Another dru

IN his introduction to
his classic Les
Miserables, Victor
Hugo said this: “... so
long as ignorance and
misery remain on
earth, books like this
cannot be useless.”

Ignorance and misery are
in no short supply in the tale
of the latter day Jean Valjean,
Allen Richardson. | mean the
ignorance, by turns, of an
American justice system and
its war on drugs, and the

capitulating Canadian author-

ities. And, of course, the mis-
ery caused to a member of
the North Shore community
and his gravely ill wife.

Alriost 30 years ago,
when only a boy of 19,
Richardson, an ex-Amencan,
became involved in the anti-
Vietnam War movement.

Drugs, rock tn’ roll and
political posturing were rites
of passage and certainly not
unusual for scores of sta-
dents

He was then arrested for
selling $20 worth of LSD to
an undercover cop, who, to
my mind, was guilty of
entrapment.

The middle-class young-
ster was sentenced to four
years in jail. Not quite the

urgatory to which Victor

ugo’s Jean Valjean was
doomed, -.ttica was still an
extremely brutal place for a
fresh-faced vouth with no
prior convictions.

Christopher Perlstein, for
thar was his birth name,
spi < weeks in Attica.
After being removed tem-

. porarily from the place he
described as “a medieval
house of horrors,” Perlstein
was told he would be return-
ing to Attica, where 43 peo-

ple had j just been killed in the

- course of an uprising.

Perlstein bolted.

The broad and short of it
ishe found a home in .,
Canada, assumed a new
tity, and has worked for _,
almost 20 years for a UR
affiliated research facility
where he was arrested the
other day by the ROMP.

“It seems Mr. Richardsor
very own Javert (the dogged

oliceman who makes it his

i mission to capture Je
Valjean for stealing a loaf of
bread), in che guise of the
New York State Department
‘of Corrections, has finaily
_caught up with him.

r. Richardson is expect-
ed to furnish the optics of
victory for the American

“justice and the correctional
‘services departments,” by
surrendering and serving the
remainder of his sentence in

the U.S. Immigration Canada

“ ordered him ta leave the
country, stating Canada
“can't be perceived as a safe
‘haven for criminals.”

. This order is now pending,
Richardson’s refugee claim, Ir

is offensive, | know, to men-
- tion Christie Lamont and
‘David Spencer in the same

Es

Let us send
your old eyeglasses
to the developing world.

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PS OPERATIONS

fair
comment

breath as a law-abiding
Canadian. But one would
hope that.a foreign minister
that saw fit to intervene on
behalf of those bona tide
Canadian criminals, kidnap-
pers of a Brazilian business-
man, would, if extradition
became a threat, deploy the
same diplomacy in the se’
of Richardson.

It is a sorry country that
doesn’t fight to keep
Richardson within her bor-
de t welcomes oncrous
refugees like Fariba
Mahmoodi, to name one.

Mahmood, who can sure
work the system, not only
swayed refugee boards, but
had the Human Rights
Tribunal in raptures. This
ignoble kangaroo court failed
te throw out the woman's
allegations of sexual haras
ment against UBC protessor
Don Dutton, in spite of her
lengthy rap sh Mahmoodi
allegedly committed weltare
fraud, deGauded the uni
ty, forged academic and reter-
ence documents, and
attempted to ensnare three
other male faculry membe

Due process, real rules of

+ issues were towed 1 tw
the wind, and Mahmoodi was
avarded restorative pavment
for having endured a sexual:
ized environment of Dr.
Dutton’s making.

She mav be welcome in
Canada, but how does a per-
san, who pens a threacening
letter so full of fractured
phrases and torturcd syntax,
finger in any institate of
higher learning?

If it accepts the likes of
Mahmoodi, then UBC and
she are perfect bedmates.

Dr. Dutton, tor his part,
was net entirely averse to
consorting with ber, and thus
stands accused of taking
delight ina seemingly matev-
olent and vapid woman.

With that off my chest, let
me conclude my defence of
Mr. Richardson,

ft should come as no sur-
prise that Richardson has led
an apright lite, for he is not
and was never a criminal. [tis
the state that is criminal in its
attempt to regulate individual
use of certain toxic sub
stances to the arbitrary exclu-
sion of others like cigarettes,
or alcohol, for instance.

The right to use a noxious
substance if ane so chooses,
or to transact peacefully with
other consenting adults who
wish to procure these sub-
stances, should be a civil lib-
erty devoid of the threat of
violent search and seizure
activity.

Practically unaltered since
the 1960s, this wicked war

on drugs, whose warriors are
now trolling tor Richardson,
saw the arrest of O82, 885
Americans tor marijuana in
1998 — 88's of theny for
possession alone
The law may be an ass in
Richardson's case, but its
interpretation needit contin:
ue to be so asinine.
ts¢ should invoke
the values of compassion, as
well as the tenet of rehabilita-
tion. The former was woeful
ly Jacking over the airwaves.
T hope the sample of mean
spirits, which inundated talk
shows, was unrepresentative
of the population at Jarge.
The same callers who
howled tor Richardson's
Hood, heaped praise on a
Washington state teen, nay
viper, who ratted on her t par:
ents for growing some weed
in their basement
These parents were pros-
perous professionals whose
downtall was to raise a child
— no doubt progressively —
with no concept of lo valey
and a sense of proportion,
As for rehabilitation, I
recoil from having to speak
of it in the ease of Mr.
Richardson, who isn’t the
Jeast a criminal, but has been
cast as one; just as J recoil at
the sight of Mr. Richardson
and his v nade ta grovel
betore the state and its
machinery.
— quome@aticanadanet

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