A Block Criminology - Today we will be in the learning commons/library working on our third journal / blog entry. I would like you to tell me what you think about crime trends here in Canada / B.C.
Specifically, I want you to tell me what you think about drug related crime. Violent and property crime patterns are generally decreasing however one area that is clearly on the rise is drug possession, trafficking, importing, and exporting (specifically possession of Heroin, non-Heroin Opioids, and Methamphetamine).
British Columbia declared "drug-related deaths" a public health emergency in 2016. Since the pandemic, rates of opioid use here flared to alarming levels, with a record 2,224 deaths in 2021, compared to 1,767 in 2020, and one of the highest per capita rates in North America at 42.8 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021. In 2021, BC – comprising approximately 13% of Canada's population – had nearly half of all police-reported opioid trafficking, production, and distribution incidents in Canada.
2,383 British Columbians lost their lives to toxic drugs in 2022 and preliminary reporting released by the BC Coroners Service confirms that toxic, unregulated drugs claimed the lives of at least 2,511 people in British Columbia in 2023. The total number of lives lost in 2023 equates to an average of 6.9 deaths per day and is 5% more than the previous high of 2,383 deaths recorded a year earlier in 2022. About seven in every 10 decedents were aged between 30 and 59, and more than three quarters were male.
Toxicological testing confirms that illicit fentanyl continues to drive the toxic-drug crisis. Fentanyl and its analogues were by far the most regularly detected substances, appearing in more than 85% of test results conducted in 2023. The lives of at least 13,794 British Columbians have been lost to unregulated drugs since the public-health emergency was first declared in April 2016.
And remember, from January 31, 2023, to January 31, 2026, adults 18 and older in BC are allowed to possess up to 2.5 grams of illicit substances (cumulative – the weight of all drugs combined), without being subject to fines, arrest or drug seizures. The drugs to be decriminalized include opioids (e.g. heroin and fentanyl), cocaine (powder or crack), methamphetamines, and MDMA (ecstasy).
BC has always been a province where drug crime has been a problem. Look below...
So....Today you will need to write your thoughts on the following: Why has British Columbia consistently had high rates of police reported drug offences? Use what you've learned about crime theories and your own thoughts on crime theories to answer why.
Once you've done this, then find an article about a recent drug crime here in B.C., make a link to the news article on your blogsite and then write how crime theories explain the crime (Look at this news about a 35 kilogram cocaine bust off in the Kootenays or this news about six people arrested in Saanich for 26 litres of GHB gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid a date-rape drug, 100 grams of crystal meth, four ounces of heroin, 16 grams of marijuana and $20,000 cash or this news about police seizing 55 kilograms of cocaine, 47 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and more than a kilogram of heroin in Surrey. You could also check out this incident in 2019 of a bust 9.3 kg of fentanyl and analogues; 7.6 grams of W-18 mixed with caffeine and fentanyl; 2.6 g of carfentanil mixed with fentanyl, heroin and caffeine; ketamine; cocaine; MDMA; U-47700; 4-ANPP; alprazolam; synthetic cannabinoids; a Glock 17 handgun with ammunition; Olympic Arms PCR 99 semi-automatic rifle with ammunition; more than $195,000 in Canadian currency; and 2.19 Bitcoins. OR you could check out an RCMP seizure here in Courtenay of cash, cell phones and what is believed to be fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and prescription drugs).
Don't forget excellent crime news websites are the Toronto Star Crime site...or Global News Crime site...or the Vancouver Sun Crime Blog or the Globe and Mail Crime Blog or the Canadian Online Explorer Crime News
D Block Physical Geography - Today you'll need to define anticline & syncline (use page 228 in the Geosystems Core text Chapter 8.7 Deformation, Folding, & Faulting) and answer the question "What is a migrating terrane, how does it add to the formation of continental masses and how is it related to British Columbia?"(use page 238 in the Geosystems Core text 8.10 Mountain Building)
B Block Legal Studies - I'll have you discuss the Guerin v. The Queen, 1984 case in partners (page 82 AAL) and then, I'd like you to work on questions 1, 2 and 4 on page 64 along with the Review Your Understanding questions 1, 2 and 5 on page 83 of the AAL text to submit next class. To end I'll also have you fill in a Charter of Rights scavenger hunt.
C Block Human Geography - Today we'll consider the concept of Carrying Capacity and Overpopulation. You'll also need to look at the ideas of Thomas Malthus (Malthusian theory)
I'll have you fill in a chart on the various theories of population growth (Malthusian, Neo-Malthusian, and Anti-Malthusian) and we end with this question:
Paul and Anne Ehrlich argue in The Population Explosion (1990) that a baby born in a developed country poses a greater threat to sustainability than a baby born in a developing country because people in developed countries place much higher demands on the world’s supply of energy, food, and other limited resources. Do you agree with this view? Why or Why not?
Paul and Anne Ehrlich argue in The Population Explosion (1990) that a baby born in a developed country poses a greater threat to sustainability than a baby born in a developing country because people in developed countries place much higher demands on the world’s supply of energy, food, and other limited resources. Do you agree with this view? Why or Why not?
D Block Physical Geography - Today you'll need to define anticline & syncline (use page 228 in the Geosystems Core text Chapter 8.7 Deformation, Folding, & Faulting) and answer the question "What is a migrating terrane, how does it add to the formation of continental masses and how is it related to British Columbia?"(use page 238 in the Geosystems Core text 8.10 Mountain Building)
So, BC is geologically weird, right? We are a series of parallel mountain chains that were formed somewhere else and added to the continent by plate tectonics. An orogeny is a mountain-building episode, occurring over millions of years as a large-scale deformation and uplift of the crust. The resulting volcanic or folded and faulted mountain chains are found at the plate margins (this is BC). While Pangea split apart, North America (Laurentia) rotated northwest away from the rest of the supercontinent. The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau is a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks (geological shield) that forms the ancient geological core of the North American continent (the North American Craton or Laurentia). Some of the rocks in the Canadian Shield are over 3.96 billion years old, and Laurentia has been together in its present form for the last billion years.
So, this move away from the bulk of Pangea created a subduction zone where oceanic crust slowly sank beneath the continent’s west coast (which incidentally was the Alberta/BC border). This subduction brought two chains of volcanic islands, the Stikine and Quesnellia arcs closer to North America (Laurentia). These crustal fragments are called Tectonostratigraphic Terranes...shortened to Terrane. So, the buoyant continental crust of the Stikine and Quesnellia terranes collided with and welded to North America about 180 mya which forms what is now eastern British Columbia (The geologic name for this area is the Intermontane Superterrane). The Wrangellia Terrane (that has the Mg rich Karmutsen Formation of Basalts) formed in the ocean basin about 230 mya. It's a part of the the Insular Superterrane which arrived on what was the west coast and got welded to the continent (think of the west coast of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii as well as chunks of Yukon and Alaska) between 120-100 mya. At roughly the same time, the Coast Range Granite Batholith intruded into the Insular Superterrane about 100 million years ago, which formed what we now call the Coastal Mountain Range.
Confused? To help, we'll watch a bit of Geologic Journey to understand
Today's Fit...
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