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Current Affairs 2007 - Youth (68 items)
| May 24, 2007 | Supreme Court - Backpacks and Searches If police officers were allowed to drop in on quiet house parties, snoop around backyard patios or search the private vehicles and backpacks of people at random and without cause, an awful lot of upstanding citizens would likely find themselves getting pinched for minor drug crimes.
But police generally need a warrant to search our homes and our purses and briefcases and that same protection should extend to the backpacks of students. Kids should have constitutional rights too, whether they are in school or at the shopping mall.
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| May 22, 2007 | Random Searches Tested In Court Did Police Breach Student's Rights By Visiting School With Drug Sniffer Dog
A case that began when officers showed up at a Sarnia high school with "Chief" the drug-sniffing dog is about to test the limits of police powers in Canada.
The Crown appeal, to be heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada, will help determine whether police can use sniffer dogs to conduct random searches of schools and other public places, such as parks, sports stadiums, beaches and malls.
At issue is whether an unannounced police visit to St. Patrick's high school in November 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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| May 12, 2007 | Weed Is Universal, So What's The Fuss? We all know that crack is bad news but when it comes to marijuana, the message is less clear. Even though students have had it drilled into their heads to just say no to all drugs, many don't see pot as hazardous. Talk about negative side-effects such as memory loss, depression, increased risk of heart attacks, respiratory illness and schizophrenia and youth either shrug these problems off or attribute them to conservative alarmism. Perhaps our attitude to the drug has become a little too lax.
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| May 1, 2007 | City Agrees To Put Leash On Acts Like Snoop Dog Lethbridge Alberta - Snoop Dogg may have to sit up and beg if he ever wants to perform in Lethbridge again. And the city will only throw him a bone if he promises to behave.
The same goes for any rock, rap or hip hop group booked to perform at the Enmax Centre.
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| Apr 28, 2007 | Is This The Answer? Legalizing Street Drugs: Bold Move Could Starve Gangs, Respected Author Argues ...Commissioned by the federal government to write the 2002 Canadian Police Survey on Youth Gangs, Chettleburgh gave a sweeping look at street gangsterism which he'll be updating later this year.
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| Apr 27, 2007 | 4/20 Day A Real Bust For Students National Smoke Up Day was a bust for almost three dozen Burlington high school students. Halton police officers made 36 arrests April 20 for drug-related offences, after police and the public school board co-ordinated an investigation at two randomly chosen Burlington high schools, Lester B. Pearson and M.M. Robinson.
[Is this why we need more cops... because they are so busy busting kids they have no time to solve murders, robberies and other real crimes?] |
| Apr 26, 2007 | LTE: Was It Necessary To Run Marijuana Article? Dear Editor - Re: 'Christmas for stoners' ( Guelph Mercury, April 21 ).
I was disappointed with Saturday's stoners article.
As a mother I am trying very hard to teach my children not to do drugs. I have a 10-year-old who delivers your paper and she very often reads the front-page article while she is delivering.
I am sure a lot more of our youth believe that being a stoner is fun, that such an event is like Christmas, it brings all your friends together, the police won't bother you if there are lots of people doing it.
Last time I checked it was still illegal to smoke marijuana. Why were the police not there, and why did campus security not do anything? Was it really necessary for your paper to run this article? If it was necessary could you not have put the article inside the paper to protect your youngest delivery carriers who very often just look at the front page?
C.J. Moore
Guelph
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| Apr 5, 2007 | Cops Take Kids In Drug Raid A toddler and a newborn were apprehended by police Thursday under new provincial legislation designed to protect children from families involved in the drug trade.
The joint EPS/RCMP Green Team took down a marijuana grow operation at 9:15 a.m. in a home near 190 Street and 83 Avenue. Officers seized 210 marijuana plants, worth about $210,000, and arrested three adults.
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| Apr 5, 2007 | Most Teenagers Don't Use Pot In health class every year we learn about drugs and their effects on the human body. We learn the drug groups and some of the effects. What we don't learn is what this does to the brain and the rest of our body. The thing that scares me about health class is that nobody listens and I know that over half my class is going to try drugs before they turn eighteen. I hope that this article will give them enough information to not try drugs.
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| Apr 2, 2007 | Cops Target Pot-Smoking Teens In Jackson Park Undercover Windsor police officers involved in a special operation busted a group of teens for smoking marijuana around Jackson Park.
In a news release, Staff Sgt. Stephen Bodri said young officers in plain clothes have been working on the problem of high school students using drugs in Jackson Park during their school breaks. They busted the teens Thursday.
[There must be a lack of serious crime in the area] |
| Mar 31, 2007 | Police Endangered Kids, Man Says A Hamilton man charged in a drug raid says police broke down his door and shot his pit bull while two children were only several feet away.
Carlsin Cromwell, 26, said he will file a formal complaint with Hamilton police today claiming members of their elite drugs and vice unit endangered his children's lives. Cromwell said police fired up to seven times at Zeus, his 12-year-old pit bull.
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| Mar 17, 2007 | No Business Like Marijuana BRITISH Columbia is fast becoming the only province in Canada in which the biggest industry is illegal. In 2005, forestry ( $10 million ) was B.C.'s top economic driver, and construction ( $7.9 billion ) ranked second. But what was this, coming up fast on the inside to move into third place? The marijuana industry. Puff, puff.
With annual sales of $7.5 billion, it was worth more than the combined total of hotels and restaurants ( $3.8 billion ) and mining, oil and gas ( $3.5 billion ). Construction now booms as never before in B.C., but that won't stop the pot trade from steaming into second spot. After that, forestry industry, watch your behind.
"The amount of marijuana produced each year in British Columbia," said a 2005 study by the University College of Fraser Valley, "is estimated to have increased from 19,729 kilos in 1997 to 79,817 in 2003."
Is this a growth industry, or what?
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| Mar 16, 2007 | Sensible Drug Policy Conference McGill's Harm Reduction Centre will host the first annual meeting of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy ( CSSDP ) this weekend. Speakers and student activists from across Canada and the U.S. will discuss domestic and international drug policies, harm reduction and policy reform initiatives, as well as setting up other CSSDP chapters across Canada. Students for Sensible Drug Policy, an international grassroots organization founded in 2003, is presently forming Canadian chapters in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
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| Mar 13, 2007 | Teens Choosing Rehab Over Suspension A Program Aimed At Providing Day Treatment For School Aged Youth Faced With Drug Related Suspensions Is Doing Better Than Anticipated.
With this group, Lawrance said, those students who choose to participate can reduce their overall suspension time.
[Most treatment programs are usually coerced treatment, but that isn't mentioned when we hear about all the youth seeking treatment for their pot use...] |
| Mar 7, 2007 | BC Must Protect Grow Op Kids - Social Workers Last December, Alberta passed the Drug-Endangered Children Act, which establishes that having kids in a grow op or meth lab environment can be considered abuse.
An association representing social workers in this province said similar guidelines are needed here.
[It is a very dangerous precedent to term something "child abuse" when it could be nothing of the sort] |
| Mar 6, 2007 | More Young People Smoke Pot Than Tobacco, Survey Finds Average Age Of First Marijuana Use Is 14.7 Years, Compared To 13.9 Years For Tobacco And 14.1 Years For Alcohol
A Vancouver Coastal Health survey has found that most youth in Vancouver start smoking marijuana before their 15th birthday, not long after their first whiff of tobacco or sip of beer....
The city-wide survey of youth aged 16 to 24 shows cannabis sativa is the illicit drug of first choice for today's young people....
Almost seven out of every 10 of those surveyed ( 68 per cent ) said they had tried marijuana at least once....
That climbs to a whopping 80 per cent for those aged 19 to 24, suggesting that just 20 per cent of the city's younger residents have never experimented with the illegal plant....
Overall, 54 per cent of all those surveyed told researchers they had used marijuana during the past year.
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| Feb 9, 2007 | New Program Aimed At Classroom Stoners "Every school in Vancouver, and I would say in the province, is struggling with a significant number of kids coming to school stoned," said Art Steinmann, the school board's project coordinator for SACY, or School-Age Children and Youth Substance Abuse Prevention. "It could be that any large high school of say 1,000 or 1,200 kids could easily have anywhere from 15 to 20 kids that would have shown up for part of the day under the influence."
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| Feb 2, 2007 | Weedless Wednesday May Go Up In Smoke The Halton Youth Action Alliance ( HYAA ) is working to get the title of the annual quit smoking day -- Weedless Wednesday -- changed for 2008.
The group believes the title is misinterpreted by youth and is drawing attention to marijuana.
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| Jan 31, 2007 | Police Say Smoking Pot Endangered Kids NWT: Four people have been charged with endangering children after police say they were found smoking pot in the same room as five kids....
The adults were released after giving statements to RCMP, and promising they would have no contact with the children until the charges have been dealt with in court.
Until that time, the children will remain in the hands of Health and Social Services, said Dreilich.
When it comes to the irrationality surrounding parents using illegal substances, we get the best perspective by looking at whether using legal substances would have the same outcome in any family situation. If not, then allowing prohibition related, not drug related problems to tear families apart in Canada, will eventually be as common as it is in the US, and just as detrimental. |
| Jan 25, 2007 | Four Kids Seized In Grow Op Bust AB: Police arrested a pregnant mother and seized her four young children after a drug raid on a home in the northeast Calgary community of Temple.
The search of the marijuana grow operation marks the third time children have been taken into custody since Alberta's Drug-endangered Children Act came into effect in November.
Two of the children, who range in age from two to nine, were taken from the home on Templeton Circle N.E. The two older children were in school at the time of the raid, but were picked up later by Child and Family Services officials.
[This trend of seizing children of people busted with illegal substances is deeply disturbing at many levels.
While many parents have the gut feeling that this makes a bad situation much, much worse, there is no evidence or data they can look at to support or dispute that families are hurt far worse by the state mandated separation than any other factor. At the very least, can society not demand some accountability in this matter?
We know from our history that removing children from their homes has gone on since the beginning, for very despicable reasons, usually racial in nature. Could that happen against a backdrop of voter disapproval? No, society as a whole is complicit in these crimes against humanity.] |
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