Top Stories (2008) -
(386 items)
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| May 6, 2008 |
Torontians Roll Some Joints In The Name Of Freedom Organizers were handing out festival maps at Queen's Park yesterday, but the kids ahead of me just laughed them off. "Who the hell needs a map?" chuckled one freedom toker to the other. "Just follow the smell." |
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| May 5, 2008 |
BC:
Holy Smoke Trial Wraps Testimony wrapped up in the Holy Smoke drug trafficking trial Friday after four Nelson-area witnesses took to the stand to testify that cannabis has helped them deal with disease, alcoholism, and drug addiction. |
| May 4, 2008 |
AB:
Marchers Push Marijuana's Medical Merits Calgary - Close to 500 protesters took to the streets Saturday in favour of marijuana's medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain. |
| May 4, 2008 |
ON:
Pot Fans Rally In Big Smoke Thousands Pushing For Legal Weed Peacefully Mark Freedom Festival, 10th Global Marijuana March Queen's Park may have been soggy from yesterday's rain, but sparks were flying as thousands spent the day smoking pot just north of the Legislature. |
| May 2, 2008 |
Expert Testifies Cannabis Helps Slow Aging .C. Provincial Court heard Thursday that cannabis is safer than aspirin and can restore the balance in people's bodies to help fight illness. That was the testimony of Dr. Robert Melamede, an associate professor at the University of Colorado, who was brought in by the defense team for the four men accused in the Holy Smoke Culture Shop drug trafficking case taking place in Nelson this week. |
| May 2, 2008 |
BC:
Drug Case Dropped Due To Court Delay Charges have been dropped against two men accused of trafficking pot because of an excessive delay in bringing the case to trial. |
| May 1, 2008 |
BC:
Two-Year Sentence For Mail-Order Pot Scheme A Langford man has been sentenced to two years for operating a mail-order marijuana business, part of a vast new criminal enterprise operating in Canada. |
| May 1, 2008 |
Pump Up The Rebellion Nothing in last week's rulings detracts from this position. But in the rush to keep kids safe from themselves, some of us adults have forgotten what we do want them to take in at school. Critical thinking and questioning authority should be right up there. Certainly, in my time we were explicitly taught the lessons of moral and social panics exploited by authoritarian figures. In history, for example, we learned about Hitler and other fascist leaders mobilizing supporters on this basis, and in English, we studied Arthur Miller's allegory about the 1950s McCarthy hearings, The Crucible. |
| May 1, 2008 |
Sniffing Out the Larger Implications of the Dog Sniff Cases Dogs "Search" When they Sniff for Narcotics Most importantly, all nine justices (essentially) agreed that when a police dog trained to sniff out narcotics focuses its olfactory powers on an individual's knapsack or luggage, the target's reasonable privacy expectations are encroached upon. In other words, this constitutes a "search" for s. 8 Charter purposes, a conclusion that triggers the "reasonableness" requirements of the guarantee. |
| Apr 30, 2008 |
BC:
Accused Admit Selling Cannabis NELSON - The owners of the Holy Smoke Culture Shop have admitted in provincial court to selling organic cannabis from their downtown premises. However, they are putting forward a "defence of necessity," saying they did more good than harm. |
| Apr 30, 2008 |
'There Were Smoky Moments, There Were Non Smoky Moments' t was a lively day at the Nelson courthouse on Monday as the Holy Smoke Culture Shop was once again in the spotlight. Two owners and two associates have been charged with trafficking and they are using the charges to fight the marijuana laws in Canada. Here is some of the banter inside the court and out from the first day of the trial. The trial is expected to resume on Thursday. |
| Apr 29, 2008 |
Tiresome Debate This week's Holy Smoke trial is a waste of time and money, but who is to blame? The Holy Smoke crew are back in the courts this week. They couldn't be happier. They will once again climb up on that pedestal and shout to anyone interested in hearing these two words - legalize it! |
| Apr 29, 2008 |
Teens Have Same Rights Random searches of high school lockers by police with drug-sniffing dogs have been routine in Canada for a long time. Not any more. Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada clamped a tight leash on the canine cannabis sniffers, ruling that warrantless searches were "unlawful" and a breach of privacy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. |
| Apr 28, 2008 |
Drug Laws Tested This Week In B.C. Supreme Court In another courtroom, the Vancouver Island Compassion Society will continue its assault on the anti-cannabis criminal law with the resumption of testimony from Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who led the 2002 parliamentary review of drug policy that concluded pot should be legalized. They're interrelated cases with national repercussions that rely on a substantially similar body of jurisprudence. |
| Apr 28, 2008 |
When Laws Are Held In Contempt, We All Suffer When pro-marijuana advocates gathered in downtown Vancouver recently to smoke pot in defiance of the law, many puzzled citizens wondered why the police took no action against them. ...As John Winter, president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, told The Province editorial board: "In a perfect world, the police would have dealt with them with some severity, but the fact is the police don't have the support of the community." |
| Apr 28, 2008 |
QU:
McGill Students Arrested on 4/20 Two McGill undergraduate students were arrested on lower campus last Sunday when at least eight Montreal police officers swarmed onto campus to break up a small crowd of marijuana smokers. |
| Apr 27, 2008 |
UVic Prof Lectures PM On Tories' Drug Policy University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd's weekly letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on drug research haven't garnered a response from the federal government, but others around the world are reading. ...On Feb. 1, Boyd, along with the Beyond Prohibition Coalition of Vancouver, launched a website at <a href="http://www.educatingharper.com" target="_blank">www.educatingharper.com</a> to inform the prime minister and concerned Canadian citizens about drug policy and harm reduction. |
| Apr 26, 2008 |
Legislation Now Exists To Win War On Drugs On March 14, 2008, Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, announced $8.9 million in funding over two years under the new National Anti-Drug Strategy. This investment is a major step towards a significant crackdown on illegal drugs in our communities. The funds will help the RCMP to combat the production and distribution of illegal drugs as well as work to dismantle criminal organizations. ...I am proud to be part of the government that is bringing this much needed help to the communities of Yellowhead. |
| Apr 25, 2008 |
Supreme Court Muzzles Sniffer Dogs The use of drug-sniffing police dogs in the random search of a southwestern Ontario school and a Calgary bus terminal was unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday. In a 6-3 decision, the top court ruled that the actions breached Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which covers what constitutes reasonable search and seizure. The ruling, which could have an impact on police powers across the country, centred on two cases. |
| Apr 24, 2008 |
Purring At Puff Party Amazing pot smog hangs hazily in the sunny afternoon during Toronto Hash Mob's second successful smoke-out on Sunday, April 20, better known as 4/20. By 4:20 pm, almost 2,000 stoners fill our makeshift auditorium behind College Park at 420 Yonge. |