|
Current Affairs 2007 - Government (150 items)
| Jun 8, 2007 | BC: Judge Nixes Cops For Hydro Inspections "We only use police for safety issues," she said. "If they don't like the fact that it's the police that are working with our firefighters, then that's fine; we'll have somebody else.
"But at the end of the day we want to make sure our firefighters are protected and are safe and that whole team of B.C. Hydro personnel as well, their safety is first and foremost. That's the reason why we had the police there, and the only reason. The police aren't there to lay charges; the police aren't there to execute warrants. We're there because it's a fire safety issue."
[Talk about mixed messages..it is a legal issue when the police alone shut down cannabis cultivation, but it is a fire safety issue when other civil servants are enforcing prohibition] |
| Jun 7, 2007 | Wanted: Tokers In Suits Time For Greying Potheads To Come Out Of The Closet And Back Anti-Prohibition Battle In 1977, only 18 per cent of cannabis smokers were over the age of 30, but in 2001 the percentage shot up to 49....
Considering this changing demographic, it's surprising that our drug laws haven't been reformed and liberalized. Most people blame the looming presence of the U.S. "war on drugs," but I think we've failed on the road to rational drug law reform because aging drug users rarely come out of their smoky closets to enter the political debate.
|
| Jun 7, 2007 | ON: Man Pleads Guilty to Pot-By-Post Plan A medical marijuana crusader accused of mailing pot to fellow users in the United States and Britain pleaded guilty yesterday to committing mischief by using Canada Post services "without proper authority."
Following Marco Renda's plea, federal prosecutor David Doney asked the court to withdraw three counts each of trafficking and exporting a controlled substance and a single count of possession of a controlled substance.
|
| May 26, 2007 | An Invasion Of Privacy Pacing around his living room Wednesday, Richard Pitt can't believe the city's safety inspection team is late.
He points to an inspection notice delivered to his home on 119 B Avenue in Pitt Meadows.
The team was to arrive at 10:30 a.m. It is 45 minutes late.
When two police cars, a fire department pick-up and bylaws truck pulled up in front of the house to check for an illegal marijuana grow operation, Pitt was ready.
"It's an invasion of privacy," he said.
"It has taken two hours out of my day."
|
| May 24, 2007 | Pot Challenge Gets High-Profile Help Philippe Lucas, founder of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, is flying high.
As a supplier of medical marijuana and political activist bent on reforming Canada's pot laws, Lucas has a supportive MP in Vancouver East New Democrat Libby Davies.
He has what he called "an interested and engaged judge" in Justice Robert Edwards, now hearing the society's Charter of Rights challenge arising from a raid on the compassion society's grow-operation near Sooke. And he has a Tory Senator, Pierre Claude Nolin, to testify for the society when the trial resumes on June 11.
|
| May 23, 2007 | Harper To Unveil US-Style 'War On Drugs' OTTAWA - The Harper government's new anti-drug strategy is expected to take a tough approach to illicit drugs: cracking down on grow-ops and pushers, and retreating from "harm reduction" measures such as safe injection sites for addicts.
|
| May 11, 2007 | Court Case Set To Argue Grow-op As A Civil Right Vancouver Island Compassion Society planning constitutional challenge in defence of pot bust
To the prosecution, it's a simple case of production for the purposes of trafficking, involving two local men caught red-handed growing a crop of 900 marijuana plants on an acreage in East Sooke.
To Vancouver Island Compassion Society founder Philippe Lucas, it's a constitutional challenge of Canada's medical marijuana laws.
Lawyers were in court in Victoria this week arguing that the two men arrested in the May, 2004 raid, Mat Beren and Michael Swallow, were operating a marijuana research and cultivation facility on behalf of the society.
"We don't deny what we were doing," Lucas said. "Our defence is a constitutional challenge."
|
| May 9, 2007 | High- Powered Tool Against Grow-ops Introduced Langley BC - Marijuana growing operators will have to worry about more than police starting this month.
The Public Safety Inspection Team are ready to set out, going to homes that have been shown to consume an unusually large amount of electricity.
The team will be made up of Township electrical safety inspectors, a bylaw officer and RCMP members who will post notices on the doors of homes that B.C.Hydro has shown to consume abnormal levels of electricity.
The home owner then has 48 hours to allow an inspection. If the owner refuses, the power to the home will be shut off, said police spokesperson Cpl. Diane Blain.
|
| May 2, 2007 | Tories' Drug Bill Violates Basic Civil Liberties Picture this: Your 19-year-old daughter is pulled over by police on suspicion of impaired driving. She is tested for "physical co-ordination," then taken to a police station where she is required to submit urine and blood samples. The test results indicate the presence of marijuana in her urine, although it cannot be ascertained when the drug was consumed or whether she was only exposed to the smoke - remember Ross Rebagliati?
|
| 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.
|
| Apr 26, 2007 | Larsen Named Federal NDP Candidate for Local Ridin Former Marijuana Party candidate Dana Larsen last week was declared the candidate for the federal New Democratic Party ( NDP ) in the riding that includes Whistler. ...The vast majority of people in British Columbia are in support of changing our marijuana laws, and I think that goes for people in all classes and all stratas of society," he said. "I think if you're the kind of person that thinks people who smoke marijuana should go to jail, then you probably weren't going to vote NDP anyway."
|
| Apr 19, 2007 | Pro Pot Activists Bring Cause To Home Of Justice Marijuana activists have one more reason to like Niagara Falls, now that it's the home of Canada's justice minister, says Matt Mernagh, the organizer of Saturday's annual pro-pot protest.
Saturday will be the fourth annual protest Niagara Falls has seen where scores of protesters take to the streets, demanding the legalization of marijuana.
|
| Apr 16, 2007 | Health Canada Marks Up Medical Marijuana 1,500% [...Records obtained under the Access to Information Act show that Health Canada pays $328.75 for each kilogram of bulk medical marijuana produced by Prairie Plant Systems Inc.
The company has a $10.3-million contract with Health Canada, which expires at the end of September, to grow standardized medical marijuana in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon.
Health Canada, in turn, sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for $150 -- plus GST -- for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient. That works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500 per cent...]
|
| Apr 12, 2007 | Review: Why The War On Drugs Isn't Working
Damage Done: the Drug War Odyssey
Times and dates:
Victoria: Saturday April 14th,12-4pm at the Roxy Theatre (2657 Quadra Street)
Vancouver: Sunday April 15th,12-4pm at the VanCity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street)
Damage Done Is The Smartest Documentary Yet On A Divisive Subject, With A Clear Message That Change Is Needed
In all the documentaries about the stupidities of the war against drugs, the smartest documentary yet may well be Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey.
What sets Damage Done apart is the way it approaches the issue. Connie Littlefield's documentary, for example, doesn't interview the usual suspects. It doesn't include all those you'd expect to be in favour of drugs such as Marc Emery talking about being targeted by the U.S. federal government for selling marijuana seeds through the mail to U.S. customers, members of the B.C. Compassion Club pointing out the medicinal benefits of cannabis, or protesters snubbing authority by smoking up at the annual Smoke-In.
|
| Apr 12, 2007 | Ten Court Rulings That Cemented Rights And Freedoms A jury of the country's foremost constitutional experts is in -- and its verdict for the most influential Charter ruling of the past 25 years is a 1986 case, Regina v. Oakes, which provided a crucial blueprint for all future Charter interpretation.
|
| Apr 5, 2007 | Wait You Mean Weed's Not Legal Yet? t was the subject of international hype a few years ago: the great liberal northern bastion of Canada was planning to decriminalize marijuana, snubbing its nose at its neo-conservative southern neighbour's War on Drugs.
But the Liberal government that introduced the proposed decriminalization law let it die, and its Conservative successor has promised not to revive it.
|
| Apr 4, 2007 | Saving Us From Ourselves A British study released last Friday about the dangers to human health of tobacco and alcohol and illegal drugs like marijuana and ecstasy raises some interesting questions on how legislators make decisions about substances we can legally obtain and those we can't.
|
| Mar 31, 2007 | Pot Crusader Upset At Crown There was no joy for medicinal marijuana activist Grant Krieger on Friday when the Crown stayed a trafficking charge dating back to 1999, for which the Supreme Court had granted Krieger a new trial.
"That's disappointing," Krieger said when advised the stay was officially entered by Court of Queen's Bench Associate Chief Justice Neil Wittmann at the behest of the federal Crown.
"But that's the way the system works. . . . The only way I can get it fixed is in front of a jury, so the jury can nullify this nonsense.
"They ( the Crown ) know that's what I want to do. They don't want the laws changed."
|
| Mar 24, 2007 | The BC Border Guard Who Partied With Hells Angels Investigation Concludes Her Conduct Creates An 'Untenable Security Risk' For The Canadian Border Services
A female B.C. border guard who partied with Hells Angels and went to one of their clubhouses may still be working in border services, The Vancouver Sun has learned.
The Canadian Border Services Agency concluded that the guard's conduct created "an untenable security risk for the agency" but refuses to disclose whether she is still on the payroll.
|
| Mar 24, 2007 | Dude, Where's My War? Canadian Adam Mann sees himself as an envoy for peace in the Middle East.
But that may simply be a pipe dream.
The 22-year-old University of Calgary political science student has recently been recruited by one of Israel's most unusual political parties to help gather Canadian support and know-how. This includes lobbying expertise in the last word in calming an unstable region -- pot.
|
|
