Current Affairs (2007) -
Chronological (432 items)
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| May 10, 2007 |
Pot Prince Blesses Herbal Affair Thousands upon thousands of tokers are demonstrating the normalization of cannabis at the Saturday, May 5, Global Marijuana March and fest with some hardcore puffing.... But the presence of Prince of Pot Marc Emery, facing extradition for selling pot seeds stateside, as lead parade marshall helps ensure the smokefest's hard edge. Emery's canna-celeb cachet has enthusiasts asking for photos and autographs. Here are 20,000 people proving they aren't criminals but a marijuana marketplace requiring regulation and taxation. Pre-march, vendors in the park get lots of excited attention. |
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| May 11, 2007 |
Court Case Set To Argue Grow-op As A Civil Right Vancouver Island Compassion Society planning constitutional challenge in defence of pot bust To the prosecution, it's a simple case of production for the purposes of trafficking, involving two local men caught red-handed growing a crop of 900 marijuana plants on an acreage in East Sooke. To Vancouver Island Compassion Society founder Philippe Lucas, it's a constitutional challenge of Canada's medical marijuana laws. Lawyers were in court in Victoria this week arguing that the two men arrested in the May, 2004 raid, Mat Beren and Michael Swallow, were operating a marijuana research and cultivation facility on behalf of the society. "We don't deny what we were doing," Lucas said. "Our defence is a constitutional challenge." |
| May 11, 2007 |
RCMP Alleges Pot Politician A Reefer Recidivist Police charged Ed deVries in Iqaluit with trafficking in a controlled substance, conspiracy to traffic and breach of undertaking, May 2. He was released from custody and will appear in court July 3. Police seized several pounds of marijuana, said Cpl. Randy Slawson. DeVries, 48, recently served a six-month sentence for trafficking marijuana and laundering the proceeds of crime, after police intercepted a filing cabinet in 2003 full of marijuana sent from Ontario to Iqaluit, addressed to a company owned by deVries. |
| May 12, 2007 |
Eyes In The Sky Spot Pot Satellite Imagery May Uncover Hidden Marijuana Plantations Space will be the final frontier for busting marijuana grow operations in Canada now that police researchers are backing satellite technology that can uncover hidden cannabis plantations. While RCMP weren't hot about the idea a few years ago, a study just completed by the Canadian Police Research Centre shows that police forces would be crazy not to use the technology, if they can afford it. |
| May 12, 2007 |
Weed Is Universal, So What's The Fuss? We all know that crack is bad news but when it comes to marijuana, the message is less clear. Even though students have had it drilled into their heads to just say no to all drugs, many don't see pot as hazardous. Talk about negative side-effects such as memory loss, depression, increased risk of heart attacks, respiratory illness and schizophrenia and youth either shrug these problems off or attribute them to conservative alarmism. Perhaps our attitude to the drug has become a little too lax. |
| May 14, 2007 |
Possibilities Are Endless For Newest Crop You'll have to excuse Grant Moorcroft if he tells you he's heard every pothead joke around. And with good reason, he is, after all, one of the area's most accomplished growers of a strain of hemp that's all about industrial as opposed to recreational. |
| May 16, 2007 |
Hemp, Canola Studied For BC Bioenergy Even before significant increases in temperature, climate change is starting to prompt shifts in B.C. agriculture. Increased interest in carbon-neutral fuel sources has put the focus on ethanol and biodiesel options for farmland. One of the crops that has popped up around B.C. is industrial hemp, a fast-growing plant that produces vegetable oil as well as tough fibre used in rope and textiles. A 110-acre hemp crop was planted in the 100 Mile House area in 2006. The agriculture ministry says smaller hemp plantings have been done in Smithers, West Moberly near Fort St. John and on Vancouver Island. B.C. Agriculture Minister Pat Bell said the 100 Mile House pilot project is being increased to 200 acres this year, to get to a volume where processing facilities could use it to produce fibre and potentially ethanol. B.C. is following the lead of Manitoba, which has 28,000 acres in hemp, and Saskatchewan with 14,000 acres in cultivation. |
| May 17, 2007 |
Paralympic Skier Suspended For Marijuana Use Edmonton's Kimberly Joines has no intention of staying on the sidelines after she's done serving a nine-month suspension for testing positive for marijuana use. ...Joines had applied to Health Canada to be allowed to use medicinal marijuana, which she says she used as a painkiller because it had fewer negative effects than prescription medications. At the time she applied to Health Canada she was told that the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports would allow the use of medicinal marijuana, not realizing that the IPC Anti-Doping Code, which uses the same list as the World Anti-Doping Agency ( WADA ) -- has no similar exemptio |
| May 18, 2007 |
Grow-Ops a Downer for Real Estate Agents Canada's realtors are quietly waging war on former marijuana grow-ops. While there's not much they can do to stop a grow-op from launching, realtors are banding together locally, provincially and nationally to offset the repercussions that can result when a former grow-op is resold to an unsuspecting buyer. "The key part of it is that the house speaks for itself, so that these houses can be assessed - and need to be assessed," says Brian Walker, president of the Ontario Real Estate Association ( OREA ). |
| May 22, 2007 |
Random Searches Tested In Court Did Police Breach Student's Rights By Visiting School With Drug Sniffer Dog A case that began when officers showed up at a Sarnia high school with "Chief" the drug-sniffing dog is about to test the limits of police powers in Canada. The Crown appeal, to be heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada, will help determine whether police can use sniffer dogs to conduct random searches of schools and other public places, such as parks, sports stadiums, beaches and malls. At issue is whether an unannounced police visit to St. Patrick's high school in November 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. |
| May 23, 2007 |
Harper To Unveil US-Style 'War On Drugs' OTTAWA - The Harper government's new anti-drug strategy is expected to take a tough approach to illicit drugs: cracking down on grow-ops and pushers, and retreating from "harm reduction" measures such as safe injection sites for addicts. |
| May 23, 2007 |
ON:
Strip Search Deemed Illegal A woman arrested for drug possession had her drinking and driving charge dismissed in Sarnia court Tuesday because she was the subject of an unlawful police strip search. But she... was fined $600 for possession of cocaine and marijuana that was discovered during her arrest for impaired driving at an April 13, 2006 RIDE check in Sarnia. |
| May 24, 2007 |
Supreme Court - Backpacks and Searches If police officers were allowed to drop in on quiet house parties, snoop around backyard patios or search the private vehicles and backpacks of people at random and without cause, an awful lot of upstanding citizens would likely find themselves getting pinched for minor drug crimes. But police generally need a warrant to search our homes and our purses and briefcases and that same protection should extend to the backpacks of students. Kids should have constitutional rights too, whether they are in school or at the shopping mall. |
| May 24, 2007 |
Pot Challenge Gets High-Profile Help Philippe Lucas, founder of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, is flying high. As a supplier of medical marijuana and political activist bent on reforming Canada's pot laws, Lucas has a supportive MP in Vancouver East New Democrat Libby Davies. He has what he called "an interested and engaged judge" in Justice Robert Edwards, now hearing the society's Charter of Rights challenge arising from a raid on the compassion society's grow-operation near Sooke. And he has a Tory Senator, Pierre Claude Nolin, to testify for the society when the trial resumes on June 11. |
| May 26, 2007 |
Little Interest In Drug Debate There was no moderator, one of three panelists left halfway through the debate and only two dozen audience members turned up. But that didn't stop the LEAP debate on drug prohibition Tuesday night at Matsqui Centennial Auditorium. There to discuss the issue was retired Vancouver judge Jerry Paradis, former Vancouver police officer Tony Smith and Chief Constable Ian Mackenzie of the Abbotsford Police Department. |
| May 26, 2007 |
Legalize Pot To Halt Violence, Group Urges Legalizing drugs as a way to combat the drug trade may go against traditional views, but it's an idea with its share of supporters. A Packet & Times story last week in which a member of the Huronia combined forces drug unit talked about violence in relation to drugs received many responses. One was from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ), an organization comprised of current and former police officers, attorneys, judges and corrections workers. The organization is in favour of legalizing drugs as a way to take the drug trade off the streets and into a regulated environment. "We're not starry-eyed utopians who think we aren't going to have any problems," said LEAP founding secretary John Gayder, who works in law enforcement in Niagara Falls. |
| May 26, 2007 |
Vaporizing The Threat Of A Weed Bust On a weekend afternoon at the Hot Box Cafe in Kensington Market, three young women are sipping greenish blender drinks. Up on a chalkboard are the house rules, which include "no smoking" and, in big, capital letters, "BYOP." |
| May 26, 2007 |
An Invasion Of Privacy Pacing around his living room Wednesday, Richard Pitt can't believe the city's safety inspection team is late. He points to an inspection notice delivered to his home on 119 B Avenue in Pitt Meadows. The team was to arrive at 10:30 a.m. It is 45 minutes late. When two police cars, a fire department pick-up and bylaws truck pulled up in front of the house to check for an illegal marijuana grow operation, Pitt was ready. "It's an invasion of privacy," he said. "It has taken two hours out of my day." |
| May 26, 2007 |
AB:
Industry Wins Court Standing In Jobsite Drug Testing EDMONTON ( CP )- More industry heavyweights will be heard in the challenge of a court ruling on pre-employment drug testing involving Alberta's human rights commission and a large American construction firm. An Alberta justice ruled last June that Kellogg Brown & Root Company discriminated against a man when it fired him from an oilsands project near Fort McMurray after his drug test was positive for marijuana. KBR's appeal of that ruling is to be heard Oct. 11. The Alberta Court of Appeal has granted intervener status in the case to Syncrude Canada Ltd., the Mining Association of British Columbia and the Coal Association of Canada. |
| May 26, 2007 |
BC:
Landlords Turn To Screening Company To Weed Out Grow-Ops British Columbia landlords and rental property owners are going to remarkable lengths to weed out potential marijuana grow-ops, crystal methamphetamine labs, deadbeats and rogue tenants more likely to trash their suites than pay the rent. Credit checks and referrals are now just a starting point. Complete credit histories, Canadian Police Information Centre criminal record checks and a delinquent tenant list are being used and, if stung, landlords are even launching "electronic surveillance" of former tenants to monitor their financial status and then aggressively collect debts. |