marijuana
Pitt medical growop bylaw in place
By Monisha Martins - Maple Ridge NewsPeople who grow medical marijuana for others better move out of Pitt Meadows.
Council gave fourth reading Tuesday to a bylaw amendment that prohibits growing the plant for medicinal use in residential and agricultural zones.
The city is among the first in Canada to use a municipal bylaw to thwart an activity that’s sanctioned under federal law.
Growing medical marijuana for personal use will still be permitted in the city, but growing for others as a home-based business will not be allowed.
The bylaw are also ensures that medicinal marijuana grow-ops are excluded as an agricultural use.
A notable defector in the war on pot
By: Chris Selley, National PostIf someone were to assemble a world ranking of unjustly imprisoned people, and if he were to put Marc Emery anywhere near the top, I would not be sympathetic. Canada's so-called "prince of pot," scheduled to be sentenced today in Seattle to a stiff five years in prison (that's the sentence he plea-bargained to!) flagrantly violated the law. Wanting to smoke and sell pot isn't like being gay in Iran: It's something you can easily avoid, even though you shouldn't have to. However asinine, the law's the law. Like alcohol, which is legal -- and very much unlike tobacco, which is also legal -- marijuana is no better than harmless. We should all have the right to partake of our drug of choice, but on a spectrum of rights worth fighting, going to prison or dying for, it's not likely to win you a Nobel.
"Prince of Pot" Mark Emery faces sentencing today in Seattle
By: Linda Solomon, Vancouver ObserverAfter a long extradition fight that ended earlier this year, Mark Emery is finally going to prison, news reports say.
Observers expect Emery to receive a five year prison term.
Emery's legal team essentially agreed to this in a plea bargain earlier in the year and Emery is expected to pull out of the agreement if the judge tries to impose a longer term.
"It has always been my sincere belief that the prohibitions on cannabis are hurtful to U.S. and Canadian citizens and are contrary to the constitutions of both countries," the 52-year-old wrote in the Sept. 1 letter.
Prime minister drops in on federally funded projects
By: Robert Barron, Daily NewsPrime Minister Stephen Harper was in Nanaimo on Wednesday to visit the site of two projects receiving federal infrastructure funding.
After landing in Comox, Harper visited Vancouver Island University's new $8.6-million Deep Bay Field Station, to which Ottawa contributed $2 million, and the site of Nanaimo's $22-million cruise-ship terminal project, which received $8.5 million from the federal infrastructure stimulus fund.
RCMP drug bust nets tomatoes and dahlias
A Courtenay man is furious after police came to his house looking for marijuana, only to discover garden tomatoes and dahlias.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the man told the Echo that the incident has left him "sick to his stomach" and calling for more civilian oversight of the RCMP.
On Aug. 29 at about 10:30 p.m., the man was sleeping upstairs in his room. His wife, who was preparing to head to bed, saw several police cars pull up in front of the house.
The man said he awoke to his wife's shouting. He came downstairs to see his wife standing on the porch in handcuffs and a police officer told him he was under arrest for growing a controlled substance.
Prince of Pot's prosecutor declares prohibition a bust
By Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver SunCanada's prince of pot, Marc Emery, spent Labour Day in a U.S. prison reading a newspaper column by his former prosecutor saying anti-cannabis laws are "dangerous and wrong."
In an insult to injury that should cause Ottawa to blush, the man who hounded Emery to face American drug and money-laundering charges declares the pot prohibition should be ended.
John McKay, now a Seattle University law professor, argued in the weekend article that the war against marijuana has failed, actually threatens public safety and rests on false medical assumptions.
Montreal pot users decry police crackdown
About 25 people, including 10 arrested in police raids in June at four Montreal compassion clubs that bill themselves as medical marijuana distribution centres, milled about the Montreal courthouse corridors yesterday discussing the risks in providing pot to manage pain.
Those arrested, including another group in Quebec City, face charges of possession with intent to traffic, trafficking, and conspiracy.
They learned that court hearings are to resume Oct. 4 for those connected to the outlet on Papineau St. and another in Plateau Mont Royal. The Crown is expected to disclose its evidence to defence lawyers then.
Prince of pot’s jailer opposes drug laws
By: Kelly McParland, National PostFrom the Department of the Mind-Bogglingly Bizarre, But True, we bring you this: John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Seattle who prosecuted Canada’s self-styled prince of pot, Marc Emery, says the marijuana law he went to such trouble to enforce is utterly stupid.
Emery’s career has been amply documented. He was deported to the U.S. in May and is being held in Seattle, where he faces up to five years in jail after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. McKay, now a law professor, indicted Emery in 2005 for sending out marijuana seeds through the mail.
So what does he think of the law? Read it all here. Below are some excerpts.
B.C. Court of Appeal rules against use of a drug-detecting dog at an RCMP road-safety check
By Charlie Smith, Georgia StraightB.C.'s highest court has ruled that the RCMP violated a man's charter right when it used a drug-detecting dog at a road-safety checkpoint.
As a result, Sebastien Payette's conviction for marijuana trafficking was set aside on September 3 by three B.C. Court of Appeal justices.
Payette was busted on March 30, 2006 near Midway, B.C., and was convicted in Provincial Court in June 2009.
According to the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling, the RCMP believed there was "reasonable suspicion" because Payette was driving a newer-model Volvo owned by a third party.
Marijuana gateway risk overblown: study
CBC NewsLong-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.
