legalization

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: 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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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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By: Jonathan Power, Toronto Star

 

During the difficult years that preceded the British handover of Hong Kong to China, the Chinese government's intense antipathy to opium and the still fresh memories of the evil that 18th century buccaneering Britain had inflicted on China and Hong Kong added an extra emotional charge to what, anyway, was a most complicated transition. Without opium there would have been no Hong Kong. The British only acquired it because of the Opium Wars, and the city's early economic success was built on the opium trade.

 

It was the British who fed the Chinese propensity for opium. Historians point out that the Chinese would have found it elsewhere, even grown some of it themselves. But the truth is the Indian-grown opium was the brand the Chinese smokers savoured and the British East India Company marketed it with commercial élan.

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By JON WILLING, Toronto Sun

 

OTTAWA - Cannabis should be made available like alcohol is today to help defuse a “fantastically lucrative black market” for drugs, an Ottawa lawyer says.

 

Eugene Oscapella, co-founder of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy and a University of Ottawa criminology instructor, said it’s time the government realizes the war on drugs isn’t working.

 

“An increasing number of Canadians understand the current approach of using criminal law is seriously flawed,” Oscapella said.

 

The problem, he says, is there aren’t enough politicians who want to have a “more rational dialogue” on drug policies.

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Re: "Drug pushers tarnish park" by Barb Holstrom, July 23 Spectator letters.

 

In her letter in the July 23rd issue of the Spectator Barb Holstrom says "Just as in all cities and towns in our country whenever you have an unsupervised gathering place for our young people a drug element starts to sneak in. These people don't care what age they sell to."

 

Sounds like our "war on drugs" is a really big success huh? I'd like to know why the drug dealers WOULD care what age they sell to? They will be punished just as harshly if they get caught selling a bag of weed to a 50-year-old for their arthritis, as to a 10-year-old, so what motivation is there for them to only serve adults? The war on medicinal plants costs taxpayers billions of dollars and achieves NONE of its stated goals. It is easier for children to acquire illegal drugs than it is to obtain cigarettes or alcohol.

 

It is time that the government tried a different approach, and legalized and regulated adult use of controlled substances. The amount of regulation required should be decided based on scientific evidence and each substance should be evaluated as to its harm potential and addictiveness. The Conservative's plan to install mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug use is ludicrous and will not only cost taxpayers additional billions, it will increase the violence and the profits of the illegal drug trade.

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By Walter Cordery, The Daily News

 

Forget the collapse of the housing market in the United States -- and recent statistics show it remains in the tank -- which means B.C.'s moribund forest industry will remain on life support, voters in California this fall could spell the death knell for a thriving B.C. industry.

 

It looks as though some Californians have taken legendary Reggae singer Peter Tosh's song 'Legalize It' literally and are running with it. If passed in November, a state-wide voter initiative would legalize the cultivation, possession and sale of marijuana.

 

Legalizing marijuana has broad support in the state, with some 56% of Californians surveyed in an April, 2009 Field Poll saying they favoured making it legal for social use and taxing the sales proceeds. In October, Gallup found 44% of all Americans favoured legalization.

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By Christopher Foulds - Kamloops This Week

 

I spoke to Kevin Krueger this week to ask him to explain the difference between his party’s voracious criticism of gambling expansion (in particular online wagering) while in opposition and the fact it is salivating as it expands gambling like no other government in North America.

 

(His comments can be read elsewhere under Opinion on this website.)

 

During the conversation, the Kamloops-South Thompson MLA and tourism minister compared government involvement in cyber-casinos to the failed prohibition experience of eight decades ago.

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By Jillian Follert, Durham Region

 

OSHAWA -- The second attempt at Oshawa Cannabis Day went more smoothly than its predecessor last summer and managed to attract a much bigger crowd.

 

Organizer Ben Fudge estimated about 200 people gathered at Memorial Park in downtown Oshawa on July 1 to show their support for issues such as legalization of marijuana and recognition of the drug's medicinal benefits.

 

"I'm really surprised by how many people came, we're going to aim for 500 people next year," he said.

 

Participants ranged from "die-hard activists," he said, to everyday people interested in learning how to fill out paperwork for a medical exemption.

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