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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (481108)	10/24/2003 5:50:35 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Respond to of 769670

Vancouver does seem to be the nexus of the debate over de-criminilization. " But what Canada calls progressive, the Bush administration has called "immoral," and has warned of slowdowns at the border should marijuana be decriminalized. Without the threat of arrest, addicts won't seek treatment and will only expand a drug market that spills across the border, U.S. authorities say. Vancouver is the nexus of the debate. The province is the namesake for marijuana — B.C. bud — so potent and valuable it is traded with U.S. smugglers kilo-for-kilo for cocaine. The city is so awash in heroin that a 100-kilogram seizure by police in 2000 didn't dent the street price. The city also has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in North America. The unusually open drug market of the downtown Eastside, where almost a third of the 16,000 residents are IV drug users, has helped make overdoses the city's leading cause of death for men ages 30-49 for five years running, according to research from the University of British Columbia. The U.S. criticism rankles Vancouver, which just elected as mayor a former drug cop campaigning for the injection site. "There is no doubt the American drug problem is the biggest in the world," said Donald MacPherson, head of drug policy in Vancouver. "People here say, 'Go home and fix your own problems.'