British Columbia: Gangs bring crime and drugs to Abbotsford

Opinion

Barry Artiste

Certainly when marijuana advocates say Marijuana is a victimless crime, never read the stats on crime, smuggling, death and gangs.

Many advocates say, it will go away if we legalise marijuana, well why we are at it, let's legalise murder, rape, guns and everything else associated with marijuana, cause legalising marijuana, will just turn gangs to other illegal drugs to handle, shall we then legalise those too?

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=584d0028-d025-4785-a6eb-dae4bc70eb69&p=1

Gangs bring crime and drugs to Abbotsford

Organized crime is growing in might as the Fraser Valley city expands. But churches and the community are fighting back.

By Glenda Luymes The Province

Sunday, August 24, 2008

One night, the gangster and the church-goer came face-to-face. Abbotsford youth worker Allan McLean received a call from a youth telling him a mutual friend was in trouble with a gang.

"I called him and remained on the phone with him until I arrived at his home. He was very depressed, drunk and stoned," the director of the Youth For Christ C21 drop-in centre recalls. After an hour, McLean had managed to calm the sobbing youth.

But he was shocked when, a few minutes later, three gang members arrived carrying weapons. "They were unaware that I was there and had full intentions of killing [the teen]," he says.

One of the thugs stepped toward McLean and raised a crowbar over his head. The Christian began to pray. "They stopped," he says.

"I managed to convince them to leave, and they did."

After 18 years as a youth worker in Abbotsford -- a city that's known as both the heart of B.C.'s Bible Belt and the birthplace of the UN Gang -- McLean moves easily between the pews and the streets.