| Apr 15, 2008 | Who'll Grow the Weed, Man? OTTAWA -- Health Canada is looking for someone to grow its weed.
The department served notice yesterday it will soon invite firms to bid on a contract to cultivate and distribute medical marijuana, which Prairie Plant Systems Inc. of Flin Flon, Man., is now doing
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| Apr 14, 2008 | Medical Pot Users On Hook For $500,000 OTTAWA -- Medical marijuana users are on the hook for more than $500,000 in unpaid bills for government-certified weed, raising questions about the effectiveness of Health Canada's troubled dope program
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| Apr 3, 2008 | Surrey Fire Plan Smokes Out Area Grow-ops In a nutshell, his research team works on the premise that because the B.C. grow-op problem is so large, there's not nearly enough capacity by police or the courts to deal with it. ..
"The justice system is inept at dealing with this problem so, instead, we've created a system of major disruptions to a grow-operators' business," Plecas explains. "That's the program I outlined at Oxford."
Officially it's known as the Electrical Fire Safety Initiative, primarily because a house containing a grow-op is 29 times more likely to catch fire than a regular house, Plecas says.
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| Mar 31, 2008 | Marc Emery Should Not Be Extradited This editorial board has more than once presented its strongest moral case for the Canadian government to block the extradition of Marc Emery, the West Coast marijuana advocate who faces a possible life sentence south of the border for operating a mail-order seed business out of his Vancouver headquarters. It is our view that the differences in the two countries' handling of seed vendors make extraditing Emery a shameful abdication of judgment by the Canadian authorities.
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| Mar 31, 2008 | Ontario Makes Case For Random Police Questioning he Supreme Court is expected to revisit a rule it established 11 years ago that said evidence obtained by police when people are forced to incriminate themselves after their Charter rights have been violated may not be used against them in a trial.
The April 24 hearing stems from an appeal filed by Donnohue Grant, who was convicted of gun possession charges in 2004.
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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 28, 2008 | Protection Needed for Kids in Pot Grow Homes: Councillor Children's health and safety is at stake when they grow up in drug houses, Bateman said.
When Langley Township's Public Safety Inspection Teams visit a local home, they often find evidence of drugs. All too frequently, they also find toys and playpens.
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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 Judiciary Our federal Conservative government has a disturbing tendency to circumvent judicial deliberation by imposing upon courts their own authoritarian sense of justice...This supposedly 'tough on crime' strategy embodies the curious mentality with which the Harper Conservatives regard crime: that all transgressions are committed by individuals or groups of individuals, and extenuating circumstances surrounding their offences count little compared to the fact that they are naturally immoral and should be punished.
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| Mar 20, 2008 | Controversial Law Used To Seize Property The legislation allows the province to confiscate property used in crime or obtained from the proceeds of crime without any criminal charges or convictions.
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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 | MDs Increase Dosage Of Medical Marijuana Canadian doctors have been increasing daily dosages of marijuana for patients using cannabis for medical purposes, Health Canada reports.
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| Mar 17, 2008 | AB: Alderman Wants To Ganja Up On Head Shops But Owners Doobieous That aldermen would consider prohibiting paraphernalia has Calgary bong and pipe purveyors uptight -- they say politicians are meddling in a perfectly legal business.
And they're right, technically.
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| Mar 7, 2008 | Top Court Asked To Settle Worker Drug-Testing Battle A clear national standard for worker drug and alcohol testing will emerge from a battle over oilsands employment, if a new legal move by the Alberta Human Rights Commission succeeds.
The agency has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to settle conflict between Alberta doctrine supporting dismissals of substance users for safety's sake and Ontario rules against such firings as discrimination.
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| Mar 6, 2008 | The Cost Of Getting High The UN Office of Drugs and Crime reports that Canada now has the highest proportion of marijuana users in the industrialized world at 16.8% for those between 15 and 64 years of age. Eight percent of youth report using marijuana daily. The most recent Canadian Addictions survey indicates that while youth alcohol-use rates have stayed relatively consistent since 1989, use of marijuana by youth has almost doubled in the same period.
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| Mar 6, 2008 | Prince Of Pot Still In Limbo The fate of Vancouver's Prince of Pot is still uncertain after his extradition hearing yesterday was again postponed while Canadian and American prosecutors negotiate how to legally sentence him in both countries.
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| Mar 5, 2008 | Grow Op Program A Success A city program shut down more than 80 suspected Coquitlam marijuana grow ops in the first seven months it was in operation.
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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 27, 2008 | ON: Government Seizes Pot Grower's Home A Malton man has pleaded guilty to operating a marijuana lab out of a home he owns in Georgetown....After Ngo's guilty plea, the Federal Court ordered forfeiture of his house to the Receiver General of Canada.
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