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Current Affairs 2005 - Reform (115 items)
| Oct 20, 2005 | Cotler's State Of Insecurity Civil rights the Federal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, was well known as a human rights champion before entering public life. But there seems to be little room for champions of freedom in a government obsessed with security. ...The minister had one opportunity to strike a blow for freedom with the proposal to decriminalize marijuana, but the promise to liberate millions of Canadian pot-smokers from the clutches of the criminal law became too controversial for a government preoccupied with building a Great Wall of surveillance to keep tabs on subversives, terrorists and home-grown criminals.
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| Oct 19, 2005 | For A Saner Drug Policy The authors review the spectrum of control over psychoactive drugs, a category that includes alcohol, tobacco, prescription painkillers and illegal drugs. At one end, society widely tolerates and even promotes drinking alcohol while placing tighter controls on smoking. At the other, it makes the manufacture, sale and possession of marijuana, cocaine and heroin illegal, driving them underground and fuelling crime. Both the legal drinking and smoking and the illegal snorting and injecting come with a huge social cost. The illegal drugs do less overall damage because they are not as widely used, but they inflict more damage on the individuals who use them.
[Intelligent discussion is permitted here and there as long as it is never replaces the propaganda mill run by the police and media] |
| Oct 18, 2005 | Health Officers Want Drug Law Changes B.C. public health officers are demanding the government decriminalize drug offences because the war on illicit substances is an abysmal failure. ...They say the laws are based on racism and cultural biases, not evidence of harm, and that the prohibition causes far more damage to health and to society.
LINK: A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada
(PDF, 38 pgs - 238K) |
| Oct 15, 2005 | CN BC: Time To 'Declare Peace In War On Drugs' He's run for political office more times than a family of 10 runs a bath, and fans of Tim Felger will be pleased to hear he is not slowing down his efforts.
In fact, rather than going for one position this municipal election, the pro-marijuana candidate is doubling his efforts by running for council in Abbotsford and for the vacant mayor's post in Mission.
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| Sep 26, 2005 | CN AB: Activist Wants Pot Charges Dropped Max Cornelssen, 63, will be in Court of Queen's Bench, Edmonton, on Oct. 13 to demand the charges against him - cultivation and possession with intent to distribute - be dropped, because Parliament has not re-enacted a section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that prohibits people from growing ganja.
[Technically, cannabis is legal in Canada, yet this is ignored and the persecution that still goes on day in and day out until it is acknowledged by a court - but that's where politics and corruption come in] |
| Sep 24, 2005 | CN BC: Smith Beats Marijuana Cookie Rap Ted Smith, Victoria's high-profile champion of medical marijuana, has beaten a trafficking charge on appeal....On Thursday, Smith received a letter from the federal Department of Justice saying it had reviewed his appeal and decided he should be granted a new trial. The Crown, however, has determined it will not proceed and will ask the Court of Appeal to enter an acquittal.
[There is something very wrong with society when baking cookies for ill people can land you in jail] |
| Sep 19, 2005 | Pioneering Decriminalization But the point here is that I remember thinking how amazing it was that something so harmless as pot smoking would bring about such retribution. Growing up in Ontario, I watched the smog and suburban infiltration plow ahead unchecked, or in some cases, even encouraged.
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| Sep 19, 2005 | CN SN: Pot Laws Protested At Weekend Event A couple of hundred people protested Canada's pot laws by hanging out in a downtown Saskatoon park Saturday afternoon....Saskatoon's event was one of more than 40 protests around the globe. Many of the events overseas were staged at Canadian embassies or consulates.
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| Sep 19, 2005 | Police Losing Battle Over Pot, Says Prof Police are losing the war against pot and it's time to make it legal and regulate the cultivation and use of it, says Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa University criminology teacher who co-founded the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy.
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| Sep 16, 2005 | CN NT: Pot Party Candidate Charged With Trafficking "It's Really A Badge Of Honour For Us Rather Than A Stigma" Nunavut's Marijuana Party candidate appeared in court this week to face long-standing charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.
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| Sep 11, 2005 | Pot Activist Rallies Support Vancouver -- Marc Emery took a quick hit from a joint as his fans smoked and screamed for his freedomin front of the U.S. consulate.... Today, 40 cities around the world, from Warsaw, Moscow, Russia, London, Paris, Madrid, Italy, they are rallying at Canadian consulates around the world. In Melbourne, Australia, and Sydney, Canadian embassies are being picketed!"
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| Sep 9, 2005 | Da Kine Doors Open On Sunday, Business Licence Or Not: Despite his troubles in obtaining a business licence from the City of Abbotsford, marijuana activist Tim Felger says he'll open his downtown Da Kine store on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
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| Sep 9, 2005 | Crohn's Relief Brought Pot Activist To Cause She was suffering with agonizing symptoms and side effects when an old friend recommended marijuana to ease her afflictions. She said it worked and she hasn't used prescription drugs or had surgery since 1996.
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| Aug 29, 2005 | Public Misinformed About Marijuana, Advocates Say FIELD, Ont -- Marijuana users and members of the Church of the Universe gathered Saturday to support Rev. Michel Ethier
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| Aug 26, 2005 | Hemp Oil Producer Plans Public Meeting MACCAN - Rick Simpson is anxious to have his medical marijuana activities judged in the court of public opinion.
The hemp oil producer who faces criminal charges is holding a public meeting Saturday at 2 p.m. in the community hall at the Royal Canadian Legion here in this small Cumberland County community, just outside Amherst.
"I'm going to tell the public exactly what I did and I want them to judge me," Mr. Simpson said this week.
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| Aug 22, 2005 | CN ON: Up in Smoke: Pot Users Blaze A Trail Hamilton - City Hall was the scene of a marijuana smoke out over the weekend as 300 users lit up to celebrate Canabian Day.
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| Aug 13, 2005 | Legalize Pot, Focus Sights On Crystal Meth The arguments for legalizing pot to better fight hard drugs are so strong that Ottawa's failure to move in that direction seems to be due to outside pressure. Either it's organized crime, hoping to keep pot illegal to keep profits flowing, or it's police agencies -- domestic or American -- nervous that their budgets will be slashed if this bogeyman is removed.
[Only police and organized crime support prohibition, yet that seems to be all it takes] |
| Aug 11, 2005 | Pot Party Seeks Local Grassroots The Marijuana Party says it plans to put down roots in central Canada once it gets approval to organize a riding association in Windsor -- the party's first Electoral District Association ( EDA ) south of Nunavut.
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| Aug 5, 2005 | Marc Emery out on bail B.C. Marijuana Party leader Marc Emery has been released from the pre-trial centre in Port Coquitlam after posting $50,000 bail.
Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, Greg William INFORMATION
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| Jul 27, 2005 | CN BC: Compassion Society Defends Sooke Grow-Op In Court Philippe Lucas, head of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, will be in at the Western Communities court house tomorrow and Friday for a preliminary trial into a RCMP raid on the compassion society's grow-op in Sooke.
[This facility was involved in several research projects and supplies cannabis - much more than the government is doing, without costing taxpayer's a cent. Close the competition down seems to be government strategy] |
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