Cannabis

CBC News

 

Long-held fears that the use of marijuana will lead to harder drugs are overblown, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

 

The research, in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that other factors, such as whether or not a person has a job, or is facing severe stress, are far more predictive of future hard drug use than whether they smoked pot as a teenager.

 

"Employment in young adulthood can protect people by closing the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities," said co-author Karen Van Gundy.

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By BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary Sun

 

It doesn’t happen by design, it’s just how things shake out in the war on drugs, says the senior cop.

 

Drug bust statistics compiled by a new Alberta police force created largely to battle organized crime — the drug trade, in other words — reveal a strikingly lopsided picture.

 

In 2009-10, the entity comprising city and RCMP officers known as ALERT states it seized illicit drugs of various kinds worth $104 million.

 

Of that total, nearly $101 million was marijuana — the drug that, unlike legal pharmaceuticals and alcohol, has never led to a fatal overdose and which most Canadians believe should be decriminalized. Read more »

By Rosa Harris-Adler, Special to Times Colonist

 

Forget Reefer Madness. What we're experiencing across North America these days is Reefer Sanity. In an Angus-Reid poll conducted last year, more than half of those Canadians asked said possession of marijuana should be legalized. And in the U.S., California voters will soon determine that very issue.

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By Phillip Smith, Stop the Drug War

 

Canada's Conservative minority government hopes the third time is the charm for its controversial measure to increase sentences for marijuana cultivation and introduce mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses. Now known as S-10, the measure will be taken up by the Senate when it returns from recess at end of next month.

 

The bill is designed to "send a message" that "if you sell or produce drugs, you'll pay with jail time," Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said when re-filing the bill in May.

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News 1130

 

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - All this week, the News1130 Midday Show takes an in-depth look into Proposition 19, the partial legalization and taxation of small amounts of marijuana in California.

 

Erin Loxam and Rob Freeman will chat with reporters, professors and police about what the passing of Prop 19 could mean for B.C.'s pot industry and just how far reaching the affects could be.

 

The Midday Show goes 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday to Friday on Vancouver's Traffic and Information Station News1130.

 

 

By: ANDY BLATCHFORD, The Canadian Press

 

MONTREAL - A man plans to file a human-rights complaint against an amusement park after security guards told him to cover up his Bob Marley T-shirt or leave the premises.

 

But Montreal's La Ronde insists it didn't have a problem with the shirt's portrait of the late reggae legend — just the cluster of green, marijuana-shaped leaves that surround it.

 

Brunaud Moise alleges they targeted him because he's black.

 

He says security staff singled him out because they associated a black man wearing a Marley shirt with something criminal.

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By: Bert de Vink, Quesnel Cariboo Observer

 

Judging by the amount and sizes of grow-ups busted by the cops, there must be a very large amount of Canadians that smoke marijuana.

 

Despite all these busts new grow-ups spring up all over the place.

 

To me it indicates that there is a large demand and that crops are very profitable, hence the involvement of the criminal element.

 

If the damage to houses, the building of underground bunkers, the installation costs of grow-ops, the stolen electricity and the time spent by the police to find and prosecute the people who run these operations is considered.

 

The amount of money involved becomes staggering.

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Yet he somehow tries to justify the expansion of old and new prisons, without admitting the cost will be well into $9 Billion and much higher over time, even though that clearly proves there will be more people imprisoned at an alarming rate, not more people rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.

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By: Robert Bandurka, The Star Phoenix

 

Mixed in with the Harper government's list of crimes now considered serious is "trafficking in any quantity of cannabis." Selling of a couple of ounces of marijuana will bring a minimum sentences of five years.

 

Such a pot penalty under a law and order agenda makes little sense. Alcohol kills more people in a weekend than pot does in a decade. We should incarcerate killers by banning alcohol, not marijuana. But prohibition was tried 100 years ago and we ended up with more criminals and less security. Will increased penalties for pot be any different?

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By: Brent Richter, Coast Reporter

 

More than 100 residents from Langdale to Powell River packed Roberts Creek Hall Monday (Aug. 9) for a chance to talk federal politics with West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country Liberal candidate Dan Veniez and Bob Rae, the Liberal heavyweight MP from Toronto-Centre.

 

Veniez and local Liberals organized the event to help get Veniez’s face out to the public in the riding, knowing another election is just one confidence vote away in the current minority Parliament.

 

In an opening speech, Rae listed a number of issues including the economy, the environment, social justice and running of parliament that he feels the Conservative government is failing at and where the Liberals can do better.

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