Current Affairs (2007) -
Chronological (432 items)
(All links open in new tab)
| 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 13, 2007 |
Epileptic Seizure In Public Eye The first time Christine Lowe saw herself convulsing during an epileptic seizure, she pawed at the television screen, fixated on the image of herself losing complete control of her body. Now she wants to share the video with a massive Internet audience. Life, death situation Lowe's husband, Russell Barth, posted the video on YouTube yesterday morning, hoping to give people a real taste of what epilepsy patients go through. The Ottawa couple, who are also vocal marijuana activists, were disturbed by other videos on YouTube poking fun at seizures. |
| Jan 13, 2007 |
Drug Paraphernalia Seized Lotus Store Owners Arrested Officers in the drug and vice squad raided a Main Street store for the second time in two years. More than 600 pieces of drug paraphernalia were seized from Lotus after York Regional Police descended on the shop following an investigation that began late last year. A man and two women from East Gwillimbury, all in their late 20s, have been charged with selling instruments for illicit drug use. |
| Jan 17, 2007 |
Schools Designated Drug Free Zones Drug dealers with a tendency for hanging around elementary schools have been put on official notice. Stay away from the kids. "If people are selling drugs in school zones, be prepared to face bigger consequences," said Const. Tim Lyons of the 100 Mile House RCMP. [This is another classic example of how Canada has been adopting many US drug war strategies] |
| Jan 17, 2007 |
War On Drugs Needs New Strategy Canada is losing the "war on drugs" and unless the government changes its strategy, the casualties of illegal drug use will continue to climb....This "get tough" approach has not worked in the United States and will not work here. It's a philosophy that panders to public sentiment that seeks to punish those struggling with addiction, rather than reduce the harm done by it. ...Good politics doesn't always translate into good policy. And when the policy can be proven to do more harm than good, it's time for voters to take a long hard look at why governments persist in a course of action detrimental to the public's health. |
| Jan 17, 2007 |
PUB LTE: Hemp Makes Climate Difference No matter what is causing climate change, one of the best things Canadians could do to reduce greenhouse gasses is grow lots of Industrial Hemp. We have the people, we have the land, we have the know-how - we just have no political will. Hemp ( the legal, non-drug version of the Cannabis plant ) produces more ethanol fuel per acre than any other crop. It can be used for car, truck, boat, and airplane fuel, polymer body parts, lubricants, paint, and about 25,000 other things. |
| 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 18, 2007 |
PUB LTE: Don't Give Up On Prohibition I'm a perfect example of people in this country and around the world who are caught in the middle of this catastrophic drug war. The strain of cannabis that works best for my health has been held hostage in the street market for the past 13 years. This, I'm sad to say, is not unusual. I receive minimal relief unless the strain available to me legally is coupled with more than 30 pharmaceutical pills a day and up to 2,000 milligrams of morphine. But I won't give up. Please help me to legalize and regulate all drugs today so that those who are ill and vulnerable are no longer suffering and so our children learn drugs are for adults and those who are sick, dying and in pain. We don't have 50 years to wait. Alison Myrden |
| Jan 19, 2007 |
Pot Grower Dodges Jail Term Growing pot for medical marijuana crusader Grant Krieger won't mean jail for a former Calgary man, a judge ruled yesterday. Justice Beth Hughes agreed with defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli that jail time wasn't necessary for Mark James Maki's involvement with the Compassion Club. "Mr. Maki's motivation for these offences, while certainly against the law and misguided, were to assist the Compassion Club and it's members," Hughes said. The 577 plants seized in October 2001 and February 2002 had a value of about $600,000 to $800,000, and a loaded sawed-off shotgun was found in Maki's home. Maki, 43, of Coquitlam, B.C., pleaded guilty to two charges of cultivating marijuana and one of careless storage of a firearm. Hughes placed him in on house arrest for a year, followed by a curfew for another 12 months. |
| Jan 19, 2007 |
Drug Endangered Children Act Gives Police Tool To Halt AB: As a member of Edmonton's green team, RCMP Cpl. Ian Gillan has seen too many heartbreaking cases of young children being neglected or abused because of their parents' drug activity. The father of two wholeheartedly supports Alberta's Drug Endangered Children legislation, which strengthens police power to seize and hold children found living in homes where drugs are sold or produced. "I've been pushing the DEC agenda since 2003 when I first became aware of it," Gillan said Thursday, during a break in an RCMP-hosted investigator training session at K-Division headquarters. |
| 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 21, 2007 |
Rules Go Up In Smoke With flagrant disregard for city smoking bylaws and drug laws, a couple of thousand avid fans were encouraged to light up and get high by the hip-hop acts including Canada's own Belly who gave a well-received opening performance. Lethbridge is definitely hip to the hop and dope to the dope as the Enmax centre air filled with the aroma of marijuana. |
| Jan 24, 2007 |
Industrial Hemp Meeting Tomorrow Night Hemp producers and residents interested in the industrial cultivation of the plant are invited to attend a Town Hall meeting tomorrow night ( Jan. 25 ) at the 100 Mile House Lodge "Valley" Conference Room. Subjects for discussion are: a review of the 2006 hemp production; status of the hemp industry in Canada and plans for the 100 Mile House hemp industry. |
| 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 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 25, 2007 |
PUB LTE: Sugar Kills, Marijuana Doesn't Says Writer There are many more dealers of legal drugs that cause harm to our children and our families every day. Maybe a few of these could use a bit of the same vigilante justice as an example to others.... So, if your forming a vigilante posse, keep in mind that the marijuana sold by the local dealer has never killed anyone, sugar in the form of chocolate bars and pop sold at the local gas station kill thousands of Canadians every year. |
| 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 25, 2007 |
Safety Vs Privacy As Workers Smoke Pot In the construction industry, managers want competent and sober people doing the job for both quality of work and safety's sake. One site manager believed two of his workers in Toronto were smoking marijuana on their lunch breaks so he videotaped them in their pickup truck, accused them of smoking up and fired them. The case is before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. What is no longer before the board is the videotape. The labour board said the video is inadmissible as evidence. It violated the two alleged dopers' right to privacy. |
| 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 27, 2007 |
Police Raids Target Pot 'Clones,' Growing Gear Law enforcement's latest salvo against the seemingly endless number of indoor marijuana grow operations across the city involves the arrests this week of a group allegedly selling growing equipment, supplies and the "clones" used to reproduce the leafy, green crops. |