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Current Affairs 2005 - Government (116 items)
| Dec 26, 2005 | Sovereign In Name Only Here's the issue: If there is evidence of his guilt, Emery should have been charged here. If Canadian authorities have no evidence, they've no reason to co-operate with the U.S.
( Parenthetically, when U.S. warships visit Esquimalt, B.C., the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service routinely works sting operations in Victoria to discourage their sailors from buying drugs there -- meaning U.S. law-enforcement agents are operational on Canadian soil. Conscious of sensitivities, the Victoria police did make arrests. )
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| Dec 19, 2005 | Underground Economy Skews BC Statistics Estimates of the value of the marijuana industry alone run as high as $20 billion a year -- almost as much as the Progress Board is guessing the whole underground economy is worth. ... For one thing, there's that huge marijuana industry, which pumps billions -- though we can only guess how many -- into the economy.
The cannabis economy is allowed to thrive because it keeps many BC communities going... |
| Dec 11, 2005 | Decriminalize Pot - Layton "Our view is there should be rules around marijuana use, personal use, age, driving, trafficking, mass production and marketing," he said. ...
"When something is criminalized to the extent that marijuana is you have by definition created a context for organized crime," he said. With just five seats out of B.C.'s 36, a strong finish this election could translate into big gains for the NDP.
Besides the Greens, the NDP have the best platform for cannabis reform. |
| Dec 9, 2005 | If You Toke, Don't Drive The Pot and Driving Campaign is an attempt to raise awareness about the dangers and prevalence of driving while impaired by pot...."In Canada we boast the highest use of pot in the world but there's a naivete surrounding young drivers; they think driving drunk is bad, they don't think that driving on pot is bad."
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| Dec 6, 2005 | Marijuana Party Candidate Has Never Touched The Weed "The philosophies of the Marijuana party make a lot of sense," he said Monday.
"The prohibition of drugs has not solved any problems with regards to crime."
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| Dec 6, 2005 | Evidence Shows Harper's Justice Policies Harper said a Conservative government "would impose mandatory minimum sentences of at least two years for trafficking, selling or importing hard drugs like heroin, cocaine or crystal methamphetamine."...Evidence from both Canada and the United States confirms that mandatory minimums fail to deter crime. In fact, a 2001 study commissioned by Justice Canada found absolutely no correlation between the crime rate and the severity of sentences.
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| Dec 4, 2005 | Harper Tough On Drug Crime Among the Tory promises:
- - Minimum sentences of at least two years for trafficking, exporting, importing or producing heroin, cocaine or crystal meth or more than 3 kilos of marijuana or hashish.
- - A commitment not to reintroduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana.
Several studies have shown minimum mandatory sentences add an enormous cost burden to the corrections system without offering any clear deterrent.
A Conservative government would not only set cannabis reform back many years, we would also see the types of problems experienced in the US. |
| Nov 30, 2005 | Election Kills Marijuana Bill Pot Activist Glad Legislation Is Gone
A bill to decriminalize marijuana has died with the fall of the Liberal government -- and pot activists are pleased to see it go.
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| Nov 23, 2005 | Conservative Candidate Backs Pot Mine Federal Health Critic Steven Fletcher's call to shut down the local medicinal marijuana grow-op isn't shared by Flin Flon's Conservative MP candidate.
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| Nov 22, 2005 | Dont Toke And Drive Campaign Begins The campaign poster, to be displayed in schools and libraries across the country, shows two airline pilots smoking pot, with the caption:"If it doesn't make sense here, why does it makes sense when you drive?"
"We're trying to dispel the the myths around pot and driving," said Elinor Wilson, of the CPHA.
[Tackling the issue of impaired driving while not mentioning fatigue, prescription drugs, etc, does little to combat the real problems... and this campaign has already been hijacked by the truth. |
| Nov 12, 2005 | Activist Accused Of Trying To Hijack Forum A pot activist who used a crowded rural forum to confront police Chief Brian Mullan says he'll keep speaking out at future meetings, despite being blasted by an irate city councillor.
Councillor Margaret McCarthy says she had to tell two men to "sit down and shut up" because they tried to "hijack" the meeting this week in the old Flamborough town hall.
[They just can't handle the truth...] |
| Nov 11, 2005 | Facts Don't Support Crime Fears "In Canada, we think we don't have the crime and crime rates ( as they do in America ) but it is becoming very clear we can no longer be complacent in the face of rising crime levels in Canada and in B.C. in particular."
The problem is that just isn't true.
According to a July 2005 report from Statistics Canada, the national crime rate fell one per cent in 2004.
[If the media always did their job of investigating "facts" we would see very different news articles about cannabis] |
| Nov 8, 2005 | Landlords Paying For Grow Op Costs Landlords harbouring marijuana grow operations have coughed up $142,000 to the Maple Ridge since a new anti-pot bylaw was passed 10 months ago, district staff say. The RCMP have taken the lion's share of the fines and fees so far, with $97,939 charged to landlords just for the police costs. The Building Special Inspection Fee has added $10,800, the Re-Occupancy fee another $9,000 and the Fire Department has charged $8,644. There have also been $15,987 in other charges.
[Imagine a world where plants were allowed to grow where they normally do...] |
| Nov 2, 2005 | Health Critic Calls For End To Pot Mine Federal Health Critic Steven Fletcher is calling on Ottawa to shut down the nation's most famous grow-op.
"The government-run marijuana grow-op in Flin Flon, Manitoba, has been a bust. The crop has little medicinal value and may be corrupted by mine contaminants," said Fletcher, speaking in the House of Commons earlier this year. "Will the [Health] Minister shut down the operation or will taxpayers continue to be shafted?"
[When you consider the government has spent millions of dollars running a grow op that no one benefits from except the people hired by Health Canada to administrate, while compassion clubs are far more effective and cost taxpayers nothing....] |
| Nov 1, 2005 | Concerned Students Tackle Marijuana Issues For Every High, There Is A Low. Think About It.
This tag line will be used in upcoming public service announcements by a group of local students who are concerned about marijuana use among their peers,
[Having Health Canada provide information about cannabis is the same as the police information - they draw on the same souces for their propaganda and scare-mongering. Not only will a far larger percentage of teens drive than experiement with drugs or herbs, but all of them will lose far more friends to car crashes, yet how much education do they receive about defensive driving? |
| Oct 28, 2005 | Teens Turn To Toking Before Driving: Study A new study finds teens are more likely to drive after smoking marijuana than after drinking, according to a recent study of 6,000 Atlantic Canadians in Grades 10 and 12. ...Drivers who smoked marijuana were four times more likely to be involved in a crash than those who had not. The study's results are considered accurate within 1.6 percentage points, 99 times out of 100.
[Considering the number of driving & pot studies that conclude it is safer to drive on pot than alcohol, perhaps the message isn't getting lost... though no impairment is the ideal we should strive for] |
| Oct 26, 2005 | MP Report By Jay Hill, M.P. Bill C-248 would impose mandatory sentences of one year or more for the first offence and two years or more for a subsequent offense for those convicted of drug trafficking within 500 metres of an elementary or high school. However, the federal Liberal Government said it doesn't like my legislation. Why? The Liberals also oppose Bill C-248 because, according to Mr. Thibault, it doesn't address drug trafficking in skate parks, arenas and other areas children frequent.
[Duh, the government may have it's own agenda, but if this bill passed, we would be one step closer to the USA style drug policy, and Canadians don't want that] |
| Oct 24, 2005 | Most Canadians Would Vote For Pot Smoker Poll The Leger Marketing survey conducted Sept. 13-16 found that only 26 per cent of Canadians would have refuse to vote for a politician who had smoked marijuana.
[Typical of Canadians, eh?] |
| 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] |
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