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Current Affairs 2005 - Government (116 items)
| 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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| Oct 15, 2005 | CN BC: Marijuana Activist Sentenced To One Day In Jail After Marijuana activist Ted Smith was sentenced to one day in jail Friday, the lowest allowable sentence on his particular drug conviction for cannabis cookies.
[Where are the sanity checks when someone can be convicted for giving away cookies made with a substance less toxic than the other cookie ingredients? ] |
| Oct 13, 2005 | PUB LTE: Health Canada's Price For Medical Pot Absurd Health Canada states on its website that this inferior weed is to be sold at a set price of $5 per gram, or around $150 an ounce. This is ridiculous, as the production cost for marijuana can run as low as one to four cents per gram, depending on the growing method.
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| Oct 13, 2005 | Man Sent Back To The U.S. With Catheter Still Attached A U.S. army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution because he grew marijuana to help control chronic pain was yanked from a hospital by Canadian authorities and, with a catheter still attached, turned over to U.S. officials who provided him with no medical treatment for five days, his lawyer said.
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| Oct 12, 2005 | CN BC: Pilot Pot Project Will Be Permanent By '06 A pilot program that hits marijuana growers in the pocketbook will become permanent by 2006 in Abbotsford. ...The project was based on local government's jurisdiction through the Community Charter, the Fire Services Act, the B.C. Building Code and the Controlled Substance Bylaw to inspect homes that may pose a threat to public safety.
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| Oct 12, 2005 | CN BC: City Targets Hydroponic Sales Gaetz said it is not possible to prohibit the sale of hydroponic equipment, particularly as the items can be used for legitimate agricultural purposes, such as growing tomatoes. Rather the plan would be to regulate the sales by calling for information from the purchaser such as who they are and what they intend to use the product.
[The desperate war on pot will keep going to any extreme for it's continuance] |
| Oct 7, 2005 | US Activist Taken from Vancouver ER In Handcuffs to US Border. Shortly after 2PM this afternoon, I witnessed something that will bring shame to Canada. Steve Tuck was taken in handcuffs by Canadian Border Services Enforcement officers out of his emergency room bed and driven to the US border.
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| Oct 4, 2005 | Marijuana Refugee Faces Deportation Steven Tuck, one of a number of high-profile American medical marijuana refugees, is hoping an 11th-hour appeal to the Federal Court will halt his Immigration Canada-ordered return to the U.S.
[Oct. 8, UPDATE: Steve has been seized from a hospital bed in B.C. and taken to a US jail in Washington. See: Marijuana News |
| Oct 1, 2005 | Mounties avoiding oversight, complaints commissioner says The head of the RCMP complaints commission says the Mounties
are hiding behind the cloak of national security to keep her from
investigating allegations of a late-night raid at a private residence
that resulted in no charges but thoroughly traumatized a family....The Mounties resist civilian oversight because they have an
"us-against-them mentality," says Ms. Heafey, who will retire from the
commission later this month after seven years.
[The longer the RCMP are allowed to continue in this manner, the worse the policing situation will become] |
| Sep 30, 2005 | Canadian to File Charges Against Marijuana Activist VANCOUVER - A private citizen says he's filing charges Friday against marijuana activist Marc Emery and two of his associates, partly because that will throw a wrench into the United States' plans to extradite the trio to face drug charges in that country.
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| Sep 27, 2005 | Families Of Slain Mounties Seek Harder Drug Law The family members, still scarred by the shooting deaths of the officers by a violent outcast near Mayerthorpe, Alta., called on the government to scrap the marijuana bill and introduce mandatory minimum jail sentences for those who grow cannabis on a commercial scale.
[How unfortunate that the families of the slain Mounties would exploit their deaths to lobby for tougher sentences on cannabis and organized crime, particularly when the garden was incidental to the police being called in to assist in a car repossession.
Instead, the families should be demanding an investigation into why the police brass chose to send the victims to assist at the residence of a "cop-hater" without appropriate precautions which could have possibly spared their lives, especially when full-geared SWAT teams are sent in to take down an individual tending a few plants. That is the real issue that gets clouded over in the rush to further demonize cannabis.
It is also unfortunate that many professions have much higher on-the-job fatalities than police work, yet this is never acknowledged. See: Pot & Murder] |
| 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 23, 2005 | A Green Light To Grow The legal avenues for growing pot legally in B.C. are more convoluted than a corn maze.
People with licenses issued by Health Canada to use marijuana for its medicinal benefits not only deal with municipal bylaws and Health Canada regulations, but they have to surrender their personal information to police so they won't get busted.
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| Sep 17, 2005 | Pot Use Puts Parents On The Spot A CAS worker had showed up unannounced at their East Mountain home saying she was investigating Baby Christian's welfare based on this written report filed by Sutthery on Aug. 30: "I, officer Sutthery, had a conversation with the owner of the pot cafe in which Chris Goodwin admitted to using marijuana every day. Goodwin also said his wife uses every day."
With those two sentences, an investigation and a political firestorm were launched.
[Parents are allowed to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes in front of their children, but as usual, all perspective is lost when it comes to cannabis] |
| Sep 14, 2005 | Pot Coming To Pharmacies OTTAWA -- Health Canada's long-delayed plan to sell government-certified marijuana in drugstores appears to be back on track for early next year.
[This has already been discussed enough, that seeing is believing] |
| 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 7, 2005 | Marijuana Trafficking Charges Stayed TRURO, N.S. -- Trafficking charges were stayed yesterday against two men who say they smoke and supply marijuana for medicinal purposes. John Thomas Cook of Halifax and Stephen Edward Chute of Springhill, N.S., both 40, were each charged with possession of marijuana and possession for the purposes of trafficking.
Mr. Cook runs the Halifax chapter of the Cannabis Buyers Clubs of Canada and supplies medicinal pot to about 50 clients.
Mr. Cook and Mr. Chute don't deny that they shipped the drugs from Springhill to Halifax County. Crown attorney Cameron MacKinnon wouldn't comment on why the charges were stayed.
[Perhaps the government knows it is on shaky legal ground and don't want to push their luck. Too bad] |
| Aug 30, 2005 | New Medicinal Marijuana Rules Ease Onus On Physicians Revised regulations governing Health Canada's medicinal marijuana program reduce the onus on physicians as gatekeepers, but the 4-year-old program is still cause for concern, says the CMA.
[ Forms for Medical Marijuana available at:
Marihuana Medical Access Division]
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| Aug 26, 2005 | Police Didn't Violate Pot Advocate's Rights - Judge A judge yesterday threw out arguments that police violated the constitutional rights of pro-marijuana advocate Marc-Boris St-Maurice when they joined the Bloc Pot party he founded and arrested him at the party's cafe.
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