent and I could relate to her. I also realized that of all the other readers of her story very few understood what depression really is and what she was talking about. The simple fact is that if you haven’t been there, or been very close to someone who is, you can’t know.

What follows is my story of my relationship with Depression

1.    How I got it.

2.    What I learned it is,

3.    What it did to me,

4.    How it changed me, and

5.    The person I am becoming because of it.

I have become very conscious of how my mind works and I can detect when trouble is brewing. After two days abstinence before I created my miracle cure all the alarms were going and I was extremely concerned about what was ahead for the next couple of days.

I have learned to watch myself in my head and I can see my brain going negative, from creative thinking about my blog and what I was going to do next; to the now, today and all the problems I have in life. I can control this by using my soapstone pipe and taking teeny weeny little one puff tokes like every half hour from from 5AM to 11PM; it levels me out and I get through the day without a hell of a lot of problems. It really is amazing how the first little toke can change my whole mood in about 5 minutes, even less depending on the potency of the pot.

I’ve run out of pot on a couple of occasions and that is not good because it’s a nasty downhill slope to the bottom of the hole and I don’t want to go there but, if it keeps developing, that is where I’m heading. It’s almost predictable in its development and fortunately I’ve only been out for a short time, about three days.

Even in that time you can go from thinking about your problems and the blame game starts: you start to feel responsible for an increasing number of fuckups in your past life. That’s not too bad but if you lose it here, you start blaming yourself for imaginary fuckups that were never your fault but; you remember every bad turn in your life and you start asking yourself  “What if I has only done this? You don’t know the answer but you assume the result would have solved the problem and you start feeling guilty for your sin of omission and on and on until every waking hour is devoted to hating yourself for destroying a mostly imaginary life. You hit the bottom of the hole when you lose hope of ever forgiving yourself and getting back to normal. Thank Christ I’ve only hit bottom once when I crashed in 1999. I avoided it again today when I created a supply of pot.

What Happened To Me

When I crashed in Sept 1999 I hadn’t worked I over a year and a half, had a work accident and ruptured a disc at L4/5 six months previously, weighed 289 lbs. and was completely out of physical shape.. I was sent to a WCB Occupational Rehab Program with extreme demands and collapsed half way through the second day of a four hour exercise program. I was sent to Surrey Memorial Hospital, a suspected heart attack but I had none. I was lucky that my heart specialist was very perceptive an noticed my downcast appearance. At an office visit one week after discharge he asked me to write a very quick test of 30 questions that took less than 2 minutes to answer: As quick as you can, read each question and don’t think, just check the yes or no answer box. I scored an amazing 27 out of the 30 and was very proud until he told me that it was a test for Depression and any score over 15 was bad news. He made a phone call and I walked down the street to see a Psychiatrist a half hour later.

Apparently most depression is the result of a problem with Serotonin, a hormone that controls your moods and their intensity. I can’t remember which gland makes it but nobody knows what goes wrong and there is no cure. Fortunately there are now a number of drug treatments that will help but everybody reacts differently and what will work with you is a psychiatrist guess game. I was lucky to be put on a drug called Serzone, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) immediately and it worked for me. Unfortunately for a lot of depressed patients finding the right drug for them can be a trial and error effort that lasts for years of ups and downs and that can be completely disabling.

I hit bottom about a month after diagnosis of depression and it took me about six month to get back to near normal. In April 2000 I was diagnosed as having a Major Depressive Disorder Recurrent and I had several bad spells over the next two or three years. I have been spell free for the past 7 or 8 years but the worst result was discovering that I was doubly depressed and had Dysthymia, a low grade chronic depression that lasts forever in some instances. It’s not so bad being gloomy all the time but for me it meant the complete loss of interest and ability to do everything that I enjoyed and made my life worth while.

What I Lost to Dysthymia

I bought my first guitar from the T. Eaton Company catalog for $5 when I was 8 and my Mom taught me to play it first as a steel guitar on my lap then as a rhythm guitar and I finally would up as a pretty good bluegrass finger picker. I was a Burl Ives fan and a good singer of his songs and other ballads and I loved to party and entertain. I knew a hundred dirty jokes and songs and I ran with a beer loving crowd of buddies.

I bought my current guitar in 1968 and it’s a pretty rare Canadian Espana guitar made for the T. Eaton Company by a Finnish guitar manufacturer out of specially provided Canadian woods. It’s a classical style guitar but I discovered its body is a little larger and its got a slightly softer deeper tone. Its my baby!

My guitar has sat in the closet for 15 years now with only the occasional attempt to play. I pulled it out about three months ago intending to get back into playing and discovered rusty fingers and a voice that hasn’t been used in years. I’ve been looking at the damned thing in the corner and wondering what to do.

What is the point of playing again? Right now, none! The only audience I have is you my readers and the only entertainment I can share with you is my Joke Collection. They are the best 70 jokes that I have collected over the past 50 years and I managed to post them as a blog to share at TheYarnBarn.Blogspot.ca/. Take a peek when you need a grin. I recommend the following

The Runaway sermon at Crestmont Methodist

http://theyarnbarn.blogspot.ca/2007/06/runaway-sermon-at-crestmont-methodist.html

The moral of the story:  

Don’t piss off the Preacher

I can read 1250 words per minute and I was a compulsive reader. I began reading Zane Grey when I was about ten, in bed at Granddads farmhouse at night by kerosene lantern light. I absorbed the Code of the West and his hero gunfighter’s penchant for pursuing justice. By the time I was 15 I had read every book in the Fort Saskatchewan town and school libraries and took the bus to Edmonton to trade for another load of fiction and fantasy every weekend. My favorites are probably James Clavell, Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

I loved books, good movies and TV series that primarily featured characters who overcame great and complex difficulties in the course of their lives. Through the exercise of good character, determination and courage they overcame their problems.

I have not read a book for at least the last ten years. I have the same problem with movies and TV. I try and I get not even a quarter ways through and I’ve just lost interest in these heroes and their problems. Who gives a shit? I’ve got problems of my own and she is watching me right now. LOL

I AVOIDED DISASTER

Up until two years ago I was in total isolation in my room unless I was at work afternoons as a Security Guard watching a bank. I had no beer, no buddies, no social circle at all. My wife was totally unaware of how depressed I was but I damned near hit the bottom of the barrel again and on the way to work just before Christmas I was indulging in suicidal ideation about how I should kill myself. I got a wake up call. I was on River Road and wanted to turn left onto Nordel Way.  I waited until the last truck cleared the orange light, turned left and was T-boned in the passenger door by a kid in a pickup truck trying to beat the light. He was going really fast and spun me around 270 degrees and landed me up on top of the lane divider about 12“higher than the road.

I was lucky I wasn’t killed. I lost consciousness for a very short time but hardly had a scratch: a badly bruised set of right side ribs but nothing else. I was taken to hospital, x-rayed and released with an Rx for pain pills. For some strange reason pot didn’t help with that rib pain and it always was like a stab in the side that took forever to quit hurting every time I coughed or farted or laughed.for two months. It was a wakeup call that it just wasn’t my time to croak. Fate, Kharma, who the hell knows, but the Big Boy didn’t want me yet..

I was familiar to a certain degree about the problems with Medical Marijuana and had some nasty relationships with the MMAD and I decided that if I was stuck here, something had to change, and that was me. Jan 1. I decided to help so I started this blog on Jan 1, 2012.

January 27, I read of the Kamermans bust and I decided to become an advocate for him and that expanded to my current range of interests.

I owe much of my recovery to you commenting readers for feedback that let me know that I am doing some good work and have helped some people. That has provided the incentive and motivation to make more changes and get back to the party animal I was. I have plans for Youtube to play and sing two very good not quite dirty songs that I want to get credit for. I have no idea where they came from but they popped into my head 40 years ago and I think they qualify as Classic Country, Just the title and chorus of each will give you a pretty good idea of what is going to come if I can get my new webcam working and learn to warble and pick again:

.

The first is called:

                                              FLATTULENCE

and its chorus goes:

FART! FART! FART! FART!

Whistle, Bang or Wheeze

Odorous and Awful now

It’s floating on the breeze

The second is called:

THE SHITHOUSE ON THE FARM

and its chorus goes

It’s that little white building by the barn

It’s the most important building on the farm

Where I used to sit at ease

With my elbows on my knees

In that little white building by the barn

Playing them at my funeral would make that a perfect send off, 

everybody would be singing along and stomping their feet.

The last two years of Facebook and the Blog have made a huge change in my mood and outlook and I hope to continue to grow more. It is a remarkable turnaround from shame to once again feeling some self esteem and actually feeling proud of myself for what I have managed to do.

So onward and upward with the Don Quixote imitation and the Code of the West belief. You charge the goddamn windmill and then when you get close enough to see the occupant you quick draw your pistol and shoot the bastard between the eyes before he can shoot you.

(Standard Police Procedure: Claim Self Defense) 

Unfortunately there is no shortage of damsels in distress around here with grow-ops to save and I expect to be busy!

That is my story and how I got here and nobody knows where I’m going until I write my next post.

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy