|
Current Affairs 2007 - Consequences (58 items)
| Mar 14, 2007 | Pushing Out Pot Farmers Marijuana grow ops are no joke in the Tri-Cities, where hardly a week goes by without a bust or a raid. And area residents are increasingly at risk of being in the line of fire when criminals try to steal from criminals. ...1) Even so, most Coquitlam residents would probably put public safety over individual rights if it would make their neighbourhoods safer. ...2) But until someone comes up with a better idea, this get-tough, search-and-seizure program is the best tool cities have to push pot farmers out.
[1) Warning lights should go off when someone tries to convince us to give up more privacy rights for public safety... 2) Many good solutions and better ideas have been suggested, but they fall on deaf ears] |
| Mar 9, 2007 | Toking Up To Feel Better Not Accepted As Medical Need A group of 1,492 Canadians -- 21 per cent of them in B.C. -- are allowed to get high every day for medical reasons.
But as much as Brian Riches might like to be, the inmate isn't among them.
The offender's toking finally caught up with him yesterday when members of the National Parole Board rejected his pitch that marijuana helped him chill out and actually cut the chances he might commit more violent assaults.
[Ignorance about cannabis and societal stupidity ruin lives] |
| Mar 9, 2007 | Toking Up To Feel Better Not Accepted As The offender's toking finally caught up with him yesterday when members of the National Parole Board rejected his pitch that marijuana helped him chill out and actually cut the chances he might commit more violent assaults.
[A classic case of stupidity and ignorance winning out over common sense. Cannabis reduces rage, and society in general would be more peaceful if we were rid of pot prohibition.] |
| Feb 20, 2007 | RCMP Zero In On Pot Growing Mission RCMP officers are gunning for marijuana grow operation owners within the district....Lemaitre said the marijuana police find is seldom for personal use.
"This pot is meant for export and sale and that comes back to Canada in the way of cocaine and firearms," Lemaitre said, pointing to the recent arrest of a suspected gun smuggler at the Aldergrove border crossing.
[Why do the police have so much time to deal with prohibition related crime, rather than crime that impacts citizens like robbery, assault, rape?]
|
| Feb 17, 2007 | Appeal Court Takes Away Pot Trafficker's House He lost his weed and his freedom, and now a Grand Lake property owner has lost his home.
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruled Friday that a judge erred when he decided not to forfeit Rady Siek's home to the Crown in a marijuana cultivation case.
|
| Feb 13, 2007 | Giving Up Cannabis Saved Me, Says Margaret Trudeau Quitting cannabis has been an important part of her recovery from mental illness, Margaret Trudeau said Monday at a news conference in Vancouver for the Canadian Mental Health conference.
[How timely for her public announcement that will make it much easier for son Justin's political aspirations. Also a perspective of one academic: She makes an unfortunately common error in terms of her understanding of causality. Maybe the increased cannabis use was a symptom of impending mental crises necessitating hospitalization instead of the cause of that hospitalization.] |
| Feb 13, 2007 | Man Shot By Masked Trio During Violent Grow Rip A 38-year-old Richmond man is still in hospital recovering from a gunshot wound sustained in a marijuana grow rip operation Saturday night....A neighbour said RCMP showed up in the area looking not only for the three suspects, but the victim as well.
[ If there was no prohibition, there would be no stories like this, therefore it is prohibition related, not drug related] |
| Feb 12, 2007 | BC 'Exports' Marijuana Expertise Worldwide A different kind of brain drain is under way in B.C. as marijuana growers share their billions of dollars worth of skills with a worldwide audience.
"We think they're exporting their expertise," said Supt. Paul Nadeau, director of the RCMP's national drug branch.
"We've heard of it on an international scale." ....Sgt. Urquhart was reluctant to expand on the nature of the connections and the organization involved.
But when Supt. Nadeau was asked who in B.C. is exporting their skills, his answer was simple -- "Everybody."
[After possibly watching the South Park (1999) movie again, US officials were inspired to deny the existence of the internet and other factors, and directly blame Canadians once again for their woes] |
| 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.] |
| Jan 25, 2007 | Living In Grow-Op Danger BC: As many as 30 per cent of the 150 grow operations inspected and shut down by the City of Abbotsford last year may have housed children living in dangerous conditions.
"In many searches we've located hazardous equipment and chemicals in areas that children often pay around and in some cases, sleep," he said...."Parents and others who expose children to such risks need to know their behaviour is unacceptable, and there are consequences.
[If parents can legally grow cannabis, then it is not hazardous. If parents grow hydroponic vegetables it is not hazardous. But if parents grow some unauthorized plants, it is hazardous. More proof the drug war is illogical.] |
| Jan 24, 2007 | Family Sues Door-Busting Cops ON: Henry George McCool Sr. accuses Toronto Police of being negligent for barging into his home on Sept. 15, 2005 in search of his son, who did not live with his father at the time of the arrests, in a gang crackdown dubbed Project Flicker, a statement of claim filed yesterday said.
The family wants $2.75 million in damages for the incident, which they say has left the mother and father coping with depression and their 8-year-old granddaughter with a "continuing fear and distrust" of police officers that has led to frequent nightmares.
|
| Jan 24, 2007 | Drug-Endangered Children Will Get Help AB: Twenty-five police officers from the Capital Region are being trained in a course on investigating drug-endangered children....
The program focused on how to deal with the children that police sometimes find living in the drug houses and marijuana grow operations they've raided.
[The trend of removing children from homes will be monitored throughout the year as it violates logic, reason and basic human rights] |
| Jan 20, 2007 | Marijuana Growers Lose Houses A court decision this week doubled the number of marijuana growers forced to turn over their homes since local authorities began taking an aggressive approach to the problem five years ago.
Eight houses in Waterloo Region have now been ordered forfeited following changes in the law to make it easier in 2001, with another case scheduled for a hearing in March.
That puts local police and prosecutors on the leading edge in Ontario as they go after lucrative marijuana grow houses.
[The more drug warriors profit from prohibition, the more entrenched it becomes] |
| Jan 18, 2007 | Reefer Madness' No Reason to Seize More Children BC: Why is the B.C. Association of Social Workers beating the bushes to have more children taken into care?
Association spokesman Paul Jenkinson has been stumping the provincial media urging that the government start seizing children found in homes with marijuana-growing operations. There's "a crisis" out there, in his opinion, and fast action by Victoria is required. ... Jenkinson is peddling reefer madness. His suggestion that we begin seizing more children and putting them in provincial care would only exacerbate what is already a bad situation.
[Hooray! Sentiments from a perspective outside the status quo] |
| Jan 13, 2007 | Man Gets Six Months For Evading Tax On Marijuana Raid Netted $190,000; $47,132 Left Owing
An Ottawa man was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday for failing to pay nearly $50,000 in taxes on revenue from growing marijuana.... Mr. Papadopoulos said Mr. Le could have reported the earnings as either "business" or "other" income on his tax return.
"You don't have to tell us where it's coming from, but you have to report it," said Mr. Papadopoulos, adding the return could still be audited if it meets certain criteria.
[You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't] |
| Jan 12, 2007 | Man Wounded In Shootout During Robbery Of Marijuana-Growing Operation BURNABY - Two men are in hospital after shots were fired in the Claude Avenue area early Wednesday morning, Burnaby RCMP say.
When police arrived at the 5400-block of Claude Avenue, they found the shooting was related to an attempted robbery of a marijuana-growing operation.
[Another prohibition-related news story] |
| Hair Test Kit Can Spot Kids' Drug Use An American company has come up with a home drug-testing kit for parents who suspect their kids are up to no good.
Parents can already use GPS tracking devices in cars or cell phones to monitor their teens' whereabouts and online monitoring tools to track their kids' Internet usage.
Now, for $64.99 US, HairConfirm can let parents know within 48 hours if their teen is using drugs.
"It can test for seven different drugs -- including amphetamines, cocaine, ecstasy, PCP and marijuana," said Confirm BioSciences CEO Zeynep Ilgaz, whose San Diego-based company posted revenues last year of $2.6 million.
[Follow the money - who cares how it affects kids and their parental relationships. No wonder more kids are abusing deadly prescription drugs] |
|
