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Current Affairs 2008 - Statistics (53 items)
| 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 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 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 1, 2008 | Understanding the Motivations for Recreational This exploratory qualitative research seeks to better understand both the motives for the
use of marijuana by adult Canadians* and their learned "drug experience" expectancies
through an examination of their subjective experiences with the drug. This neglected area
of research has implications for drug consumption prevention educators and treatment
counselors, particularly those who are wary of "statistical reductionism" and sensitive to
the clinical value of gaining an understanding of the subjective experiences of those who
use and misuse drugs (Feinstein, 1999).
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| Jan 24, 2008 | BC: Grow-Ops Contributing To The Rental Crunch Marijuana grow operations are a major concern for law-enforcement agencies, but perhaps they should also be troubling to renters. That's because the indoor farming of cannabis-a multibillion-dollar crop in British Columbia-may be contributing the rental crunch. According to police, growers often use rental homes and commercial buildings to avoid damage to their own property.
The City of Vancouver shuts down an average of 300 grow-ops a year, said Carlene Robbins, manager of City Hall's property-use branch.
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| Jan 17, 2008 | Extraditing The Prince Of Pot Many Canadians will be tuning in to witness the fate of self-proclaimed "Prince of Pot" and marijuana seed distributor Marc Emery. Since Harper took office, $64 million has been pledged in the anti-drug fight... A UN study released in 2007 estimated Canadian pot use is four times that of the global rate and the highest in the industrialized world,..Economics professors at the Fraser Institute estimate Canadians will spend $1.8 billion this year on marijuana,
Latest News: Extradition Hearing Adjourned - A press conference will take place at the BC Supreme Court at 800 Smithe Street, downtown Vancouver, at 10:00am on Tuesday, January 22nd. www.NoExtradition.net
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| Jan 17, 2008 | Pot Decision A Good Step Good for Judge Barry Strayer.
Most have probably not heard of the man, but he's the Ontario federal court judge whose recent ruling allows the sick among us to more easily obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes.
No matter your stance on the issue of pot, the facts are it helps many deal with symptoms of diseases and live decidedly more normal lives temporarily free of chronic pain.
About 2,000 Canadians carry prescriptions allowing them to legally purchase the intoxicating weed.
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| Jan 16, 2008 | BC: Door Opened For Large-Scale Pot Growing Cowichan could become one of Canada's medical cannabis capitals following last week's federal-court ruling allowing growers to supply more than one patient.
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| Jan 16, 2008 | Drug Policy Wimps What a bunch of hypocrites our politicians are. Pot is illegal in this country but Ottawa couldn't muster up the effort to close down our most infamous marijuana activist.
It's essentially an admission that our pot laws are ridiculous but we don't have the guts to reform them, despite repeated pleas by various bodies over the years.
By turning a blind eye to Emery's activities, Ottawa has implicitly acknowledged that marijuana use is not a big deal. It's no wonder that, as the Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs noted in 2002, the gap between the law and public compliance has widened.
After all, if Ottawa can't be bothered prosecuting a big fish like Emery, why should ordinary Canadians respect the law?
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| Jan 16, 2008 | This Is Your Law On Drugs In presenting the government's anti-drug plan in October, Prime Minister Stephen Harper never called it a "War on Drugs." But he talked tough about "breaking Canada's drug habit," and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson punctuated that sentiment by proposing a bill aimed at invoking mandatory jail sentences for drug offenders. Immediately, critics sounded off on what they saw as a host of inherent flaws in the government's whole approach to illicit drugs. One common strain of criticism pointed out that this is a familiar strategy once embraced by American policy-makers.
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| Jan 10, 2008 | BC: Driving High As the Counterattack Road Check season winds down, Saanich police were surprised by one memorable night that saw the number of drivers caught driving while high on marijuana exceed those caught for drinking and driving.
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| The Growing Use Of Medical Marijuana Although fewer than 3,000 Canadians are licensed to use medical marijuana, it's estimated that between 400,000 and one million people in the country use cannabis as medication. The following is the first article in a series about the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions.
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