Hiding the agenda

Say you were a hard line anti drug type that wanted to form a group of like minded individuals and yet sound like you were reasonable open minded people.What to call this bunch of ultra conservative neo-cons so as not to scare away any dupes that you might be able to persuade to join your cause.In Vancouver B.C. they chose :Keeping the Door Open.Pretty clever when your group has such members as health minister George Abbott and civil city enforcer Geoff Plante as well as Mayor Sam Sullivan.Remember Sam? He of the now Infamous CAST program which Sam was telling everyone within earshot that was a done deal,the cheque was in the mail.It's looking like CAST was never anything more than another of Sam's pipe dreams.I wonder what Sam smokes in that pipe?I happened to be in the section that these people sat in at the second of three meetings by the real drug reform movement in February.All they did was complain and moan that harm reduction would take money away from their long running abstinence programs.The very last thing that these people want is for a real open and frank discussion to take place on the drug issue.The reason they were absent at the third meeting was because they wanted the floor to themselves.They've been doing and saying the same things since the drug war began and before that.Only one of the daily freebies bothered to cover the meetings and 24hrs was shameless in it's aggrandizing of the group and it's political clout.Of course politicians would support anyone that backs the drug war.It's too bad that a paper that is supposed to report the news with impartiality is so obviously in support of drug war politics and all things prohibition..This group champions the status quo.They are the people in charge of things like methadone programs,12 step programs,forced treatment regimens and all the things that have gotten us to where we are today.If you want to see new things tried and new approaches to try to find realistic solutions to our drug problems this group will slam the door in your face.They oppose all things open and researched.they're too busy protecting their turf.