Organized Crime and the Midnight Tow Truck

This week's Toronto-area crime news has been dominated by front page pictures of eight murdered Bandidos motorcycle gang members and related stories of gang activities within the GTA. It turns out that the Bandidos and other gangs have been using tow trucks to haul drugs around the city. In fact, the Toronto Star reported that on the night of the Shedden massacre, police tailed a tow truck along highway 401, but were unaware that the car in tow was weighed down with 200 KG of cocaine. The three men in the truck were gunned down after entering a farmhouse owned by Bandido member, Wayne Kellestine.

The tow-truck connection made me re-think an old children's story called Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck. After losing a favourite toy car, young Matthew goes to bed and dreams he sees the flashing lights of a tow truck outside his bedroom window. When the Midnight Tow Truck Driver calls up for help, Matthew sneaks out of the house and the two of them cruise through the night, hauling vehicles to a special car wash facility that shrinks them down to pocket size. The drivers seem to eat nothing but "red licorice" and they even give some to Matthew for helping out. When he wakes up, he finds his favorite toy truck in his shirt pocket and insists that his mother buy lots of red licorice. He tells here to leave some on the windshield of her car so that it will never be towed away. It was a fun story and both of our kids enjoyed it 14+ years ago, but shrinking cars and red licorice pay offs? Were the Bandidos already involved in the murky underworld of children's literature? Such meta-narratives! It's all too much for my small brain!

Time to legalize red licorice?
Now I personally am not big on the stuff, but I do believe it may be time to legalize "red licorice" so that society is no longer held hostage by these midnight tow trucks. Imagine if you could walk into any LCBO -- Licorice Control Board of Ontario -- outlet to purchase enough for your own use? It just might take a little business away from the Bandidos and tow truck drivers of the world. Perhaps this was the unspoken message that Michel Auger, a Montreal crime reporter, had for CBC's The Current last Wednesday. Auger, who took six bullets in the back from a Quebec-based motorcycle gang in 2000, spoke of the futility of expensive police stings and undercover operations. He told The Current's Gary Simmons:

"It's too easy for the criminals to profit from the millions they are making with drug trafficking and if there is trafficking it's because there are customers. So it's the citizens who are complaining about the violence and activities of organized crime, but they are buying the cocaine and hashish and marijuana... so there is no way to succeed against organized crime because society is the customer. They are supplying what society needs."

Hmm. What society needs? It's hard to say. In developed societies, where the basic needs of most are easily met, many people struggle with individual wants and desires. But perhaps collectively, we really can't function unless a certain percentage of the population has regular access to psychoactive drugs. Maybe those who sing the Ramones signature song: "I Wanna Be Sedated" really need to be sedated. If that is the case, better they should buy their stuff from a surly civil servant than a burly guy on a Harley. If nothing else, at least recreational drug tax revenues could be used to fund drug rehab programs -- just as a percentage of state gambling revenues are funneled into gambling addiction programs.