|
Current Affairs 2007 - Government (150 items)
| Mar 23, 2007 | Bylaw Leaves Homeowner In The Cold An Abbotsford homeowner says a city bylaw meant to weed out indoor marijuana gardens has put him out on the street and is forcing him to prove his innocence.
|
| Mar 17, 2007 | Number Of Criminal Groups Growing The number of organized crime groups in B.C. grew for the third year in a row in 2006 -- to 124, up from 108 identified the previous year, says a 2006 RCMP report obtained by The Vancouver Sun....The graph in the report looks alarming, starting in 2003 with just 52 groups and rising in each of the last three years. But the report also says better record-keeping and analysis of crime groups accounts for some of the increase...
[Duh... when the government abdicates responsibility to regulate and tax this plant like everything else from liquor to pet food, or allow individuals to grow it like tomatoes and petunias, then the only group left to grow and distribute it is the criminals, so why is this news not surprising or unpredictable? Until citizens demand the government create an alternative to the current system by using the existing wine, tobacco or liquor model or creating a new model, things will get MUCH worse before they get better.] |
| Mar 15, 2007 | Alberta Grow-Ops Growing In Size
"The number of grow-ops we're busting in rural areas is way down, but the size of each bust is way up,"...
Gillan said the surge finds police busting fewer and fewer grow-ops with less than 100 plants. Most seizures these days net about 50 kg of marijuana, harvested from as many as 5,000 plants.
[More proof that home cannabis gardeners are being squeezed out by criminals thanks to "get tough" government policies... and the public goes along with discarding common sense to support US global drug policy] |
| 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 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] |
| Feb 22, 2007 | Canada Must Not Follow The U.S. On Drug Policy The U.S. drug czar, John Walters, is in Ottawa today, trying his best to put a positive spin on one of the greatest disasters in U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Part of his agenda is to persuade Canada to follow in U.S. footsteps, which can only happen if Canadians ignore science, compassion, health and human rights.
The United States ranks first in the world in per-capita incarceration, with roughly five per cent of the earth's population but 25 per cent of the total incarcerated population. Russia and China simply can't keep up. Among the 2.2 million people behind bars today in the United States, roughly half a million are locked up for drug-law violations, and hundreds of thousands more for other "drug-related" offences. The U.S. "war on drugs" costs at least $40 billion U.S. a year in direct costs, and tens of billions more in indirect costs.
It's all useful information for Canadians to keep in mind when being encouraged to further toughen their drug laws to bring them in line with those of the United States.
|
| 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 17, 2007 | Home Owner Disputes Inspection Bill The City of Pitt Meadows has now inspected seven homes in the past two weeks for abnormally high hydro consumption.
The inspections are part of a three-month pilot project to eliminate residential marijuana grow operations through safety inspections.
No marijuana operations were found at any of the seven homes in Pitt Meadows.
|
| Feb 17, 2007 | Bill Would Force Landlords To Evict Suspected Criminals A Calgary MLA plans to introduce a private member's bill that, without using the Criminal Code, would force landlords to evict tenants from homes where drug use or prostitution is alleged.
[Why worry about things like due process and rights] |
| Feb 16, 2007 | The Quiet Americans Quietly and deliberately, over the past decade, the U.S. consulate on West Pender Street has built its own police service. Dubbed the Law Enforcement Working Group, or LEWG, it now has 12 agents.
More are expected as Vancouver and Whistler prepare to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Vancouver and Toronto are the only cities in Canada with U.S. law enforcement hubs, although one is in the works for Montreal. Senior U.S. agents in Ottawa oversee the work of the hubs. But the total number of U.S. agents in Canada remains classified.
|
| 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 11, 2007 | Grow-Ops 'Subsidized' Canada's Crown mortgage corporation is "subsidizing" marijuana grow-ops with millions of dollars each year, some MPs say.
Tory MP Patrick Brown said the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. paid out $50-$80 million in insurance claims related to criminal activity last year -- including pot-growing operations disguised as family homes. He says policies must be adopted so insurance payouts covering criminals don't drive up premiums for honest home-buyers.
[More prohibition related costs] |
| Feb 7, 2007 | Marijuana Party To Contest Byelection Saskatchewan Marijuana Party Leader Nathan Holowaty plans to run in the March 5 provincial byelection in Martensville.
The other declared candidates are Nancy Heppner of the Sask. Party, New Democrat John Tzupa and Liberal Nathan Friesen.
Candidates have until Feb. 17 to file nomination papers.
|
| Feb 4, 2007 | Premier No Fan Of Pot Motion PREMIER Gary Doer says he is not a fan of the idea of decriminalizing marijuana.
A resolution up for debate at the NDP's weekend convention called for small amounts of the drug to be decriminalized. The issue is within federal jurisdiction so the resolution specifically calls for the provincial government to push for the decriminalization.
|
| Feb 1, 2007 | The Relevance Of Pot Politics Huddled in the dimly-lit basement of a bar in downtown Saskatoon, a small group of marijuana activists joke about their political future.... "We are going to run as many candidates as we can," says Nathan Holowaty, leader of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party. "If there are candidates who want to run in every riding, we will run candidates in every riding."
|
| 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 30, 2007 | Knock The Law Not The Cops For Making Pot What was James Breau thinking when he decided to run the Mid Island Compassion Club and distribute marijuana without a proper licence? Did he think the police wouldn't find out that he was supplying 85 people with highly priced weed?
Despite the fact that a 2006 Maclean's Magazine poll concluded 93 per cent of Canadians support the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes, it's still illegal to distribute the drug without a licence.
|
| Jan 29, 2007 | MP Wants War On Grow-Ops
Karygiannis plans to press for mandatory minimum sentences that would work on ascale. More than three plants would net two years in jail, between 21-50 would garner a five-year sentence, 50-100 would get seven years and more than 100 would earn a 14-year lock-up, he suggested. He plans to introduce the plan as a motion that could be studied by a Parliamentary committee.
[We can then build more prisons then schools... brilliant] |
| 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.] |
|
