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Current Affairs 2008 - Legal (184 items)
| Feb 14, 2008 | Drug Laws Rooted In Class Control We tend to take the law for granted, but sometimes its origins deserve a little thought.
For example, it's something of a puzzle why certain narcotics were seen as dangerous and criminalized in the early 20th century when before 1908, there were few restrictions placed on the sale or consumption of narcotics.
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| Feb 13, 2008 | SN: Smell of Burnt Pot Not Enough for Arrest: Court The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has upheld a decision stating the smell of burnt marijuana isn't enough evidence to arrest someone for possession of the drug, and then search his or her vehicle without a warrant.
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| Feb 12, 2008 | Pot Growers Question Validity Of Warrants A lawyer for a marijuana-legalization advocate known as Daweedking is one step closer to what may become a legal first in Canada -- requiring police to provide proof that informants they use to obtain search warrants are reliable.
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| Feb 11, 2008 | ON: Pot Smoker Fights Bar Ban A man who uses "medical marijuana" [sic] to deal with pain from a neck injury he suffered in Mississauga nearly two decades ago is appealing to the Ontario Human Rights Commission for the right to smoke up in front of a Burlington sports bar he frequents. .."He wants me outside his bar by 100 feet. I just want to be treated like every other ( tobacco ) smoker," whom he says are often within 10 feet of the bar's front doors.
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| Feb 11, 2008 | Men Smuggle Pot From U.P. to Canada Two Iowa men pleaded guilty Wednesday to marijuana charges in Canada after they fell through the ice of a partially frozen river while trying to illegally enter the country from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
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| Feb 11, 2008 | Medical Marijuana Advocates Cry Foul Today, discussion about reforming the country's marijuana laws is not on the political landscape. If anything, the country is moving in the opposite direction.
The government of Stephen Harper has ruled out any changes to the law, and during a visit to marijuana-friendly Vancouver last week, Liberal leader Stephane Dion said his party is not going to advocate for the end of criminal sanctions for possession...
As well, almost 45,000 criminal charges for simple possession continue to be laid each year, up nearly 20% from a decade ago.
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| Feb 11, 2008 | Let's Hope These Cops Now Have The Message I can't recall the last reported incident of a shootout or police death during a raid on a B.C. grow-op.
And yet coroner statistics show that, since 1992, 267 citizens have lost their lives in B.C. during police-related incidents.
One involved the death of a young man with a channel-changer in his hand. Police who burst into his living room fired, thinking he had a gun.
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| Feb 11, 2008 | Full Pay - For No Work More than a year after Const. Kevin Hall was ordered fired from the Ottawa police for stealing drugs to feed his crack cocaine habit, he's still being paid his $71,000 annual salary -- and could continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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| Feb 9, 2008 | Behind The Toronto Police Scandal Years Of Investigation Went Into A Case That, Thanks To Judge's Ruling, May Never Go To Trial
Dozens of police officers under suspicion. A million pages of documents. Thousands of interviews. Hundreds of criminal charges. Easily the worst scandal in Toronto police history.
And then it fell apart.
Charges were stayed because the prosecutors took too long in handing over the mountain of evidence to the defence.
[An definitive work on this subject] |
| Feb 9, 2008 | Elaborate Grow-Op Defence One To Remember Agecoutay as much as argues he can grow whatever he wants. He claims to be chief and spiritual leader of his own sovereign nation. As such, he makes his own laws on his own territory. Among his legislative initiatives, for example, is the sale over the Internet of memberships in his First Nation for $10,500. The fee is justified by Agecoutay's claim that members are exempt from Canadian taxes. Three of his co-accused are tax deniers from out of province who met Agecoutay through his website. The other two are Agecoutay's brothers, all three residing on the reserve. Apparently there is some jurisdictional overlap between the Pasqua First Nation and Agecoutay's First Nation.
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| Feb 8, 2008 | BC: City Stands Behind Inspection Bylaw Richmond - The chair of the city's community safety committee is standing behind a bylaw that targets residential marijuana grow-ops, despite strong public reaction against it.
[Voters have to change their politicians, beginning at the local level and all the way up, if they want to be heard] |
| Feb 8, 2008 | BC: Appeal Grow-Op Ruling: Farnworth An accused pot grower caught a big break from a B.C. Supreme Court judge this week when his case was tossed out after the judge ruled the Surrey RCMP acted unreasonably during the raid on his house.
Mike Farnworth, the provincial NDP's public safety critic, has called on the attorney general to appeal the decision.
"I don't agree with this ruling," he said, fearing it might potentially hamper the ability of the police to take down grow ops.
[So what makes the NDP different from the Liberals or Conservatives? Why should anyone vote for them?] |
| Feb 7, 2008 | Pot Grower's Rights Violated: Judge A Surrey pot grower's Charter rights were violated when police used a battering ram to break down his door and find more than 700 plants in his basement, a B.C. Supreme Court judge just ruled.
Police are unhappy with the ruling, and hope the Crown will appeal it.
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| Feb 6, 2008 | ON: Rights body grants hearing to joint smoker An Ontario man who was told he was not allowed to smoke medical marijuana outside a local sports bar has been granted a hearing at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, one of the first cases of its kind in Canadian history.
Steve Gibson, a father of two, is claiming he was discriminated against because of his disability after he was barred from Gator Ted's Tap and Grill in Burlington, Ont., in May, 2005, for smoking marijuana by the restaurant's front door.
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| Feb 5, 2008 | BC: Drug Charges Against Victim Had Been Stayed Just nine days before Pritpal Singh Virk was gunned down Saturday, a series of drug charges laid against the Richmond teen had been stayed by federal prosecutors, court records show.
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| Jan 29, 2008 | Man Sues Police For Wrecking Grow-op The Saanich Police Department is being sued by a man who claims his marijuana grow operation was damaged during a police raid, even though he had a Health Canada certificate to legally grow the substance. ..."Ninety-five [plants]... is well above personal consumption and most of it would go bad before the person could smoke it," said Price.
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| Jan 26, 2008 | Jury Shown Video Of 'Pastoral' Grow-Ops The three-hour movie is a compilation of seven video camera discs seized inside a teepee from which three men fled during a dawn raid on the site at the Pasqua First Nation. The Aug. 21, 2005 search, which included the RCMP's emergency response team ( ERT ), turned up more than 6,000 suspected marijuana plants, most of which were growing in six homemade greenhouses estimated to be about 60 by seven metres in size.
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| Jan 25, 2008 | BC: Grow Busts Multiply The second grow-op drug bust this year marks another in a series of crackdowns by police, increasing the number to a level never before seen even by drug officers. The second grow-op drug bust this year marks another in a series of crackdowns by police, increasing the number to a level never before seen even by drug officers.
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| Jan 25, 2008 | The Pot Circus Comes to the Courthouse First the cops took their pot.
Now they want to take their church.
Weed worshippers Walter Tucker and Michael Baldasaro, reverends in the Church of the Universe, were served yesterday with an application by the attorney general to forfeit the Barton Street building the brothers call both home and church. The AG is going after the house worth about $98,000 as "offence-related property" since Tucker and Baldasaro were convicted of selling $70 worth of marijuana to an undercover police officer.
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| Jan 22, 2008 | Plea Bargain Talks Expected To Delay Emery Extradition Extradition proceedings against Marc Emery, Vancouver's self-styled Prince of Pot, were postponed Monday.
The B.C. Supreme Court put the hearing over until today. The proceedings were expected to be further adjourned until Feb. 6 while a plea bargain is negotiated.
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