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Current Affairs 2007 - Statistics (51 items)
| 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...]
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| 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.
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| 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 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 11, 2007 | It's Long Past Time We Legalized It
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."
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| 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 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 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.
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| Feb 21, 2007 | PUB LTE: It Won't Work hate to rain on your parade, but more citizens reporting each other to the police for growing cannabis will not improve the situation. ( You can help, Feb. 14 ). The police do not lack intelligence -- so to speak.
The number of growing operations reported to police in B.C. is increasing by about 48 per cent per year, outpacing efforts to investigate and close them down.
According to the RCMP, the national annual seizure average is about 1,300,000 plants. This translates into an annual production estimate ranging between 1,070 and 2,676 metric tonnes of herbal cannabis.
Only 51 tonnes were seized in 2005, or less than two per cent of the harvest.
As with wolves and their prey, police predation merely culls out the weak.
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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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| 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."
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