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Current Affairs 2007 - Chronological (88 items)
| Aug 10, 2007 | BC: Pot Not a Police Priority, Deputy Chief Testifies at Trial Deputy Chief Bill Naughton said the society's Cormorant Street office of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society has not generated any complaints, adding marijuana ranks behind drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in terms of Victoria police priorities. ....Also testifying yesterday in Victoria was Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who chaired the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which called in 2002 for the legalization of marijuana in Canada.
Nolin told the court the regulations, as they currently exist, are an obstacle to Canadians who want access to medical marijuana.
He said the rules ask doctors to be "gatekeepers" for access to legal marijuana. It's a role doctors don't want, and so Canadians are being denied access to a medical product.
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| Aug 9, 2007 | Roach Burn (class action suit) The irony is too delicious. A lawyer named Roach, in this case Charles Roach, taking on the feds' reefer madness pot laws. Roach argues in a class action filed Tuesday ( August 7 ) in federal court that laws making possession of pot illegal have had no force or effect since July 2001. That's when the federal government was ordered to enact a constitutionally valid law. It still hasn't. Roach's suit asks for $25 million in compensation for persons prosecuted under pot laws. Maybe the threat of having to pay out millions in damages will finally light a fire under the feds' asses to stop with their anti-cannabis charade. We're happily holding our breath on this one.
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| Aug 9, 2007 | ON: Church Argues Marijuana A Sacrament CHURCH ARGUES MARIJUANA A SACRAMENT
Parishioners Plan Charter Challenge, Say Current Policy Infringes On Their Religious Rights
If some religions sip wine at the altar, others should be allowed to smoke pot. At least according to Rev. Edwin Pearson and Rev. Michel Ethier, two ordained ministers behind a proposed $25 million class action lawsuit challenging Canada's marijuana laws.
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| Aug 9, 2007 | BC: Trial to Hear Testimony From Senator Who Backed Marijuana Legalization A Canadian senator who has called for the legalization of marijuana took the stand yesterday in the trial arising from a raid on the Vancouver Island Compassion Society's grow operation.
Pierre Claude Nolin chaired the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which unanimously called five years ago for legalization of the drug in Canada. The committee recommended the government license production and sale of marijuana, which would be available to any Canadian citizen over the age of 16.
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| Aug 5, 2007 | Dead Calgary Youth Was Arguing Over Pot CALGARY ( CNS )-- Before he was pushed into the path of an oncoming transit train in Calgary, 17-year-old Gage Jeffrey Prevost was arguing over $10 worth of marijuana, say friends.
[Prohibition claims another life. This is the direct result of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that supposedly protects our children from illegal drugs by letting anyone of any age distribute substances to anyone of any age at any time.] |
| Aug 5, 2007 | Beware of Uninformed Warnings About Risk But let's assume that The Lancet paper really does show that marijuana causes psychosis. And let's assume the increased risk really is as high as 200 per cent. What does that mean? Nothing. Rather, it means nothing by itself.
If the lifetime risk of being crushed by an asteroid were to triple, we would ignore it because the original risk is so tiny. But a tripling of the lifetime risk of getting cancer is serious because the existing risk is big. So to make sense of the increased risk of psychosis, we have to know what the existing risk of psychosis is. Without that, these stats are scary but meaningless.
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| Aug 4, 2007 | BC: Medicinal Pot Grower Sees Huge Demand VICTORIA - A Vancouver Island grower of organic marijuana is being inundated with pleas for pot from disease sufferers, but Health Canada says he can supply only one person, a provincial court trial has been told.
Eric Nash said he wrote to Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement with a list of 121 people, all approved by Health Canada to use marijuana as medicine and asking him to grow it for them. One of them was a former RCMP officer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
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| Jul 24, 2007 | AB: RCMP Seize Medical Pot User's Plants An Evansburg man who takes pot for his pain fears he's about to get sicker after police seized his weed yesterday. ..."According to Health Canada, there is no licence in place for this individual," said Cpl. James House of the Evansburg RCMP.
Chorney, though, said he was in the midst of getting his licence renewed in order to move his plants outdoors.
[Many legal exemptees have stated that the police subject them to raids and prosecution after the government fails to provide them with timely protection. How can police cause so much harm to the sick and still sleep at night?] |
| Jul 17, 2007 | Marijuana Possession Ruling May Cause Some 'Confusion' A recent ruling about Canada's pot laws might make it difficult to crack down on simple possession, legal experts say.
But don't rush out and roll a joint in public just yet.
Alan Young, Osgoode Hall law professor and marijuana legalization activist, said yesterday the grace period may not last long and doesn't stop cops from doing their job.
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| Jul 13, 2007 | Judge rules Canada's pot possession laws unconstitutional A Toronto judge has ruled that Canada's pot possession laws are unconstitutional after a man argued the country's medicinal marijuana regulations are flawed. The man has no medical issues and doesn't want a medical exemption to smoke marijuana....In court, the man argued that the federal government only made it policy to provide marijuana to those who need it, but never made it an actual law. Because of that, he argued, all possession laws, whether medicinal or not, should be quashed....The judge agreed and dismissed the charges.Borenstein has given prosecutors two weeks before he makes his ruling official.
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| Jul 10, 2007 | We're Champion Potheads Marijuana use in Canada is the highest in the industrialized world, far higher than in the Netherlands where it's legal, and more than four times the global rate, a report by the United Nations has found....The data show Canadian usage fifth after Zambia ( 17.7 per cent in 2003 ), Ghana ( 21.5 per cent in 1998 ) and Papua New Guinea and Micronesia tied for first place at 29 per cent each in 1995.
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| Jul 9, 2007 | Pot Possession Arrests on the Rise The number of people arrested for smoking pot rose dramatically in several Canadian cities last year after the Conservatives took office and killed a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana... Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax all reported increases of between 20 and 50 per cent in 2006, while Montreal and Calgary saw their number of arrests dip a few points from the previous year.
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| Jul 2, 2007 | Landlord Jailed For Renting Grow-Op House To Family A Niagara Falls landlord will spend the next 60 days behind bars for knowingly renting a toxic home to an unsuspecting family of five.
[How many landlords across Canada would be in jail for renting moldy units (whether used for gardens or not) if they were all held accountable? This case appears to be a mix of racism and prejudice] |
| Jun 28, 2007 | Judge Orders Pot Crusader Krieger To Be Released On Bail Medicinal marijuana crusader Grant Krieger was expected to be released from jail Wednesday night, after his lawyer succeeded in getting him bail until an appeal of his most recent conviction is heard.
Justice Peter Martin ordered the controversial Krieger to be released on bail after a hearing at the Alberta Court of Appeal on Wednesday, pending his appeal.
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| Jun 25, 2007 | Drug Abuse, Trafficking Awareness Day, June 26 Nearly 200 million people are using drugs worldwide specifically marijuana, opiates and crystal meth. Cannabis remains the highest used drug globally, with an estimated 16 million users.
[So it will only take eliminating 200 million users, and all the banned plants and ingredients they consume to meet the 2008 deadline they imposed for a drug free world] |
| Jun 22, 2007 | AB: Reefer Madness Comes Full Circle Last Monday, Calgary Provincial Court Judge William Pepler ordered Grant Krieger incarcerated immediately, with no access to the pot the MS sufferer says has made his life liveable.
Reefer madness has come full circle.
Free Grant Krieger protest
Saturday June 23 / 2007 12:00 Noon
Calgary Remand Centre
12200 85 Street NW
Calgary, Alberta
Our current daily protests at the Calgary Remand Centre will be moved in front of the Alberta Provincial Court House 323-6 Ave., S.E. starting on Monday June 25 / 07. 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM daily until Grant is released!
We are expecting a large number of people on June 23 / 07 Saturday 12:00 Noon Free Grant Krieger Protest in front of the Calgary Remand Centre 122 Ave and 85th Street NW.
See you all on Saturday!
See http://Calgary420.ca/rallies/ for updates! |
| Jun 21, 2007 | AB: AB: Pot Advocate Sick In Jail - Family The condition of notorious medicinal marijuana crusader Grant Krieger - -- incarcerated at the Calgary Remand Centre since Monday -- is "rapidly deteriorating," according to his friends and family.
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| Jun 19, 2007 | AB: Pot Crusader Jailed, Refused Marijuana Longtime pot crusader Grant Krieger was jailed Monday for four months on a drug trafficking charge, and he wasn't allowed to take his medicinal marijuana behind bars.
Despite a constitutional exemption that allows Krieger to use cannabis to alleviate his multiple sclerosis pain, the judge ruled against the legal right applying in jail, said his lawyer, John Hooker.
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| Jun 17, 2007 | Patients Complain Health Canada Wants To Keep Weed Weak Health Canada has been contacting doctors who prescribe medical marijuana for their government-approved patients, advising them to keep the dosages low.
Some users say that not only violates doctor-patient confidentiality, it's also wrong for bureaucrats to make judgments about the medical needs of people they've never seen.
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| Jun 13, 2007 | SN: Student Suspended For Opinion On Pot REGINA ( SNN ) -- Kieran King says he has never smoked pot, but his views on marijuana have led to his suspension from Wawota Parkland School.
King said he was threatened with police action by principal Susan Wilson after telling friends at the school that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol.
"In my opinion, cannabis is safer than they say, it is not worse than alcohol or tobacco," said King, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student. Wilson accused King of using and selling marijuana at school, according to a media release issued by the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party. King has offered to submit to a voluntary drug test to prove otherwise.
"I've never smoked marijuana. I've never even seen it," said King, an honours student.
[Incredible courage by a young person who chose not to conform. ] |
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