Top Stories (2005) -
(469 items)
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| Oct 28, 2005 |
Teens Turn To Toking Before Driving: Study A new study finds teens are more likely to drive after smoking marijuana than after drinking, according to a recent study of 6,000 Atlantic Canadians in Grades 10 and 12. ...Drivers who smoked marijuana were four times more likely to be involved in a crash than those who had not. The study's results are considered accurate within 1.6 percentage points, 99 times out of 100. [Considering the number of driving & pot studies that conclude it is <a href="/medical/#meddrivingstudies">safer to drive on pot than alcohol</a>, perhaps the message isn't getting lost... though no impairment is the ideal we should strive for] |
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| Oct 28, 2005 |
The Evolving Politics of Pot Just about every time The Banner runs a story about a local police busting a marijuana grow operation, we receive a letter to the editor or two from people championing the other side of the story and urging our reporters to do the same. [ The power of <a href="http://mapinc.org" target="_blank">MAP</a> ] |
| Oct 27, 2005 |
Smoking A J May Brighten The Day Supporters of marijuana may finally have an excuse to smoke weed every day. A recent study in the Journal Of Clinical Investigation suggests that smoking pot can make the brain grow...Many drugs -- heroin, cocaine, and the more common alcohol and nicotine -- inhibit the growth of these new cells. It was thought that marijuana did the same thing, but this new research suggests otherwise. [In the peak oil world, the benefits of cannabis and hemp will be too crucial to keep prohibited.] |
| Oct 27, 2005 |
CN SN:
U Of S Pot Study Stirs Int'l Media Saskatchewan - This past week, a U of S research team garnered international attention after publishing a study suggesting that marijuana related substances might reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. ..The researchers see this as evidence that the drug gave the rats more motivation or will to live; this of course indicating that they were in fact less depressed. [Millions of people self-medicate with cannabis, alcohol, chocolate, you name it, so telling us which substances we may or may not use, sometimes works on children, but hardly ever for adults but we continue the charade anyway] |
| Oct 27, 2005 |
Our Neighbor To The North Stalling On Reform Vancouver's reputation as the Amsterdam of North America rests as much on good intention as actual practice. John P. Walters, the U.S. government drug czar, unintentionally helped the British Columbia city gain its reputation when he made a visit there in November 2002, as Canada was moving toward de facto, if not full legal decriminalization of marijuana. Walters threatened to slow cross-boarder traffic, through increased inspection of cars and trucks, in order to keep Canadian marijuana, particularly the highly coveted "B.C. bud," out of the U.S. The traffic jams, he warned, would harm tourism and trade. |
| Oct 27, 2005 |
This Bud's For All Of Us Bud Inc., by Ian Mulgrew ( Random House Canada, 304 pages, $35 ) After a week in Vancouver I realized that Mulgrew's new book will open the eyes of quite a few people when it comes out next month. Prohibition has failed. The police and courts are overwhelmed. The cultivators are laughing all the way to an offshore account. The only hope is that Uncle Paul and some of his colleagues will come to the glaringly obvious conclusion that Ian Mulgrew spells out again and again. Legalize it. |
| Oct 26, 2005 |
MP Report By Jay Hill, M.P. Bill C-248 would impose mandatory sentences of one year or more for the first offence and two years or more for a subsequent offense for those convicted of drug trafficking within 500 metres of an elementary or high school. However, the federal Liberal Government said it doesn't like my legislation. Why? The Liberals also oppose Bill C-248 because, according to Mr. Thibault, it doesn't address drug trafficking in skate parks, arenas and other areas children frequent. [Duh, the government may have it's own agenda, but if this bill passed, we would be one step closer to the USA style drug policy, and Canadians don't want that] |
| Oct 26, 2005 |
RCMP Families Map Out Role On Election Trail Eight family members of the murdered officers were in Ottawa on Tuesday to meet with Prime Minister Paul Martin and MPs from other parties. They want the government to scrap plans to decriminalize marijuana and to impose tougher sentences on cannabis grow-operators and other convicted criminals. [What would our gun laws or drunk driving laws look like if we let victims of these crimes set the agenda for legislation? And to think this was never about pot, but stolen car parts, it looks like any excuse will do to further one's own agenda] |
| Oct 25, 2005 |
Twelve-Year-Old At Local School With Marijuana A 12-year old young person was arrested Monday afternoon, Oct. 24, after the youth showed up at a centrally located elementary school with drugs on them. {This is news? 12 year olds have been showing up at school with cannabis for over 30 years, and thousands always will, so this is news?] |
| Oct 24, 2005 |
Harmless? Never! More than 2,000 Canadians go to jail annually for simple possession of marijuana and some segments of society believe this is a useless waste of public funds and police resources....The drug has become more potent and dangerous than it was a generation ago. It is damaging. [Good ol' Texas North...dissing a herb that has no fatalities in it's thousands of years of use...] |
| Oct 24, 2005 |
Most Canadians Would Vote For Pot Smoker Poll The Leger Marketing survey conducted Sept. 13-16 found that only 26 per cent of Canadians would have refuse to vote for a politician who had smoked marijuana. [Typical of Canadians, eh?] |
| Oct 23, 2005 |
Mould-Busting Biz Grows Fast If the police crackdown on marijuana grow operations continues at the current clip, demolition man Victoire Wozny is going to have a hard time keeping up. Wozny, owner of a demolition and construction firm called "Slic Vic," specializes in gutting and rebuilding homes that have been all but destroyed by the grow operations they've housed. [Of course this kind of business wouldn't exist if people could grow thier own pot safely, but why let logic get in the way of a good drug war?] |
| Oct 23, 2005 |
CN AB:
Minister Spearheads Child Seizure Law Exposing children to illegal drug activity is child abuse, Alberta's children's services minister says, and proposed legislation allowing the apprehension of children in grow ops or other drug houses will make that clear. "It's an addition to the toolbox," Heather Forsyth said Friday. [How much uglier can the war on pot get? What about the kids growing up in violent alcoholic homes? When will they get a break?] |
| Oct 22, 2005 |
Legal But Unjust MANITOBA should be embarrassed that a provincial court judge was pressed this week into personally making phone calls to find legal counsel for Chinese immigrants charged in connection with a marijuana grow operation. She then had to deny bail to most of the 28 accused, found sleeping in a tiny house next to the rural pot farm. All but one cannot speak English and they have no criminal records. They are in custody largely because they are poor and they have no local address. [Every day we are reminded about how broken the system is, yet it perpuates unabated... imagine some of the headlines in a few years if we stay the course...] |
| Oct 22, 2005 |
Beating the Drug Police Just three months after selling his first bag of fake pee from Herbal Essentials, store owner Kelly Hermansen is moving between 35 and 50 units a week of it, along with other drug-masking products. Although most customers are marijuana smokers, a drug that can stay in the system up to a month, other shoppers are meth and cocaine users, Hermansen says. [Cat & mouse, cops & robbers, the war on some substances goes on and on and on] |
| Oct 22, 2005 |
Mountie Lied, Judge Says, Throwing Out Drug Case Ruling that an RCMP officer blatantly lied to try to salvage the crumbling credibility of an undercover informant, a judge yesterday tossed out three drug conspiracy charges against a Montreal criminal lawyer, bringing an abrupt end to his trial. [The snitch society we must endure to police victimless crime will always lead to corruption... mostly left uncovered..] |
| Oct 20, 2005 |
Immigrants' Plight Concerns Chinese Community In City MEMBERS of Winnipeg's Chinese community say they're concerned about immigrants who were packed into a rural Manitoba farmhouse and accused of doing the "grunt" work in Manitoba's largest-ever marijuana grow operation. |
| Oct 20, 2005 |
Cotler's State Of Insecurity Civil rights the Federal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, was well known as a human rights champion before entering public life. But there seems to be little room for champions of freedom in a government obsessed with security. ...The minister had one opportunity to strike a blow for freedom with the proposal to decriminalize marijuana, but the promise to liberate millions of Canadian pot-smokers from the clutches of the criminal law became too controversial for a government preoccupied with building a Great Wall of surveillance to keep tabs on subversives, terrorists and home-grown criminals. |
| Oct 19, 2005 |
Pot-Prescribing Doctors Warned The organization that provides malpractice insurance to Canadian physicians is telling doctors they should not prescribe medical marijuana unless patients sign a release-of-liability waiver [People have been using cannabis for thousands & thousands of years without one death, yet these over-the-top hypocritical bureaucrats choose this herb to propagandize.] |
| Oct 19, 2005 |
For A Saner Drug Policy The authors review the spectrum of control over psychoactive drugs, a category that includes alcohol, tobacco, prescription painkillers and illegal drugs. At one end, society widely tolerates and even promotes drinking alcohol while placing tighter controls on smoking. At the other, it makes the manufacture, sale and possession of marijuana, cocaine and heroin illegal, driving them underground and fuelling crime. Both the legal drinking and smoking and the illegal snorting and injecting come with a huge social cost. The illegal drugs do less overall damage because they are not as widely used, but they inflict more damage on the individuals who use them. [Intelligent discussion is permitted here and there as long as it is never replaces the propaganda mill run by the police and media] |