Top Stories (2006) -
(313 items)
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| Sep 14, 2006 |
New marijuana seed business sets up shop The marijuana seed store on East Hastings Street in Vancouver has been open since May. Manager Dana Larsen hopes to avoid legal problems by avoiding sales to the U.S. A Vancouver man has launched a store-front business selling marijuana seeds over the counter and online to people across Canada and in Europe. Dana Larsen opened the Vancouver Seed Bank on East Hastings Street in May, and isn't hiding the fact that he's breaking the law. Larsen's store is similar to the one operated by B.C. Marijuana party Leader Marc Emery until it was shut down by Vancouver police last year at the request of the U.S. government. Emery, who is free on bail, now faces possible extradition to the U.S. on drug and money-laundering charges. Larsen says he believes that as long as he avoids the American market, he won't be arrested. "By us not sending any marijuana seeds to the U.S., we're not anticipating any problems from their government because we're not breaking any of their laws. "And I don't think we'll have any problems within Canada. We're not the first person to be selling marijuana seeds and nobody in Canada has faced problems for selling marijuana seeds within Canada for quite awhile." Larsen says police officers have come into his store while on patrol, and didn't appear to have any problem with his merchandise. However Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd says Larsen is taking a big risk. "Most people who sell marijuana seeds aren't going to advertise publicly that they sell marijuana or marijuana seeds. He's playing a game of poker with those with the power to enforce the law." |
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| Sep 3, 2006 |
US To Patrol Alberta Border By Air As Canadian border guards look forward to having guns on their hips within a year, the Americans will soon be patrolling the U.S.-Alberta border with two Black Hawk helicopters and planes equipped with radar taken from F-16 fighter jets. |
| Sep 2, 2006 |
Judge Won't Jail Pot Grower Comments by a Courtenay provincial court judge that marijuana growing is a "victimless crime" highlight a continuing debate over the best way to respond to the problems with pot. Judge Brian Saunderson, in sentencing a 41-year-old man earlier this month, refused to consider a jail sentence requested by the Crown. |
| Sep 1, 2006 |
Cannabis Use in British Columbia: patterns of use, perceptions, and public opinion as assessed in the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey - September 2006 (PDF) <a href="http://carbc.uvic.ca/pubs/CARBCReport-CannabisUseFINAL.pdf">Cannabis Use in British Columbia</a> Compared with other Canadians, significantly fewer BC respondents said they believed cannabis use should be illegal (42% versus 49%), while significantly more stated they: <ul> <li> had ever used cannabis in the past ? 53% in BC versus 44% elsewhere</li> <li> experienced access to be ?very easy? ? 65% in BC versus 44% elsewhere</li> <li> believed both occasional and regular cannabis use to be harm free.</li></ul> |
| Aug 31, 2006 |
Personal Data Bylaws Assailed VANCOUVER -- The Privacy Commissioner in British Columbia is urging municipalities to show restraint and stop enacting what he describes as "surveillance bylaws."...Chilliwack wanted to enact a bylaw earlier this year that would require hydroponic stores to detail all purchases of legal products such as seeds and light bulbs, as well as personal data about the customer and send it electronically to police. After receiving negative publicity, the city said it would wait for the Privacy Commissioner's report before deciding what to do next. |
| Aug 31, 2006 |
BC Hydro Bills Point to 17,900 Possible Pot Grow Ops Nearly 18,000 homes in B.C. -- about the same number of residences as in all of West Vancouver -- use suspiciously high amounts of electricity, often a telltale sign of a marijuana growing operation. Under provincial legislation introduced last spring, municipalities can request a list from BC Hydro of all addresses with abnormally high power consumption -- making it easier for police and city inspectors to target growing operations. Abnormal consumption is defined as any residence that uses more than 93 kilowatt-hours ( kWh ) of electricity per day. The average home uses 31 kWh per day. Big brother gets closer and closer... |
| Aug 30, 2006 |
Pot Crusader Jailed, Travel Up In Smoke A defence lawyer says pot crusader Chris Goodwin has effectively been "run out of town" as a result of prosecution over his now closed Up In Smoke Cafe. Justice Anton Zuraw sentenced him yesterday to three and a half months in jail, on top of the 38 days he spent there before trial. Zuraw also fined him $300 and put him on probation for two years. |
| Aug 30, 2006 |
Veteran Officer Pleads Guilty To Corruption A veteran Winnipeg police constable admits he repeatedly tried to help an angry Hells Angels associate hunt down people who stole $462,000 in drug money and then went on the run. Bruce Huynen, 40, pleaded guilty yesterday to unauthorized use of a police computer that involved nearly a dozen illegal name, address and background searches in 2003 and 2004. ...Weinstein suggested yesterday that other police officers routinely conduct illegal computer checks as favours for friends and relatives without even being charged or punished. He said the lawyer representing the Winnipeg Police Association has told him of "many" such cases. |
| Aug 30, 2006 |
RCMP Retract 'Pound For Pound' Assertion Police made an honest mistake by telling The Reminder that marijuana is sometimes traded pound for pound with cocaine, according to the RCMP National Headquarters. <strong> Paul Nadeau, the Mounties' national drug enforcement director, said police have no evidence to support this recently-reported "urban myth." "Personally, I have never heard of one instance where we've been able to corroborate that," he said from his Ottawa office.</strong> Nadeau said the fallacy is so widespread that it's believed by criminals, lawyers and some of the many thousands of police officers - -- RCMP and otherwise -- across the nation....The pound-for-pound statement was included as part of an Aug. 9 Reminder article outlining how today's marijuana is much more potent - -- and of greater concern to police -- than the pot of yesteryear. Within days of the story running, members of the pro-marijuana lobby from across Canada fired off e-mails and letters to the editor ridiculing the claim. They read the article online. Police propaganda gets trounced - thanks to the efforts of many <a href="http://www.mapinc.org/lte/" target="_blank">letter writers</a>. It would be so much easier to separate fact from fiction if all media followed up on the dubious claims of reefer madness spewed into the "news", and got retractions from police and politicians. |
| Aug 29, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Holy Smoke Bust Hits On Bigger Issue It is my belief that the call to investigate Holy Smoke came from on high and is closely associated to the federal conservative government ( Prime Minister Steve Harper ) and intervention from the D.E.A. ( United States ). ... If you are a taxpayer in the City of Nelson you are paying for the police force, and in turn are also a director of policing policy. Contact your city councillors, mayor, police force, police board, member of the legislative assembly ( MLA ) and member of parliament if you wish to have a say in the way police operate. |
| Aug 29, 2006 |
Pot Growing??: Just Another Business The crown had been seeking a 12-month prison sentence but Sanderson said in the judgement that prison sentences have failed to stem the production and use of illegal substances and that a monetary fine is more appropriate. In the decision, Sanderson refers to a 2001 book authored by Judge James Gray of the California Superior Court, citing from the book "we conclude with alarm that the war on drugs now causes more harm than the drug abuse itself." Judge Sanderson goes on to say that "Judge Gray's book should be required reading for every Member of Parliament in Canada." ..."There will be no victim fine surcharge as this is a victimless crime," concluded Sanderson. |
| Aug 28, 2006 |
Resurrect 'Reefer Madness' As Reason To Crack Down on Marijuana A pair of articles in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry has resurrected the "reefer madness" argument about marijuana and its links to mental illness. Cannabis use can trigger schizophrenia in people already vulnerable to the mental illness -- and this fact should shape marijuana policy, argue two psychiatric epidemiologists in this month's journal. "This is that old hobgoblin that resurfaces now and again. There's nothing new in the literature. They just keep rehashing the old literature." |
| Aug 28, 2006 |
PUB LTE: Know Ed Before You Judge Him The ironic thing about all this is my father - you see my father is Rev. Ed DeVries, I am his son and my name is Jason DeVries - I am not afraid nor am I ashamed to admit who I or my father is because I am proud that he is able to come forth and be who he is without having to hide or shy away. t was my father who gave me my morals and instilled my values at a young age. My father taught me about choice. He is not a stupid man by far, and has a wealth of information on a range of subjects and knows what the benefits of marijuana are. |
| Aug 26, 2006 |
Hopes Still High For Hemp Eight years after it was legalized, industrial hemp growers are still waiting for that big break that will make it a mainstream crop in Ontario. But the market for hemp fibre has dried up due to a flood of imports from nations such as China. "China is doing it so cheap that no one can compete. Any specialty market can be flooded out easily." |
| Aug 25, 2006 |
CN BC:
Pot Eradication Teams Storm The Island Police officers from the RCMP's outdoor marijuana eradication team took to the skies in Canadian Forces helicopters as they began their annual search and destroy mission on Vancouver Island. ...using the military to look for plants? Everyone's okay with that? |
| Aug 25, 2006 |
Drug Raid Ruling Upheld Calgary's police chief meted out a "reasonable" punishment to a rookie constable whose mistakes led to a drug raid on the home of an innocent family nearly six years ago, the Law Enforcement Review Board has ruled. In a long-awaited decision, the three-member, quasi-judicial board has ruled Const. Ian Vernon's actions along with others involved in the execution of a search warrant on the home of Nancy Killian Constant and her family in 2000 was not a case of misconduct. |
| Aug 25, 2006 |
Health Canada Cuts Off Sick Man's Pot Supply Tom McMullen ran out of the medication that gave him his life back about two weeks ago, and he can't get more. The Prospect Bay man is an authorized medical marijuana user and buys his drugs directly from Health Canada. But the bill for the 90 grams he's allowed each month is 80 per cent of his monthly Canada Pension, his only source of income. Mr. McMullen, 42, owes the agency more than $1,000 and has been told he won't be sent more marijuana until he clears the debt. |
| Aug 25, 2006 |
Border guard convicted of drug smuggling A woman from Saskatoon who was an inspector for the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) will spend three years in a United States prison for helping smuggle more than 700 kilograms of marijuana into the U.S. |
| Aug 24, 2006 |
Marijuana May Relieve Chemo Patients' Nausea Marijuana may help prevent nausea in certain situations -- relief many cancer chemotherapy patients can't obtain from existing drugs, says a University of Guelph psychology professor. Linda Parker's research was published in recent issues of the journal Physiology and Behavior. |
| Aug 23, 2006 |
Teens Giving Up Butts For Weed? Indeed, 68 per cent of teenagers in a recent Quebec poll said they had never smoked. Only 19 per cent of high school students now smoke on a daily basis. This number stood at 30 per cent eight years ago....A recent Universite de Montreal survey claims that marijuana has taken Montreal-area high school students by storm. A whopping 15 per cent of the 1,000 high school students surveyed said they smoked pot daily. An incredible 10 per cent -- meaning three students in a class of 30 -- claimed they were hooked. ...But that 10 per cent of your child's classmates are dependent on pot -- I don't buy it. The number is just too high. |