Top Stories (2006) -
(313 items)
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| Nov 24, 2006 |
Drug Free Zones A Failed Experiment? Judges may hand out longer sentences to people who traffic drugs around schools, but the Drug Free Zone program is hardly worth the signs it is written on. The zones were established about seven years ago in a joint effort between the police and school board. The announced goal was harsher sentences for people trafficking within the zones around schools, although that appears to have been more wishful thinking than legal thinking. "The intent of the zones is certainly a good one, and they have been effective to some degree," said School District 23 Supt. Mike Roberts, "but they haven't had the impact that was hoped for at the beginning. |
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| Nov 24, 2006 |
Screening Of Soldiers Uncovers Illegal Use Of Drugs Canadian Troops Being Sent to Afghanistan in February Are Being Tested for Illegal Drug Use -- and About 5 Per Cent Are Failing. A...fghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the military does not want to send people who already have problems into that environment. More than that, it needs troops who are in full control of their faculties. [ Strange the government has no problem <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McVhrnSb5wY" target="_blank">exposing these same soldiers to depleted uranium (DU)</a> and other atrocities. The DVD <a href="http://www.beyondtreason.com/" target="_blank">Beyond Treason</a> is a must see. ] |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Drug Dealers Upgrade Weaponry To Protect Marijuana Traps such as nails driven into weighted wooden boards and suspended overhead in trees, and spikes attached to tied-back tree saplings, are being increasingly found during police investigations, Det. Supt. Frank Elbers of the Ontario Provincial Police drug enforcement section said yesterday. [ And in other prohibition-related news... when will there be honesty in the media?] |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
22 Grow-Ops In One Highrise When Toronto's drug-squad detectives arrived at an apartment building on Jane St. just north of Sheppard Ave. W. yesterday morning armed with search warrants for five apartments, they knew they'd have a busy day. But nothing prepared them for what they found when they started searching the other apartments in the building. By 6 p.m. yesterday, stunned detectives had uncovered a $6.6 million marijuana grow-operation with some 6,600 plants being grown in 22 apartments. |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Baby Boom Pot Smokers' Principles Up In Smoke Weekly, in this city and across Canada, marijuana grow house operations are busted; kids are arrested in parks as they smoke grass -- the war on "drugs" marches on. So lucrative is the business of selling marijuana that drug dealers kill each other to stay on top, often also killing or maiming innocent bystanders in the process. And in the midst of all this, on any given Saturday night, the elite of this country -- including doctors, lawyers and journalists -- puff away on marijuana and sip red wine as they exchange pleasant conversation at dinner parties. Anything wrong with this picture? |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Pot More Addictive For Youth, Drug Expert Warns OTTAWA -- Young People Can Easily Become Dependent on Marijuana Because Their Brains Are Still Developing, Says an Expert on Youth Substance Abuse. "Kids can get addicted really quickly, like six months," said Kathy Szirtes, who spoke Thursday at a public forum in Ottawa on problematic marijuana use among youth. "An adult may take two years, but kids can take six months because their bodies are still soft and growing. The teen brain really isn't done growing." |
| Nov 24, 2006 |
Straight Talk Teen Drug and Alcohol Use Is a Fact of Life in Every Community. Most of It Is Experimental; Rarely Does It Lead to Addiction. ...In 2003, youth aged 13 to 18 filled out a survey and one in five said they had tried marijuana. More than half said they had used alcohol. These are not surprising statistics, but they should make parents take notice. |
| Nov 23, 2006 |
Medical Pot Users Fume Over Tories' Drug-Driving Regular medical marijuana users are being unfairly targeted by the Conservative government's new drug-driving legislation, which will increase penalties and make it easier for police to crack down on people who do drugs before getting behind the wheel, a national advocacy group warned yesterday. "This law, we feel, would unfairly target marijuana users," said Russell Barth, a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers. "Discriminating against us based on our medication . is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin." [ <a href="http://cannabiscoalition.ca/html/index.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=33" target="_blank">The Casnadian Cannabis Coalition, an umbrella organization for the cannabis community, issued a press release on this subject </a> as well. ] |
| Nov 22, 2006 |
Drug Producer Registry An Idea Worth Pursuing Royal Canadian Mounted Police ( RCMP ) National Chemical Diversion Coordinator, Corporal Brent Hill, recently provided a piece of that puzzle. Speaking to the Perth County Task Force on Crystal Meth, Corp. Hill said he would like to see a national registry created of those found guilty of manufacturing illegal drugs, similar to that used to keep tabs on sex offenders. Such a registry would provide rapid access by police to current vital information about convicted drug producers. A person convicted of a designated drug offence could be required to report to the appropriate registration centre to re-register annually and every time they change their address or legal name....Would the registry differentiate between chemical drug producers and small-scale marijuana growers, and should it? Regardless, this is an idea that shouldn't be allowed to get mired in the legislative system for years. It should be examined fully, post haste. [Using the extremes of the crystal meth scare as propaganda to snag someone growing a plant in their backyard by making "drug producers" seem the same as someone with an obvious mental defect and unwitting victim, is illogical and hopefully unconstitutional. Also, if registries for real crimes involving victims continues, will there be a drunk driver registry so everyone can know when a convicted drunk driver moves to the neighbourhood? Is this what we want?] |
| Nov 20, 2006 |
Delegates Want NDP to Become More Green Among other resolutions, delegates also passed a call for government support to facilitate the sale of the Maple Leaf plant in Saskatoon slated to be closed, a call for anti-scab legislation, a call for the government to take action to avoid an SGEU strike and a call for the provincial party to support the federal NDP's position in favour of "non-punitive" marijuana laws. |
| Nov 18, 2006 |
Waging War On A Benign Plant I know countless people who treat marijuana as our father's generation treated alcohol - as a social indulgence, one to be shared at a party or consumed after a hard day at work. And not one of the dozens of people I know who enjoy using marijuana is anywhere near the slippery slope to the world of crack, as laughably claimed by prohibitionists who parrot the lie that pot is a dangerous gateway drug. The problem lies in the current laws. When the Conservatives decided to ditch the Liberals' progressive plan to decriminalize pot, they reinforced the warped reality that makes criminals of upstanding citizens who enjoy using marijuana. |
| Nov 17, 2006 |
Chief Constable Dan Maluta In Nelson As for the many questions about marijuana, the local economy, and how Nelson's community feels about this drug, Maluta will not be drawn too far.... The Chief is aware that 'marijuana advocates' talk about 'mom-and-pop operations' as being mostly harmless, or will say 'maybe some handicapped person might earn a little cash by growing-' He notes that when mom and pop grow ops are busted, it is usual to find the owners have an average of nine Criminal Code offences in their past records. |
| Nov 17, 2006 |
Hemp Shaking Its Shady Image Health Food Market Drives 'Gangbuster' Canadian Sales IT'S used in salad oil, power shakes and non-meat burgers, it's turning up in skin care products and may one day coat the exterior of long-haul buses. The Canadian hemp industry is booming as farmers, food processors and industrial users alike are rediscovering the plant that is related to marijuana, but won't get you high. |
| Nov 17, 2006 |
Project Aims To Zap Grow-Ops Last May, the province amended legislation to the BC Safety Standards Act. BC Hydro is now required to divulge the "name of account holder, civic address, and relevant consumption records for residential homes that meet or exceed 93 kilowatt-hours per day, which is three times the normal consumption rate," according to the staff report. ...The project is expected to be financially self-supported: Revenue generated through fines will offset the cost of additional personnel. ...As it stands, investigations will only be conducted on single family residences. [Another "tool" to circumvent individual rights - of renters, and now home owners.] |
| Nov 17, 2006 |
Manitoba, Largest CDN. Industrial Hemp Producer MANITOBA, LARGEST CDN. INDUSTRIAL HEMP PRODUCER, WELCOMES DELEGATES TO CONFERENCE Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives Minister Rosann Wowchuk welcomed delegates to the national Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance conference in Winnipeg today. "Our province is proud to support this conference that highlights industrial hemp as an emerging crop that reaches across industries like health and functional food production," said Wowchuk. "This product is also creating value-added opportunities in bio-composite materials such as counter tops and bio-fibre production." Manitoba is the largest producer of hemp in Canada, with more than 28,000 acres dedicated to the crop. Two of the three major hemp processing plants are located in the province. Canada grows approximately 48,000 acres of hemp. |
| Nov 16, 2006 |
Stoned By Jury ury nullification ( when a jury goes against the law or a judge's instructions ) is alive and well in Canada. With jury deliberations shrouded in secrecy, a jury always has the implied power and ability to ignore the law and decide a case in accordance with its moral intuition.... For the most part, Canadians do not respect laws that stand in the way of relieving pain and suffering. This is why the Krieger jury had difficulty convicting in the face of clear technical guilt. So when I am asked about the legal status of the centres, I usually mumble something like "probably illegal but non-prosecutable." |
| Nov 16, 2006 |
Big Weed's Distancing Act ....The fact is, while Cannasat Therapeutics celebrates its successes making use of Health Canada's med marijuana program ( it's part owner of the company that holds the feds' sole growing contract ), folks using legally ambiguous compassion clubs live in fear.... |
| Nov 16, 2006 |
Gettin' The Dope On Pot More than one in four Ontario high school students used marijuana last year. So Parent Action on Drugs is launching a new provincial campaign to teach teens and their parents that marijuana is not a benign drug, that it can produce serious side effects like failing grades, sleep deprivation and anger-management problems. The "What's With Weed" program doesn't push for zero use -- the old "just say no" approach to drugs -- but instead asks students to consider whether their pot use has become a problem in their lives. |
| Nov 14, 2006 |
Drug-sniffing Dogs Check Out Renters Property Management Companies, A Car Dealer, Schools, Even Some Parents Hire Canine Detectives To Uncover Narcotics Forty Lower Mainland apartment owners, worried that one of their suites could be the site of an illegal marijuana growing operation, have decided that business has finally gone to the dogs. Sniffers, to be precise. Four of them specially trained to detect the slightest whiff of anything potentially illegal. |
| Nov 14, 2006 |
York Prof Gets Green Light On Lighting Up A York University criminology professor has been given the passing grade to smoke up in his own private ventilated room on campus. According to a story published on York's website, MacLean said he needs to smoke marijuana at least every four hours to help treat a severe form of degenerative arthritis. |