Current Affairs (2008) -
Chronological (386 items)
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| Jan 11, 2008 |
Hardly a Prince Marc Emery Peddles a Dangerous Drug and Flouts American Laws. Why Should Ottawa Protect Him? ...Marc Emery isn't a hero, he's a drug dealer. There isn't much of a case to support government intervention in his extradition hearings, but there's plenty of evidence to show why his activities are far from harmless. |
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| Jan 12, 2008 |
Docs Get Their Pot Info From Patients Physicians who approve the use of medicinal marijuana say their clinical knowledge of the drug is hazy and they rely heavily on their patients to help them craft treatment plans. The physicians' knowledge of medical marijuana "had most often come directly ( in anecdotal form ) from their patients' experience with the drug," concludes the study of physician attitudes. |
| Jan 14, 2008 |
Be Compassionate But a compassion club is nothing but a grow-op that complies with the law, pays its bills, lives openly in the community and causes no harm to anybody. And once you concede that such a thing can exist, and others demonstrate it, the whole semantic game of drug prohibition becomes harder for the government to play. |
| Jan 14, 2008 |
Island Company To Sell Medical Marijuana To Hundreds Of People Duncan company is gearing up to supply nearly 300 customers with medical marijuana in the wake of a federal court ruling striking down a key restriction on sales of the drug. Island Harvest applauded the decision to declare unconstitutional a regulation that had prevented growers from selling marijuana to more than one patient. |
| Jan 14, 2008 |
Marc Emery Agrees to Five Years in Canadian Prison Marc Emery, Vancouver's self-styled Prince of Pot, has tentatively agreed to a five-year prison term in a plea bargain over U.S. money laundering and marijuana seed-selling charges. Facing an extradition hearing Jan. 21 and the all-but-certain prospect of delivery to American authorities, Emery has cut a deal with U.S. prosecutors to serve his sentence in Canada. He also hopes it will save his two co-accused - Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams, who were his lieutenants for so much of the past decade. |
| Jan 15, 2008 |
B.C.'s Prince of Pot Got What Was Coming to Him Still, Mr. Emery is anything but a sympathetic figure. In truth, the pot activist is a smart-ass egomaniac addicted as much to the fame and attention his marijuana crusade has brought him as he is to the B.C. Bud he likes to smoke so much. We can condemn U.S. drug laws as unduly harsh all we want, but the fact is they are the laws. And when we are in that country, or doing business with people who live there, we must respect those laws. If you decide to thwart them, as Mr. Emery did, you do so at your peril. |
| Jan 15, 2008 |
SN:
Ruling Disappoints Medical Pot Producer Health Canada's contract producer for medicinal marijuana fears patient safety and product quality will suffer as a result of a federal court ruling that relaxes government restrictions and allows other growers to become suppliers. [ Product quality???? See; <a href="http://safeaccess.ca/research/flinflon/index.htm" target="_blank">Organic Cannabis vs Health Canada product</a> ] |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| Jan 16, 2008 |
Weeding Out Bad Policy Pretending that marijuana possesses magic evil qualities that make it more dangerous than a thousand other substances our laws permit doctors to prescribe, from Ritalin to morphine, hurts physicians and their patients. |
| Jan 16, 2008 |
Plenty O' Pot News Lawyers for the Vancouver Island Compassion Society ( VICS ) will be back in court in February to defend the organization's constitutional right to distribute medical cannabis, despite the death of the judge who was presiding over the now two-year-old trial. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. <a href="http://www.cannabisculture.com/noextradition/">www.NoExtradition.net</a> |
| Jan 18, 2008 |
Constitutional Pot Challenge In Sechelt Provincial Court BC: The local courtroom is taking centre stage in a constitutional showdown on laws governing the possession of marijuana, after a written submission from Vancouver lawyer Kirk Tousaw on Tuesday. Tousaw and Ryan Poelzer, an East Vancouver man charged with possession of marijuana on the Coast in late May, are pursuing a constitutional defence based on the non-viability of Health Canada's 2003 Marijuana Medical Access Regulation ( MMAR ). "The courts have found, as recently as Jan. 2008, the MMAR is not constitutionally adequate," said Tousaw. "It's clear that the government can only prohibit possession of marijuana if it has a constitutionally adequate medical program." |
| Jan 18, 2008 |
Condo huff: Don't Fear The Reefer Erin is a medical user of marijuana...She is also licensed to grow a little dope at home, with the permission of the government. I think that makes the condo corporation nervous. ...She is growing 18 marijuana plants - that's all she needs - in what used to be the closet of her bedroom. [What will they do when more and more people begin growing vegetables indoors at home to help offset rising food costs?] |
| Jan 19, 2008 |
Local Federal Crown Backs Out of Trials In Dispute Over Pay Grace said federal prosecutions were taking 40 per cent of his time but generating only 10 per cent of his income. With the increase, he'll spend 20 per cent of his time dealing with federal matters and the rest as a defence lawyer, he said. Grace said there seems to be more longer trials, due to an increase in the number of marijuana grow operations in the area. They often involve multiple accused and multiple lawyers. |
| 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. |
| Jan 22, 2008 |
Tips On Grow-Ops Draining Crime Stoppers Marijuana Is Slowly Bleeding Crime Stoppers Of Niagara. "We're not funded by the government, we are not an arm of the police," said Crime Stoppers of Niagara chairman Stu Black. "We get our money through donations." ...With some funding from the Niagara Regional Police Services Board, Crime Stoppers hosted a training conference in June that raised enough money to get the organization out of trouble. |
| 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. |