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Current Affairs 2006 - Government (89 items)
| Dec 15, 2006 | Social Workers Unsure How To Deal With Grow-Op Kids B.C.'s social workers say they want the government to draft clear guidelines on dealing with children found in marijuana grow- operations "without having to wait for children to die."
But Children and Family Development Minister Tom Christensen says current legislation provides clear enough guidelines so further action is not needed. ...But Christensen said legislation allows the removal of children found in a grow-op "and typically that is what happens."
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| Dec 14, 2006 | Canadian Weed Board Will Need A Bigger Cafeteria Eureka! Get this: The Canadian Weed Board.
Eh? Eh?
The column is now open for questions.
Yes, you, Q, you have a question?
Q: Just five. What? Why? Where? When? And, in particular, insofar as it certainly bears repeating: WHAT?!
A: Exactly as stated. Parliament passes legislation not to abolish, not to weaken, but to preserve forever the Canadian Wheat Board, on two conditions: 1 ) instead of a soft "Wh..." and an "...e-t," a hard "W.." and an "...e-d," a virtual homonym, and 2 ) instead of selling grain, the marketing monopoly moves exclusively into cannabis, marijuana, goof grass, spliff, mary jane, dope, jazzleaf. Everybody wins. The Canadian Whe..er, Weed Board gets to keeps its existence as a 500-employee federal bureaucracy. Farmers, released from historic board restrictions and obligations, gain the freedom to sell their grain to anybody at any time.
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| Dec 12, 2006 | 6 Kids Seized In Drug Houses Six children have been taken into custody following two marijuana grow op busts in Calgary, their parents set to become the first in the city charged under provincial legislation aimed at protecting kids living in drug homes...."It comes down to organized crime and making profits. They will sacrifice their families to make a profit," said the Ward 13 alderman. "I hope that if these parents are found guilty, that they never get their kids back."
[ Pure evil - the spin that it is heartless criminals making profits, rather than possibly families trying to supplement meager incomes with a bit of extra income so they won't have to live on the street. Either way, tearing families apart for growing plants (that many people are eager to buy) ensures there are emotionally scared victims for life - and we allow these people to rule our lives? Are we insane?] |
| Dec 8, 2006 | Canada Looks To USA For Drug Policy Hints onservative cabinet ministers and their aides are consulting with "keen" U.S. government officials on a new national drug strategy for Canada, according to internal documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
[ Not really new news - the US has controlled global drug policy via the UN since the 1960's.] |
| Dec 7, 2006 | Where There's Smoke There's Pot Buried amidst the hype and hoopla of their leadership race, but not entirely unnoticed in certain smoke-filled quarters, federal Liberals seem to have finally grasped that marijuana is a growth industry in Canada.
A contentious "pie-in-the-sky" resolution was presented to the convention's social and justice workshop calling for legalizing marijuana under eventual provincial administration. The resolution also suggested that existing "compassion centres" could be incorporated into Health Canada and there be a general amnesty and destruction of criminal records for the 1.5 million Canadians convicted of simple marijuana possession since 1923.
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| Nov 30, 2006 | PUB LTE: Kudos For Vote To Scrap Pot Prohibition Members of Saskatchewan's NDP made political history at their convention becoming Canada's first governing party to support a resolution to eliminate the prohibition on marijuana. Although this is a great first step, there is a long way to go before state-sponsored discrimination against Saskatchewan cannabis users ends.
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| Nov 30, 2006 | Delegates Back Off Touchy Proposals Liberal delegates shelved Wednesday a series of hot-button policy proposals that, if passed at a full plenary session of delegates here today, would have called on a future Liberal government to legalize and regulate the marijuana industry, lower the age of consent for anal sex from 18 to 16, and expand the Vancouver supervised injection site pilot project for drug addicts to all major Canadian cities.
[Liberals, Conservatives... does it matter? No party will regulate pot until they have permission from their global handlers] |
| Nov 30, 2006 | Low Tolerance For High Drivers The Federal Conservatives Want to Amend the Criminal Code to Better Target Stoned Motorists. Is It a Safety Measure, an Electoral Ploy, or a New Way to Bust Potheads?... It would amend the Criminal Code by increasing penalties for drivers found under the influence or who are found to be in possession of an illicit drug. ...The bill has several obstacles to overcome before it becomes law. One is its constitutionality.
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| Nov 29, 2006 | Pot Bylaw May Be Redundant Orillia wants to create a bylaw to help recoup costs from dismantling marijuana grow-ops, but Niagara Falls has been doing it without one for years, The Packet & Times has learned.
Legislation to do it already exists, said Jim Jessop, an inspector with the Niagara Falls Fire Department.
"All the tools we need to deal with it, we have now," he said.
[Laws, laws, laws and more laws for pot - it is like a national neurosis] |
| Nov 28, 2006 | Right-Wing Reefer Conservative Leader John Tory used marijuana as a high school and university student, once favoured lighter sentences for pot traffickers and even drove while "stoned."...
"That was then and this is now," he said. "I'm 30 years older, hopefully a lot wiser. I think these are experiences that kids often have that help them to learn lessons and shape their attitudes when they get older."
[Classic example of why pot didn't become legal when all those lawbreaking teenagers who tried it became the lawmakers decades later ] |
| Nov 27, 2006 | Grow-Op Building Plagued By Mould Ontario Conservative leader John Tory and Councillor George Mammoliti knocked on doors and held an impromptu town hall meeting yesterday in the lobby of 2600 Jane St., where police on Thursday found millions of dollars' worth of marijuana being grown in 22 units of the building.
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| Nov 26, 2006 | Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone Sure, the NDP have been hypocritical. And one certainly has to look no further than that back-page advertisement in the recent NDP annual convention program that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana so that, as federal NDP Leader Jack Layton puts it in the ad, "people can enjoy marijuana in the peace and quiet of their own home, or in a cafe, without the fear of being criminalized." ....For a governing party that has added a "healthy living services" minister to the cabinet, that is now running a campaign against binge drinking and that has now introduced legislation enabling it to sue tobacco companies, this ad was pure hypocrisy.
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| Nov 24, 2006 | Screening Of Soldiers Uncovers Illegal Use Of Drugs Canadian Troops Being Sent to Afghanistan in February Are Being Tested for Illegal Drug Use -- and About 5 Per Cent Are Failing. A...fghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the military does not want to send people who already have problems into that environment. More than that, it needs troops who are in full control of their faculties.
[ Strange the government has no problem exposing these same soldiers to depleted uranium (DU) and other atrocities. The DVD Beyond Treason is a must see. ] |
| Nov 23, 2006 | Medical Pot Users Fume Over Tories' Drug-Driving Regular medical marijuana users are being unfairly targeted by the Conservative government's new drug-driving legislation, which will increase penalties and make it easier for police to crack down on people who do drugs before getting behind the wheel, a national advocacy group warned yesterday.
"This law, we feel, would unfairly target marijuana users," said Russell Barth, a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers. "Discriminating against us based on our medication . is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin."
[ The Casnadian Cannabis Coalition, an umbrella organization for the cannabis community, issued a press release on this subject as well. ] |
| Nov 22, 2006 | Drug Producer Registry An Idea Worth Pursuing Royal Canadian Mounted Police ( RCMP ) National Chemical Diversion Coordinator, Corporal Brent Hill, recently provided a piece of that puzzle. Speaking to the Perth County Task Force on Crystal Meth, Corp. Hill said he would like to see a national registry created of those found guilty of manufacturing illegal drugs, similar to that used to keep tabs on sex offenders.
Such a registry would provide rapid access by police to current vital information about convicted drug producers.
A person convicted of a designated drug offence could be required to report to the appropriate registration centre to re-register annually and every time they change their address or legal name....Would the registry differentiate between chemical drug producers and small-scale marijuana growers, and should it? Regardless, this is an idea that shouldn't be allowed to get mired in the legislative system for years. It should be examined fully, post haste.
[Using the extremes of the crystal meth scare as propaganda to snag someone growing a plant in their backyard by making "drug producers" seem the same as someone with an obvious mental defect and unwitting victim, is illogical and hopefully unconstitutional. Also, if registries for real crimes involving victims continues, will there be a drunk driver registry so everyone can know when a convicted drunk driver moves to the neighbourhood? Is this what we want?] |
| Nov 20, 2006 | Delegates Want NDP to Become More Green Among other resolutions, delegates also passed a call for government support to facilitate the sale of the Maple Leaf plant in Saskatoon slated to be closed, a call for anti-scab legislation, a call for the government to take action to avoid an SGEU strike and a call for the provincial party to support the federal NDP's position in favour of "non-punitive" marijuana laws.
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| Nov 18, 2006 | Waging War On A Benign Plant I know countless people who treat marijuana as our father's generation treated alcohol - as a social indulgence, one to be shared at a party or consumed after a hard day at work.
And not one of the dozens of people I know who enjoy using marijuana is anywhere near the slippery slope to the world of crack, as laughably claimed by prohibitionists who parrot the lie that pot is a dangerous gateway drug.
The problem lies in the current laws. When the Conservatives decided to ditch the Liberals' progressive plan to decriminalize pot, they reinforced the warped reality that makes criminals of upstanding citizens who enjoy using marijuana.
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| Nov 16, 2006 | Big Weed's Distancing Act ....The fact is, while Cannasat Therapeutics celebrates its successes making use of Health Canada's med marijuana program ( it's part owner of the company that holds the feds' sole growing contract ), folks using legally ambiguous compassion clubs live in fear....
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| Nov 4, 2006 | She's Hardly a Pothead A survey commissioned by Cannasat found 80% of Canadians believe the sick should have access to marijuana with a prescription.
More accurately, 93% of Canadians support medical marijuana. Period. Nothing about presciptions.
See: In a nationwide survey, anoverwhelming 93 per cent of Canadians indicated they accept the idea of people legally smoking marijuana for health reasons. Nearly three in four ( 70 per cent ) not only accept
the practice but also personally approve of the behaviour.
See: When asked if cannabis should be made legal for medical purposes, such as helping cancer patients control pain, an overwhelming 92% of respondents to the National Post poll answered in the affirmative. |
| Nov 1, 2006 | Kids Protected From Grow Ops One week after three Calgary children were found living in a home used as a marijuana grow op, a law enabling police to charge unfit parents for exposing their kids to drugs comes into effect.
Under the Drug Endangered Children Act, officers can seize kids found in narcotics situations, as well as charge the family members who put them in harm's way.
[Although the intention of these laws sound good, there is too much room for abuse of the system by authority in deciding "what is best for the children"] |
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