In my last post I relayed the story of Andrew Feldmar, the 68 year old psychotherapist from BC that was banned from the US because he admitted to using LSD forty years ago.
This morning he came to mind as, in disgust, I read how Steven Page was given a clean criminal record. Steven Page is the former lead singer for the Barenaked Ladies band, and Canadian. He was caught in July with marijuana and cocaine and was charged with felony drug possession.
From the article in today’s The Buffalo News:
In October, a Fayetteville village justice reduced the charges to misdemeanors, and then approved an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal for all three defendants.
At that time, Judge Thomas J. Miller ruled that if the three avoided trouble and passed random drug tests for a six-month period, he would dismiss the charges. The six-month period ended on Thursday.
His lawyer, Mark J. Mahoney, made these statements:
He didn't get special treatment. He got fair treatment, despite his notoriety.
So let me get this straight:
An established Canadian professional who wrote in an online article that he took LSD forty years ago, who has grown children living in the US, and who has no criminal record is banned from the US; banned from seeing friends, banned from visiting his children, banned from visiting his grand children.
A Canadian singer caught in the US with drugs is charged with a felony, has it dropped to misdemeanour, and is told if he stays out of trouble for 6 months and is clean for those months, that all charges will be dropped and his record will be clean…like none of this ever happened, and he’ll be able to cross the border and honestly say “No, I have never been charged with any crime”.
No Mr. Mahoney, there was no special treatment at all. Glad to see the USA’s tough stand on drugs and who they let into the country seems to be working so well.
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