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Current Affairs 2008 - Reform (80 items)
| Apr 28, 2008 | When Laws Are Held In Contempt, We All Suffer When pro-marijuana advocates gathered in downtown Vancouver recently to smoke pot in defiance of the law, many puzzled citizens wondered why the police took no action against them. ...As John Winter, president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, told The Province editorial board: "In a perfect world, the police would have dealt with them with some severity, but the fact is the police don't have the support of the community."
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| Apr 27, 2008 | UVic Prof Lectures PM On Tories' Drug Policy University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd's weekly letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on drug research haven't garnered a response from the federal government, but others around the world are reading.
...On Feb. 1, Boyd, along with the Beyond Prohibition Coalition of Vancouver, launched a website at www.educatingharper.com to inform the prime minister and concerned Canadian citizens about drug policy and harm reduction.
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| Apr 24, 2008 | Purring At Puff Party Amazing pot smog hangs hazily in the sunny afternoon during Toronto Hash Mob's second successful smoke-out on Sunday, April 20, better known as 4/20.
By 4:20 pm, almost 2,000 stoners fill our makeshift auditorium behind College Park at 420 Yonge.
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| Apr 21, 2008 | Hundreds Turn Out For Pro-Pot Rally Niagara Falls - Hundreds who believe Canadians should have the right to smoke up without fear of being charged took to the streets of Niagara Falls Sunday afternoon to draw attention to their cause.
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| Apr 21, 2008 | ON: Pot Lovers Light Up, Party at Festivities in Victoria London - Hundreds of doobie devotees celebrated the most important date on the pothead calendar yesterday by getting lit at London's Victoria Park. A cloud of marijuana smoke wafted into the air at about 4:20 p.m., on the 20th day of the fourth month of the year
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| Apr 21, 2008 | MB: Thousands Celebrate Love of Earth, Weed Winnipeg - Security guards and police officers watched on the sidelines as the Manitoba Legislative Building grounds went up in smoke on Sunday.
The grass didn't catch fire but thousands of people lit up marijuana joints or fired up their bongs to protest the criminalization of the drug.
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| Apr 3, 2008 | Legalize By 2010 Here's a crazy idea that may sound a bit absurd, but follow me through on this:
Cannabis will be legalized in the United States of America by 2010.
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| Mar 28, 2008 | Abstinence Not The Only Way Off Drugs An alternative to abstinence is gaining acceptance among people working with those who struggle with drug addiction. ..For example, a client may come to detox to stop smoking crack cocaine, but intends on smoking marijuana when he gets out because a gradual detox approach is what makes sense to them.
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| Mar 28, 2008 | Legalize All Drugs: Former Police Officer After 28 years on the Vancouver police force, Tony Smith believes the "war on drugs" is creating far more problems than it's solving.
During a 45-minute speech at the Alberta Harm Reduction Conference on Thursday, Smith argued legalizing all drugs would lower crime, and take control of the drug industry out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
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| Mar 28, 2008 | Coping With The Pain "Who is it harming? Where is the victim?" asks Cheryl MacLellan, co-owner of Hemp Country. "If there is no victim, there ought not to be a crime."
Those comments may be surprising coming from MacLellan who is a former Children's Aid Society child protection worker and a former police officer in the detective's office with the Oxford Community Police Service.
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| Mar 27, 2008 | Alberta: The Nanny State Indeed, they considered it necessary in the preamble to the Drug-Endangered Children Act to state categorically that "children exposed to illegal manufacturing of drugs, indoor cannabis operations, trafficking and other forms of illegal drug activity are victims of abuse."
That is as wild a claim as it is unsupportable. But the circumstances under which it may be invoked are so broad there is little that can be done to counter its stupidity. Although the preamble suggests that only the really serious stuff is the object of the Act, a child is deemed to be drug-endangered if he or she is "exposed" to illegal substances. That's it. Full stop.
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| Mar 22, 2008 | Marijuana Prescriptions Getting Lost in Smoke Since the current incarnation of Canada's medical marijuana program was established, doctors have been forced by Health Canada to act as sentinels for a product whose complexities, methods of delivery and side effects they have little firsthand information.
It's a situation that leaves many physicians hesitant to sign their names to the documents required for patients to access government pot.
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| Mar 20, 2008 | Bill C-26 - Conservative Assault On The Our federal Conservative government has a disturbing tendency to circumvent judicial deliberation by imposing upon courts their own authoritarian sense of justice.
Whenever 'public' fears of rampant crime within the country must be quelled, Prime Minister Harper and his minions consider the most effective political maneuver to be the cobbling together of bills which aim to impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for myriad offences.
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| Mar 18, 2008 | NS: Simpson's Sentenced To Time Deemed Served AMHERST - Rickey Logan Simpson has twice been convicted of drug charges and has twice been a free man the same day as his sentencing.
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| Mar 12, 2008 | End Pot Prohibition Marijuana should be legal. This statement always seems to garner a lot of attention, and rightfully so, as there are several relatively complex issues surrounding its legalization.
However, there is absolutely no logical reason why marijuana prohibition continues to be a valid issue.
All the facts point to one solution: legalization.
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| Mar 5, 2008 | Hell, A Handbasket And Tougher Drug Laws Eugene Oscapella is a criminologist who teaches at the University of Ottawa. He dresses like a modern academic hipster: short leather jacket, blue shirt, dark tie, grey strides. He is also a lawyer who is sharp on the subject of drug policy. He was in town recently, speaking to front-line health and harm-reduction workers about the perils of the government's proposed crime legislation.
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| Feb 22, 2008 | War On Drugs Is Blowing Up In Our Faces, Expert Warns Oscapella is absolutely convinced that the prohibition of drugs is "the most significant failing of the criminal justice system of the 20th, and now, 21st centuries." ...
On this 100th anniversary of prohibition, maybe we have to ask ourselves, are we addicted to prohibition?
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| Feb 20, 2008 | Vancouver Police Raid The Herb School and Arrest Activist David Malmo-Levine The Vancouver Police raided the Vancouver Herb School, arresting David Malmo-Levine and others. Malmo-Levine was taken into custody at 12:30pm Pacific time, and charges are pending for Trafficking, Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking, and (possibly) Possession of Paraphernalia. He will be kept in custody overnight. Lawyer Kirk Tousaw has been secured to represent Malmo-Levine tomorrow morning.
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| Feb 18, 2008 | More Illegal Search Evidence Allowed A Canadian phenomenon in the criminal justice system was highlighted again by two recent rulings by provincial courts of appeal. Evidence obtained by police after a breach of an individual's constitutional rights may still be used in court in Canada, unlike the United States where it would automatically be excluded.
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| Feb 18, 2008 | 100 Years Of Sobriety In Vancouver In 1923, without debate or discussion, it was announced that "there is a new drug in the schedule," and the use, sale, and possession of marijuana was made illegal, largely for fear that Mexican migrants and Negro jazz musicians would use it to seduce white women. It was understood that the laws would not be applied to the white populace.
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