Top Stories (2005) -
(469 items)
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| Mar 15, 2005 |
Let's Admit It: Pot Prohibition's Failed Pot production in the last seven years has more than tripled -- from an estimated 19,727 kilograms in 1997 to 79,817 kilos in 2003. Last year, more than 25,000 growing operations came to police attention but they investigated fewer than 17,000 and only about half of those were prosecuted. Looking at cannabis prohibition as a numbers game, it is easy to see prohibition can not work. But this is more of a political game - so the numbers can be ignored. |
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| Mar 15, 2005 |
CN ON:
York Constable, Husband Face Drug Charges A York Regional Police officer has been suspended from duty and, along with her husband, is facing drug charges. |
| Mar 15, 2005 |
N BC:
Hemp Mill Financier Makes Run For Office Last week, Duncan hemp industrialist Brian Johnson announced his candidacy for the Cowichan-Ladysmith riding on the Democratic Reform BC slate. The Liberal government, Johnson maintains, cancelled his hemp investment venture capital corporation in 2003, despite publicly endorsing his ideas. |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
Grow-Op Penalties Will Rise - Toews OTTAWA - Growing support among MPs of different political stripes for tough mandatory minimum sentences to deter marijuana grow operations usually run by organized gangs could lead to amendments to the Liberals' marijuana bill, Conservative justice critic Vic Toews predicted. [You would think it would be impossible to pass a mandatory minimum law for something like gardening a plant in this day and age, but we should know better than to ignore these wacko notions that could become law. There is a lot of political maneuvering going on right now... a minority government that everyone assumed would align with the left to keep voters happy...instead could be aligning with the right to keep the US happy. As trading partners/neighbours, we have been deliberating pissing each other off for whatever reasons, so the legalization card could be easily played instead. So the race is on.. |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
<h3>Pot Patch Violence A Myth</h3> Justice Minister Wrong, Lawyers Say. Ontario Police Met With Violence In Only 2 Of 800 Raids In 4 Years, Cop Testifies ...many in the legal community say the claim by politicians and police that grow-ops are violent vehicles for sophisticated, organized crime groups is a "cheap shot" that does not stand up to "10 minutes of fact checking." Numerous lawyers who defend these cases in court suggested Public Security Minister Anne McLellan is misleading the public about the dangers of grow-ops with her recent comments in the wake of the Alberta murders. [There is a lot of political maneuvering going on right now... a minority government that everyone assumed would align with the left on the cannabis Bill to keep voters happy...instead could be aligning with the right to keep the US happy. As trading partners/neighbours, we have been upsetting each other for whatever reasons, so the legalization card could be easily played instead, and get the grow op violence out of the equation. If Canadians do not speak out loud and clear with thier votes and voices, then be prepared for the prison-industrial complex in a neighbourhood near you] |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
Marijuana Is Dangerous, Now and in the Future RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli retracted his statement that the Mayerthorpe tragedy was about marijuana, but the sad reality is that he may have been right the first time. [They can do all the studies they want, but compared to any pharmaceutical drug, it can never be proved that cannabis is harnful enough to be banned ] |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
CN BC:
Cookie Lady Charges Dropped VANCOUVER-- All charges have been dropped against the naked cookie lady whose cannabis loaded gingersnaps became a cause celebre at Wreck Beach. On Thursday the Crown informed Mary Jean Dunsdon's lawyer, John Conroy, that all remaining charges against her were being stayed. Cookies - a danger to society? This was worthy of even bringing into a court of law? |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
Media Duped on Dope Story The fact that the RCMP was so quick to muddy the circumstances of the deaths of four of its own men by insinuating that they were gunned down while marching into a heavily fortified marijuana-growing operation, however, is in entirely bad taste. Whatever the motivation, it looked like shameless opportunism on the RCMP's part, another case of the police manipulating the media and fomenting middle-class panic to get what they want - which is, inevitably, more money and more men to make us safer from the very perils they're fond of exaggerating. |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
Marijuana Producer Avoids Jail The first Calgary-area marijuana grower sentenced since the Mayerthorpe massacre was spared a prison term yesterday. But defence lawyer Elliot Baker defended Judge Terry Semenuk's ruling, noting the judge addressed concerns earlier in the week about comparisons to last week's Mountie killings in which four officers were gunned down while investigating a marijuana grow operation. |
| Mar 12, 2005 |
Canada Can't Handle Cannabis Legalization Is marijuana a gateway drug to harder narcotics? The Canadian Chiefs of Police believe it is. One can safely assume they have the figures to back that up. Assume all you want, but all credible studies and thousands of years of use show cannabis is NOT a gateway drug. |
| Mar 11, 2005 |
Canada could be a world leader in smarter drug strategies For the past three days, we have examined how the federal government's prohibitionist approach to dealing with marijuana has utterly failed to reduce the supply of, or demand for, the drug. Cannabis use appears to be associated with cultural and social factors, rather than with the harshness of the laws or the degree of their enforcement. |
| Mar 11, 2005 |
CN BC:
Police Strategy Police in B.C. raid about 2,000 marijuana growing operations a year -- a rate of more than five a day. From 1997 to 2003, the percentage of raids that resulted in "no-case seizures" -- in which police seize plants but don't pursue charges against anyone -- jumped dramatically from 35 per cent of all raids to 64 per cent. [Sounds more like break and enter than law enforcement] |
| Mar 11, 2005 |
US Gets High, And Blames Canada WASHINGTON - The number of American teenagers and adults ending up in emergency wards or seeking treatment because of marijuana use has soared in recent years and seems linked to the "dramatically" growing influx of high-test Canadian pot, the White House drug czar said Thursday. The elevated THC content -- the active ingredient in pot -- of that Canadian marijuana means it can no longer be considered a soft drug, argued Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. [Not to mention they are given a choice between treatment or jail, and less than 2% of their pot comes from Canada and is too expensive for most consumers, so duh... they tried to float this one in Vancouver and both mayer Campbell and ex-mayor Owen dismissed it as propaganda - lets hope the nation can keep that perspective] |
| Mar 10, 2005 |
Devil's Advocate In a news story of this size and scope, the first casualty in the mainstream media is the truth....the mainstream media played their Orwellian word association game. Marijuana-Grow Operation-Four Cops Killed. We have seen this before. Muslim-Fundamentalist-Terrorist. Native-Reservation-Alcoholic. Male-Black-Criminal. Male-White-Racist. See? Pushing your political agenda through the media in the midst of the nation's grief is how you keep your job. It seems as if some politicians shed crocodile tears to further their agenda of cannabis prohibition. Some politicians would rather have Health Canada approve pharmaceuticals responsible for thousands of deaths every year, than tell the truth about the medicinal value of the cannabis plant. |
| Mar 9, 2005 |
CN ON:
Is Pot Plant Flag Causing A Problem? The controversial flag looks similar to Canada's national flag but where the red maple leaf should be there is instead the image of a marijuana plant. The flag has been displayed in the front window of Redfearn's adult shop Parties and Affairs for four years. "They are only now waking up to it? That cracks me up," she said. |
| Mar 9, 2005 |
Weed Funds Killers But after last week's horrific tragedy in Alberta, my first and initial reaction was that it was time for all of the recreational users out there who fuel the demand for this industry to take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself this one question: Do you have blood on your hands? It takes a giant leap of logic to equate the killing of 4 Mounties with the habit of pot smokers, but one enterprising reporter manages to do that. |
| Mar 8, 2005 |
I Was Too Quick to Blame Deaths on Drugs, RCMP Chief Canada's top police officer,RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli, said yesterday that he was too quick to condemn a marijuana grow operation as the root cause in the deaths of four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers last week....it appears the murders were the work of a deranged man with a long criminal history and a grudge against police, and not that of a gangster protecting his cash crop. [Now the media, Anne McLellan, and Ralph Klein must admit their roles in what transpired as a huge public deception ] |
| Mar 3, 2005 |
CN AB:
CN AB: Four Mounties Shot Dead Gunman Kills Four Mounties: A Police Raid on an Alberta Marijuana Operation Goes Terribly Wrong, Shocking the National and Touching Off Calls for A Crackdown [( PROPAGANDA ALERT: All the headlines scream "Killed in grow op raid", though no plant numbers are given,,,, that is a first. <br><br> Regardless of the FACT that this incident was NOT related to a cannabis crop - the pot was successfully investigated the night before, the RCMP were there about the stolen cars but this will always be imbedded in the public mind as a grow op raid gone back. <br> More commentary: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070323232916/http://www.bcrevolution.ca/shooting_coverup.htm" target="_blank">Shooting coveup?</a> <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/hailofbullets/" target="_blank">Fifth Estate Documentary: Hail of Bullets</a>] |
| Mar 3, 2005 |
BC Supreme Court Wants More Proof Before Ruling on Validity of Pot Laws VANCOUVER -- Have the laws against marijuana fallen? That was the question before the BC Supreme Court today... the judge declined to give a Constitutional exemption from Canada?s unworkable medical cannabis access system without more proof that her rights had been violated. [ A very significant case winding it's way to the Supreme Court] |
| Feb 28, 2005 |
Canucks In Haze On Pot Canadians are confused about what the feds mean when they talk about the decriminalization of pot, a new poll shows. The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted between Jan, 28 and Feb. 2 by the polling firm SES for Tory MP Randy White. |