Current Affairs (2006) -
Reform (313 items)
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| Nov 17, 2006 |
Hemp Shaking Its Shady Image Health Food Market Drives 'Gangbuster' Canadian Sales IT'S used in salad oil, power shakes and non-meat burgers, it's turning up in skin care products and may one day coat the exterior of long-haul buses. The Canadian hemp industry is booming as farmers, food processors and industrial users alike are rediscovering the plant that is related to marijuana, but won't get you high. |
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| Nov 17, 2006 |
Chief Constable Dan Maluta In Nelson As for the many questions about marijuana, the local economy, and how Nelson's community feels about this drug, Maluta will not be drawn too far.... The Chief is aware that 'marijuana advocates' talk about 'mom-and-pop operations' as being mostly harmless, or will say 'maybe some handicapped person might earn a little cash by growing-' He notes that when mom and pop grow ops are busted, it is usual to find the owners have an average of nine Criminal Code offences in their past records. |
| Nov 18, 2006 |
Waging War On A Benign Plant I know countless people who treat marijuana as our father's generation treated alcohol - as a social indulgence, one to be shared at a party or consumed after a hard day at work. And not one of the dozens of people I know who enjoy using marijuana is anywhere near the slippery slope to the world of crack, as laughably claimed by prohibitionists who parrot the lie that pot is a dangerous gateway drug. The problem lies in the current laws. When the Conservatives decided to ditch the Liberals' progressive plan to decriminalize pot, they reinforced the warped reality that makes criminals of upstanding citizens who enjoy using marijuana. |
| Nov 20, 2006 |
Delegates Want NDP to Become More Green Among other resolutions, delegates also passed a call for government support to facilitate the sale of the Maple Leaf plant in Saskatoon slated to be closed, a call for anti-scab legislation, a call for the government to take action to avoid an SGEU strike and a call for the provincial party to support the federal NDP's position in favour of "non-punitive" marijuana laws. |
| Nov 22, 2006 |
Drug Producer Registry An Idea Worth Pursuing Royal Canadian Mounted Police ( RCMP ) National Chemical Diversion Coordinator, Corporal Brent Hill, recently provided a piece of that puzzle. Speaking to the Perth County Task Force on Crystal Meth, Corp. Hill said he would like to see a national registry created of those found guilty of manufacturing illegal drugs, similar to that used to keep tabs on sex offenders. Such a registry would provide rapid access by police to current vital information about convicted drug producers. A person convicted of a designated drug offence could be required to report to the appropriate registration centre to re-register annually and every time they change their address or legal name....Would the registry differentiate between chemical drug producers and small-scale marijuana growers, and should it? Regardless, this is an idea that shouldn't be allowed to get mired in the legislative system for years. It should be examined fully, post haste. [Using the extremes of the crystal meth scare as propaganda to snag someone growing a plant in their backyard by making "drug producers" seem the same as someone with an obvious mental defect and unwitting victim, is illogical and hopefully unconstitutional. Also, if registries for real crimes involving victims continues, will there be a drunk driver registry so everyone can know when a convicted drunk driver moves to the neighbourhood? Is this what we want?] |
| Nov 23, 2006 |
Medical Pot Users Fume Over Tories' Drug-Driving Regular medical marijuana users are being unfairly targeted by the Conservative government's new drug-driving legislation, which will increase penalties and make it easier for police to crack down on people who do drugs before getting behind the wheel, a national advocacy group warned yesterday. "This law, we feel, would unfairly target marijuana users," said Russell Barth, a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers. "Discriminating against us based on our medication . is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin." [ <a href="http://cannabiscoalition.ca/html/index.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=33" target="_blank">The Casnadian Cannabis Coalition, an umbrella organization for the cannabis community, issued a press release on this subject </a> as well. ] |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Straight Talk Teen Drug and Alcohol Use Is a Fact of Life in Every Community. Most of It Is Experimental; Rarely Does It Lead to Addiction. ...In 2003, youth aged 13 to 18 filled out a survey and one in five said they had tried marijuana. More than half said they had used alcohol. These are not surprising statistics, but they should make parents take notice. |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Pot More Addictive For Youth, Drug Expert Warns OTTAWA -- Young People Can Easily Become Dependent on Marijuana Because Their Brains Are Still Developing, Says an Expert on Youth Substance Abuse. "Kids can get addicted really quickly, like six months," said Kathy Szirtes, who spoke Thursday at a public forum in Ottawa on problematic marijuana use among youth. "An adult may take two years, but kids can take six months because their bodies are still soft and growing. The teen brain really isn't done growing." |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Baby Boom Pot Smokers' Principles Up In Smoke Weekly, in this city and across Canada, marijuana grow house operations are busted; kids are arrested in parks as they smoke grass -- the war on "drugs" marches on. So lucrative is the business of selling marijuana that drug dealers kill each other to stay on top, often also killing or maiming innocent bystanders in the process. And in the midst of all this, on any given Saturday night, the elite of this country -- including doctors, lawyers and journalists -- puff away on marijuana and sip red wine as they exchange pleasant conversation at dinner parties. Anything wrong with this picture? |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
22 Grow-Ops In One Highrise When Toronto's drug-squad detectives arrived at an apartment building on Jane St. just north of Sheppard Ave. W. yesterday morning armed with search warrants for five apartments, they knew they'd have a busy day. But nothing prepared them for what they found when they started searching the other apartments in the building. By 6 p.m. yesterday, stunned detectives had uncovered a $6.6 million marijuana grow-operation with some 6,600 plants being grown in 22 apartments. |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Drug Dealers Upgrade Weaponry To Protect Marijuana Traps such as nails driven into weighted wooden boards and suspended overhead in trees, and spikes attached to tied-back tree saplings, are being increasingly found during police investigations, Det. Supt. Frank Elbers of the Ontario Provincial Police drug enforcement section said yesterday. [ And in other prohibition-related news... when will there be honesty in the media?] |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Screening Of Soldiers Uncovers Illegal Use Of Drugs Canadian Troops Being Sent to Afghanistan in February Are Being Tested for Illegal Drug Use -- and About 5 Per Cent Are Failing. A...fghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the military does not want to send people who already have problems into that environment. More than that, it needs troops who are in full control of their faculties. [ Strange the government has no problem <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McVhrnSb5wY" target="_blank">exposing these same soldiers to depleted uranium (DU)</a> and other atrocities. The DVD <a href="http://www.beyondtreason.com/" target="_blank">Beyond Treason</a> is a must see. ] |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Drug Free Zones A Failed Experiment? Judges may hand out longer sentences to people who traffic drugs around schools, but the Drug Free Zone program is hardly worth the signs it is written on. The zones were established about seven years ago in a joint effort between the police and school board. The announced goal was harsher sentences for people trafficking within the zones around schools, although that appears to have been more wishful thinking than legal thinking. "The intent of the zones is certainly a good one, and they have been effective to some degree," said School District 23 Supt. Mike Roberts, "but they haven't had the impact that was hoped for at the beginning. |
| Nov 26, 2006 |
Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone Sure, the NDP have been hypocritical. And one certainly has to look no further than that back-page advertisement in the recent NDP annual convention program that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana so that, as federal NDP Leader Jack Layton puts it in the ad, "people can enjoy marijuana in the peace and quiet of their own home, or in a cafe, without the fear of being criminalized." ....For a governing party that has added a "healthy living services" minister to the cabinet, that is now running a campaign against binge drinking and that has now introduced legislation enabling it to sue tobacco companies, this ad was pure hypocrisy. |
| Nov 27, 2006 |
Grow-Op Building Plagued By Mould Ontario Conservative leader John Tory and Councillor George Mammoliti knocked on doors and held an impromptu town hall meeting yesterday in the lobby of 2600 Jane St., where police on Thursday found millions of dollars' worth of marijuana being grown in 22 units of the building. |
| Nov 28, 2006 |
Right-Wing Reefer Conservative Leader John Tory used marijuana as a high school and university student, once favoured lighter sentences for pot traffickers and even drove while "stoned."... "That was then and this is now," he said. "I'm 30 years older, hopefully a lot wiser. I think these are experiences that kids often have that help them to learn lessons and shape their attitudes when they get older." [Classic example of why pot didn't become legal when all those lawbreaking teenagers who tried it became the lawmakers decades later ] |
| Nov 28, 2006 |
Country Going To Pot Today, nearly half a century, legions of narc squads, and several hundred million anti-drug dollars later, pot is being sold by kids, to kids in schoolyards from Pangnirtung to P.E.I. I smell its sweet, sharp scent pretty much every time I walk past the park in the middle of town. So much for the War on Drugs. |
| Nov 29, 2006 |
On The Lookout For A Nice Pair Of Hemp Boxers In conversation with the clerk, I found out that through a National Research Council program, Naturally Advanced Technology ( www.naturallyadvanced.com and www.hemptown.com ) of Vancouver is growing test plots of hemp in Saskatchewan and Alberta, with a goal of becoming a "dirt to shirt" company. |
| Nov 29, 2006 |
Students Need To Be Re-Educated On Dangers Of Pot "The government is realizing how much money is spent on weed, and they're upset that they aren't getting a part of that money through taxes. But they know they can't legalize it now, with everyone thinking it's a 'hardcore' drug so they are letting on it is a 'soft' drug, so that in a couple years they will be able to legalize it because everyone will think it's no big deal," Powell said. I think that we need to re-educate the youth in how dangerous weed really is and eliminate this theory before it spreads out of control. |
| Nov 29, 2006 |
Pot Bylaw May Be Redundant Orillia wants to create a bylaw to help recoup costs from dismantling marijuana grow-ops, but Niagara Falls has been doing it without one for years, The Packet & Times has learned. Legislation to do it already exists, said Jim Jessop, an inspector with the Niagara Falls Fire Department. "All the tools we need to deal with it, we have now," he said. [Laws, laws, laws and more laws for pot - it is like a national neurosis] |