Current Affairs (2006) -
Corruption (313 items)
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| Feb 6, 2006 |
Feds Go After Pot Users For $170,000 Debt OTTAWA ( CP ) - Like any dope dealer, Health Canada has its share of marijuana customers who just don't pay their bills. But unlike street pushers, the department avoids tire irons and switchblades to recover its bad debts in favour of stern letters and collection agencies. [Cutting off medical users who can't pay for taxpayer funded pot adds insult to injury for the poor and disenfranchised. Instead they will have to see how they fare with not paying their local dealers.] |
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| Feb 7, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Is The Cost Of War On Weed Worth The Price? Forty per cent of all Canadian 15 year olds admit to having used marijuana. It is a commodity that many Canadians want. The United States Homeland Security Department is in the process of pouring over $1 billion into Bellingham to upgrade their land, sea and air surveillance of this sector of their border. In spite of the hundreds of cameras and remote controlled drones marijuana is flowing into their country. Local prices have almost doubled in the last year. |
| Feb 8, 2006 |
Council's Cannabis Confab Cancelled-Sort Of It took two years for Victoria's city council to set up a meeting with Health Canada about medical marijuana, but it would seem the federal agency balked when the city said the meeting had to be open to the public. |
| Feb 8, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Ignore The Reefer Madness GNORE THE REEFER MADNESS Editor: Re: Whatever happened to the pot debate? Thomas Barker, Barking at the Big Dog, Houston Today, Jan. 25. Rather than continue to subsidize organized crime, Canadian policymakers should ignore the reefer madness hysteria of the U.S. government and instead to look their own Senate for guidance. In the words of Senator Pierre Claude Nolin: "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue." Robert Sharpe Washington, D.C. |
| Feb 9, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Pot Coverage One-Sided POT COVERAGE ONE-SIDED I've been reading about the waste of taxpayers' money in the arrest of Tom Shapiro and family in the medical cannabis case in Regina. Now The SP prints this rubbish about grow-ops causing damage to homes. Does this include all homes that have plants, or is it just homes with cannabis plants? How can a paper that says it abides with responsible reporting print such one-sided propaganda? Ed Burwell Saskatoon |
| Feb 17, 2006 |
Seeking Cannabis Compassion Fifteen people, a tiny downtown apartment and a man sick from AIDS with anywhere from one to five years to live. This is the heart of the Kelowna Compassion Club-the latest medical marijuana operation to grace B.C.'s map. |
| Feb 17, 2006 |
Medical Marijuana User Clears Foul-Up A licensed medical marijuana user has had a criminal charge for pot production dropped -- and has had all his growing equipment returned by city police -- after a bureaucratic bungle left him without his medication for weeks. |
| Feb 18, 2006 |
True Justice Is Blind An Orangeville area man is charged after police bust a marijuana grow-op in his home, seizing almost 600 plants. A judge with the Ontario Superior Court later tosses out the charges after expressing criticism of the investigating officer's methods....An Ontario Provincial Police officer identified Nguyen and other Vietnamese Canadian community members through a land title search. He focused on them because of previous incidents of Vietnamese Canadians being involved in grow-ops. |
| Feb 18, 2006 |
No Hydroponics Monitoring An Abbotsford city councillor is "not happy" with the provincial government after it ruled there will be no immediate implementation of a proposal to monitor businesses selling hydroponic equipment...On the hydroponics issue, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General told the City of Abbotsford that implementing a record-keeping system "requires careful consideration of its implications for all businesses province-wide." As a result, it concluded that "further research" would have to be carried out before government moves forward. |
| Feb 20, 2006 |
More Students Smoked Out In Pictou County Dope Sting Police keep arresting more students in a cleanup of alleged lunchtime dope dealing and smoking near a rural Pictou County school. Video surveillance has revealed up to 50 young people smoking marijuana outside an Alma convenience store popular with Northumberland Regional High School students. That allegedly includes the 13 students arrested in a dramatic police sweep of the store parking lot on Friday. |
| Feb 20, 2006 |
PUB LTE: B.C. Bud Here To Stay B.C. BUD HERE TO STAY So W.P. Kinsella and the supporters of Grow Watch think they are finally stamping out marijuana grow operations? Not likely. B.C. bud is here to stay, the demand and money associated with it are just too immense. It's a shame Kinsella, Grow Watch members and the RCMP fail to realize they are helping gangs such as the Hells Angels rather than eradicating them. Choosing to adopt these programs sends the organized crime syndicates laughing all the way to the bank. Christopher Nichols, Coquitlam |
| Feb 21, 2006 |
Happy Hippy Handed Heave-Ho Last week a local retail business, the Happy Hippy Hemp Shop, that sells glass pipes, bongs, rolling papers, and roach clips designed for smoking pot, has been asked to vacate its rented space on Oliver Street. Happy Hippy store owner, Mike Dery, says his landlord, Chuck Delainey, told him he had until the end of the |
| Feb 21, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Legalize Marijuana For Adults As the leader of the world's largest organization of police, judges and other criminal justice professionals who oppose the policy of drug Prohibition, I'd like to echo letter writer Robert Sharpe. Having the criminal justice system as the primary arm of public response to marijuana use is bad policy. The proposed law changes better mirror the common sense approach we use in response to the most addictive and dangerous drugs - alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. |
| Feb 23, 2006 |
Court Dismisses 'Compassion' Argument On Pot New Brunswick Court of Appeal rejected Thursday a Saint John woman's argument that she was running a "compassion club" for medicinal marijuana users. However, the province's high court will still consider Lynn Wood's appeal of her marijuana trafficking conviction, albeit on other grounds. Lynn Wood was convicted in February 2005 of trafficking marijuana, and was sentenced to a term of one year in prison. |
| Feb 23, 2006 |
Pot Smell Justified Dwelling Search, Judges Say VANCOUVER -- The smell of marijuana coupled with a suspect speaking a foreign language can be sufficient grounds for police to enter a private home without a search warrant, the British Columbia Court of Appeal has ruled. The decision could expand the power of police to enter homes without warrants under certain conditions, such as an officer smelling marijuana in a dwelling. [Say good-bye to more of our rights] |
| Feb 24, 2006 |
Pot Can Make You Psychotic Heads up potheads. Cannabis use may lead to psychosis. At an SFU forum on cannabis, mental health and addiction, Professor David Ferguson from the University of Otago, New Zealand, told his audience pot is definitely not a harmless drug. |
| Feb 24, 2006 |
Conditional Discharge On Pot Charge May Be Appealed Crown prosecutors are expected to appeal a Supreme Court ruling this week that sent a young Kelowna woman home without a criminal record after pleading guilty to growing marijuana. On Tuesday, justice Alison Beames gave Nicole Kraubner a conditional discharge after she pleaded guilty to the charge. Police discovered the grow operation May 28, 2004. |
| Feb 26, 2006 |
Region Dismisses Pot For Health Issue Niagara Compassion Society was looking for a homegrown solution to medical marijuana use when it appeared before the region's public health committee Tuesday. It didn't come. Committee members instead took pot shots at the idea of what some believed amounts to endorsing recreational drug use. |
| Feb 28, 2006 |
War On Drugs A Joke To Ex-Cop In Norm Stamper's world, the "drug store" is a place that is much different from what generally comes to mind. The 28-year police veteran of the San Diego police department and former Seattle police chief wants to see all street drugs legalized, firmly regulated and sold just like we sell alcohol today. |
| Mar 1, 2006 |
Mayor Meets Hemp Researchers The future is bright for those getting in on the ground level with Industrial hemp products....Surging costs are why there is a great deal of research being done on less costly materials, like the fibre board that can be made from hemp. |