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Current Affairs 2005 - Chronological (81 items)
| Dec 23, 2005 | Pro-Marijuana Couple Fighting Order to Leave Steve and Michele Kubby, medicinal-marijuana advocates from California who were denied refugee status here, now face removal from Canada - barring a last-ditch, court-ordered stay in early January.
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| Dec 23, 2005 | Plea to Grow Marijuana Rejected by Appeal Court Vancouver -- Canada's medical-marijuana rules have withstood another constitutional challenge from a marijuana advocate.
The B.C. Court of Appeal rejected Michele Kubby's claim that the regulation infringed on her rights.
The former Californian went to court after Health Canada rejected her application to possess and grow marijuana.
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| 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 | Pot-Party Head Backs NDP B.C. Marijuana Party president Marc Emery, facing extradition to the U.S. for allegedly selling marijuana seeds by mail, plans to back the NDP in the federal election. Emery's lawyer yesterday asked B.C. Supreme Court for clarification on his bail conditions and whether Emery could take part in the political campaign.
Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm said he could, but warned him to be careful what he says.
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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 10, 2005 | Police Rules Weren't Followed, Inquest Told The night Heather Benson died in RCMP custody, some regulations were not followed, a coroner's inquest heard Tuesday. Benson died while being transported by the RCMP from Tagish to Whitehorse, when the police cruiser rolled off the road and into the ditch.
She was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene of the accident as a result of chest wounds, on Sept. 27, 2003.
Const. Jeff Monkman, who was driving the car, was convicted of careless driving in a trial held last February and fined $1,000.
[This sums up everything that is wrong with the system as we know it] |
| Oct 27, 2005 | CN SN: U Of S Pot Study Stirs Int'l Media Saskatchewan - This past week, a U of S research team garnered international attention after publishing a study suggesting that marijuana related substances might reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. ..The researchers see this as evidence that the drug gave the rats more motivation or will to live; this of course indicating that they were in fact less depressed.
[Millions of people self-medicate with cannabis, alcohol, chocolate, you name it, so telling us which substances we may or may not use, sometimes works on children, but hardly ever for adults but we continue the charade anyway] |
| Oct 23, 2005 | CN AB: Minister Spearheads Child Seizure Law Exposing children to illegal drug activity is child abuse, Alberta's children's services minister says, and proposed legislation allowing the apprehension of children in grow ops or other drug houses will make that clear. "It's an addition to the toolbox," Heather Forsyth said Friday.
[How much uglier can the war on pot get? What about the kids growing up in violent alcoholic homes? When will they get a break?] |
| Oct 20, 2005 | Immigrants' Plight Concerns Chinese Community In City MEMBERS of Winnipeg's Chinese community say they're concerned about immigrants who were packed into a rural Manitoba farmhouse and accused of doing the "grunt" work in Manitoba's largest-ever marijuana grow operation.
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| 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 | Pot-Prescribing Doctors Warned The organization that provides malpractice insurance to Canadian physicians is telling doctors they should not prescribe medical marijuana unless patients sign a release-of-liability waiver
[People have been using cannabis for thousands & thousands of years without one death, yet these over-the-top hypocritical bureaucrats choose this herb to propagandize.] |
| Oct 18, 2005 | Pot Less of a Cancer Risk Than Tobacco, Study Suggests Marijuana smokers are less likely to contract cancer than cigarette smokers, new research suggests.
While cannabis and tobacco smoke are chemically similar, the key difference is that cigarettes contain nicotine, which appears to bolster the cancer-causing properties of tobacco, while cannabis contains tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC, the active ingredient in pot ), which may actually reduce the carcinogenic properties of some chemicals.
[Thousands and thousands of dollars are spent to confirm what thousands and thousands of years of anedoctal evidence tells us - politics is the only reason this plant was ever illegal] |
| 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 13, 2005 | Marijuana Compound Spurs Brain Cell Growth According to the study in rats, a super-potent synthetic version of the cannabinoid compound found in marijuana can reduce depression and anxiety when taken over an extended period of time. ...."I think most people with clinical expertise in the area of palliative medicine know that if patients had access to all the tools we currently have, we could certainly do a whole lot better to help people live with multiple chronic diseases," he added. "The social policies are way behind our technology, and that's where we need some catching up."
[For every beneficial study such as this, 5 more junk science claiming psychosis are trotted out, but our collective experience of cannabis precedes the scientific knowledge ] |
| 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 7, 2005 | Officer To Stand Trial On Drug Charges A police officer facing numerous charges spanning several years and jurisdictions will stand trial on local charges next week, a judge has ruled, despite a bid from the crown for more time to scrutinize new information brought forth by the defence.
Ned Maodus, 41, a former resident of Mono, is a senior drug investigator with Metro Toronto Police who, along with five other officers, faces drug related charges and allegations of wrongdoing.
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| 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 6, 2005 | Marijuana Effective Against Morning Sickness: Study While women are traditionally told to avoid drugs and alcohol during pregnancy, one researcher from each of the Vancouver Island and B.C. Compassion Societies and the University of B.C. and the University of Victoria looked to see if pregnant therapeutic users of medical marijuana reported relief from their nausea and vomiting.
The researchers found that 92 per cent of the women surveyed rated pot's effect on morning-sickness symptoms as either "very effective" or "effective."
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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 |
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