decriminalization

By Bruce Livesey, Special to The Gazette

 

JUAREZ, Mexico – Like most cops in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Jesus Manuel Fierro-Mendez was dirty.

 

In fact, soon after being promoted to the position of captain, he was smuggling enormous quantities of cocaine into the United States. And when Fierro-Mendez quit his job in the spring of 2007, after someone tried to kill him, he went to work for the Sinaloa drug cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug-trafficking organization, run by Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, the richest drug lord in North America and the second most wanted man in the world after Osama bin Laden.

 

By Oakland Ross, The Star

 

Where else in the world do they have a single noun to denote a man who turns up dead in the trunk of a car?

 

In northern Mexico, they call the wretch un encajuelado, and the phenomenon has become a sufficiently frequent feature of the local landscape that it merits a word all its own.

 

Meanwhile, as if killing were not bad enough, beheadings have become a morbidly common feature in battles among the region’s drug gangs, often recorded on video.

 

In all, more than 20,000 Mexican lives have been sacrificed in drug-related violence since December 2006, in a conflict pitting federal authorities against the drug traders or the drug traders against each other.

 

By Kendall Walters - Kamloops This Week

 

Marijuana producers growing as few as six plants for sale could face minimum jail sentences if a new bill becomes law in Ottawa.

 

The Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act, or Bill S-10, was introduced in the Senate on May 5 by Conservative Sen. John Wallace.

 

If enacted, it will change laws surrounding drug charges, particularly those involving cannabis.

 

The bill has been considered twice before, dying first due to the general-election call in 2006 and again in December 2009 when Parliament was prorogued.

 

By: Greg Mercer, Mercer Retort

 

I’m confused.

 

Not dazed and confused. Just confused.

 

The source of my confusion is the decision by the Guelph Police Service to bust the Medical Cannabis Club of Guelph last week, which led to trafficking charges against four staff, including founder Rade Kovacevic.

 

Part of my confusion may be because the message from Canadian officials on marijuana use is as mixed as a 1988 cassette tape. (Note to readers: a long, long time ago, music came in a strange format called a cassette tape and teenagers would create eclectic mixes of their favourite songs, which, consequently, is illegal).

 

By Derek Abma, Financial Post The Star Phoenix

 

The Economist, a prestigious international economics and political magazine, is once again turning its attention to Canada, this time pointing out how well the economy here has survived and recovered from the recent global economic crisis.

 

In this week's edition, the magazine profiles Canada in both an editorial and article, calling this country "the least-bad rich-world economy."

 

"As they contemplate high unemployment, foreclosed homes, shrivelled house prices and the arrogant follies of their investment bankers, Americans may cast envious glances across their northern border," the editorial says.

 

ctvcalgary.ca

 

A march in Calgary Saturday afternoon called for the decriminalization of pot and easier access to medical marijuana.

 

The sixth annual Calgary Worldwide Marijuana March included recreational users and also Calgarians who have multiple sclerosis and other conditions.

 

Many have Health Canada exemptions allowing them to legally posses, cultivate, and consume cannabis.

 

But event organizer Keith Fagan says access to medical marijuana is too restrictive, and he says Canada should be more like the U.S. in the number of people legally allowed to use medical marijuana.

 

By Zev Singer, The Ottawa Citizen

The chairman of the city's police services board does not want public debate on the decriminalization of marijuana to be led by his chief of police.

 

Eli El-Chantiry made the point publicly while chairing a meeting of the board Monday, the same day that Chief Vern White was quoted in the Citizen in an article on the subject.

 

El-Chantiry asked White at the meeting if he would like to clarify remarks the chief made in the paper and on radio Monday.

 

The chief took that opportunity, explaining that the point he was trying to make in media interviews was not to call for decriminalization of marijuana, but to call for a broader discussion of the effects of the drug in communities, particularly on young people.

Opinions on marijuana use have changed considerably over the years. Government policy, however, remains the same.

 

Neil Boyd, The Mark News

 

My first foray into marijuana research began 40 years ago, in the spring of 1970. It was what sociologists call participant observation research; I smoked some hashish with my friends in my final year of high school and observed its effects on my behaviour. I noticed that the experience enhanced my appreciation of music, increased my appetite, and made me laugh at things that I might not ordinarily think were very funny. In sum, not a bad way to spend an evening in a small Ontario town. Perhaps not as wild and crazy as an alcohol-fueled evening, but not entirely disappointing either.

 

Melanie Adams , CFRA 580

 

Despite a headline in the Ottawa Citizen Monday morning, Ottawa Police Chief Vern White says anyone looking for an ally in helping to push for decriminalization of marijuana should not look to him.

 

Chief White tells CFRA he is not in favour decriminalizing possession of the drug, though he would prefer police try other things first before laying criminal charges against marijuana smokers.