Current Affairs (2008) -
Chronological (386 items)
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| May 19, 2008 |
High Cost Of Toking A human rights settlement between a medical marijuana user and the owner of a Burlington sports pub has left behind a cloud of controversy. Afroze Edwards of the Ontario Human Rights Commission said people who partake of marijuana for medical reasons have a right to reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. |
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| May 20, 2008 |
Drugs A Booming BC Business Marijauna is our number 1 economic contributor, and like all successful businesses, it's growing. It isn't restricted to just one part of the province either. Marijuana is grown all over the place, even in the hinterlands, it's truly a provincial bonanza. MacLeans says it's a $5 billion to $7 billion a year business. The hard drugs bring in billions and we also do well with manufactured drugs such as methamphetamine and ecstasy. A BC Business magazine report ranks the marijuana industry as the province's second largest business, but that's still significant. |
| May 20, 2008 |
Military Drug Tests Find 1 In 20 Using More than one in 20 Canadian soldiers and sailors in non-combat roles tested positive for illicit drug use in random tests conducted on more than 3,000 military personnel from coast to coast. The results provided to The Canadian Press show that over a four-month period, 1,392 sailors in the navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets and 1,673 soldiers in the army's four regions and training branch were subjected to blind drug testing. <strong>Averaged out, 6.5 per cent of those tested in the navy and 5 per cent in the army indicated positive results, almost entirely for marijuana. </strong> The Canadian Forces personnel will eventually switch to cocaine or meth like others who are drug tested... it only stays in the system for several days instead of 30 days like cannabis... |
| May 20, 2008 |
A Few Brave Souls Can Enact Great Change It's hard to stand up against criminals. For most of us, that world remains a dark, unknown place that we happily avoid. We don't want to know drug dealers, and we certainly don't want to experience their lifestyle. |
| May 21, 2008 |
Police Smoke Out Drugs At Schools After a 10-day investigation at nine high schools, Ottawa police rounded up about 100 grams of marijuana, arrested 16 youths and charged five more. [Sounds like a lot of taxpayer money was used and trust betrayed to round up 100 grams... insane] |
| May 21, 2008 |
Studying Pot's Effects On Drivers Over the next two years, Asbridge and the rest of his team plan to survey 1,500 people in three different Canadian hospitals, including the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, and two more hospitals located in Toronto. [They are only collecting data from hospitals? What about those who drive under the influence of cannabis who don't make it into a hospital?] |
| May 21, 2008 |
Meaford Couple To Challenge Pot Law A Meaford man and woman will fight drug charges - laid one month before he received licences to possess and grow marijuana for medicinal purposes - by arguing Canada's marijuana possession law is unconstitutional. |
| May 21, 2008 |
B.C. Town's Cash Crop UP In Smoke, Along With Economy "A few years ago, you couldn't sell a house in Likely for $80,000," said Rob Hood, a longtime Likely resident and president of the local chamber of commerce. Then along came the pot growers and things started looking up in Likely. Properties left vacant as work dried up were suddenly all bought up, and many locals found themselves employed.....Now, since the various raids, many properties around town are, once again, sitting vacant and unkempt. ...."We're trying to develop all that stuff," he said, adding, only half-joking, "we have to now that the No. 1 crop is gone." |
| May 21, 2008 |
BC:
Compassion Club Seeks Expansion NANAIMO I A group that provides marijuana to sick people hopes to expand into a storefront location in downtown Nanaimo within a few weeks. |
| May 23, 2008 |
Canada's Laws Going To Pot They fought the law and the ... law lost. In fact, Canada's petty, nanny-state prohibition on simple marijuana possession has been repeatedly revealed as either non-existent or as murky as well --used bong water. Except, you'd never know it as the charges continue to be laid and judicial resources go up in smoke. |
| May 23, 2008 |
Barbara Kay vs. Mary Jane Ms. Kay has assembled a file of evidence -- of varying quality -- on some dangers that cannabis may legitimately pose. Having presented it, she thus "respectfully ask[s] the Post to reconsider its editorial stance on the legalization of pot." Our stance was, and is, that as terrible as you can possibly make marijuana sound by the use of anecdote and by cherry-picking the scientific literature, you cannot make a credible argument that its public health and other social effects are as bad as those of alcohol and tobacco. |
| May 25, 2008 |
Weed, Grass, Green, Roach New Brunswick's licence plate police wouldn't let a woman get a plate spelling her maiden name -- Weed -- because it could be perceived as a reference to Marijuana. |
| May 26, 2008 |
Search And Detention At Sea, But Keeping A Balance When a high-school principal in Sarnia, Ont., turned his school over to the police for a good portion of the day to let a drug-sniffing dog roam, he sent a terrible message to his students about what a democracy should permit the state to do in pursuit of its goals...Drug trafficking is not a trivial crime, but the presence of drugs poses no immediate danger. Guns do. |
| May 27, 2008 |
ON: Church Of The Universe Founder Released Pending Appeal Church of the Universe founder Michael Baldasaro has been sprung from prison pending an appeal of his pot-trafficking conviction. But the Ontario Court of Appeal forbade the hemp-hatted clergyman from returning to his church's Barton Street East headquarters or communicating with its co-founder Walter Tucker. |
| May 27, 2008 |
NF:
Program Offers Parent Plan To Drug Proof Children Mr. Newman is a master trainer from 'Focus on the Family Canada'. He was in Springdale to teach a group of community leaders to present a program called 'How to Drug Proof Your Kids'. The program began in Australia and has been in Canada since 2002. He provided the sessions at the Springdale Pentecostal Church the week after the church hosted over 250 youth for a weekend celebration of God's love. [The religious right spread their tentacles a bit further] |
| May 27, 2008 |
Enough Is Enough Is Enough I was very interested last week to see a new crime fighting tool against marijuana grow ops has been developed that will let police know where extra electricity is being directed, even if it is being stolen. That will take a lot of these 'gardens' out of circulation, which is where most of us would like to see gang criminals - out of circulation. |
| May 27, 2008 |
Study Shows Marihuana Use Not A Threat Augustana sociology professor Geraint B. Osborne is of the opinion that people who use marihuana are no more a criminal threat to society than are alcohol and cigarette users. |
| May 28, 2008 |
Don't Call It Reefer Madness Prohibition failed because its imposition through a transiently ascendant wave of religious asceticism was inconsistent with democracy and a society in which alcohol generally played a benign role. And because alcohol in moderation is culturally aligned with enhanced fellowship and animated human interaction, it is therefore a communal as well as an individual good. Conversely, the purpose of marijuana is the alteration of consciousness, an end achieved by a process that thrives in solitude and mental torpor. |
| May 28, 2008 |
NK:
Medicinal Pot User Gets House Arrest A Rothesay man who says he was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes has been sentenced to house arrest. ...Tonning sent the strong message to people who claim their drug use is for medicinal purposes. In Roberts' case, he says the pot helps alleviate the pain of his gastrointestinal illness. <strong>"If it's going to be used for medicinal purposes, the clear reality is you have to get a doctor's certificate to use it," Tonning said. </strong> [Effectively. this judge is saying you do not need Health Canada's permission.. just a doctor's recommendation] |
| May 28, 2008 |
BC Bud Can't Boost Economy Many of these issues may disappear if marijuana is legalized. However, there are better and more sustainable ways to invest in a town's employment ( boosting agriculture and tourism, investing in post-secondary education, encouraging small business, creating options for youth ) than to turn a blind eye to its underground economy. |