SAFED, Israel - Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all. Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards. [continues 1050 words]
Bryan Davies, an evangelical Christian with a long, drifting beard, is the CEO of a family business that doles out marijuana and spirituality in fragrant, faithful harmony. His Canna Care dispensary, one of Sacramento's longest operating medical marijuana providers, is as renowned for its political activism at City Hall and the state Capitol as it is for its calls to prayer. California's medical marijuana industry has drawn people from mortgage brokers to car salesman, from hippies to computer geeks, into the marijuana trade. But Canna Care may well stand out for its singular devotion to serving up cannabis with Christ. [continues 1033 words]
I read with interest Evan Wood's opinion (Vancouver Sun, Nov., 3, 2012) of a new drug, unavailable in Canada that could aid in the battle against addiction. While I would love to be able to support the notion that Vivitrol (naltrexone) will be a huge asset in the fight against addictions, I am highly skeptical. In my experience as executive director of Edgewood, one of North America's most respected addiction treatment centres right here in British Columbia, we have yet to find anything that is as effective as well-structured, long-term, abstinence-based residential treatment. No pill, injection, short-term detox or therapy-of-the-month has had any lasting benefit for the majority of substance-dependent people and their families suffering from this disease. [continues 577 words]
In his latest Saturday column, Conrad Black wrote: "Let us abolish imprisonment for all non-violent offences except the briefest periods, the most egregious offences, or the chronic recidivists. Instead of building more prisons, let us focus on community service and rehabilitation for the non-violent.... Prison is futile and destructive and hideously expensive, and is done only because it has always been done." Mr. Black is hardly the only prominent Canadian advocating such reforms. Another is former Ontario attorney-general Michael Bryant, who writes on this subject in his new book, 28 Seconds. [continues 547 words]
Plant-based drugs win accolades as treatments for substance abuse Cynthia Davidson still glows at mere mention of ayahuasca, the Amazon plant known to the Indians as "the vine of the souls." She says it gave her back her life. "The experience I had was literally like 10 years of therapy in one night," enthused the 32- year-old Haida woman, who has struggled with chronic addiction for more than a decade. "I went from cigarettes to drinking to marijuana to snorting cocaine to smoking rock cocaine, then starting to shoot cocaine and heroin. It all just escalated. But after I experienced the ayahuasca =C2=85." [continues 2007 words]
I was astonished to see an ex-cop from Denver do a pro-Amendment 64 ad on the basis that the "war on drugs doesn't work." The fact is that the war on drugs will not go away just because the use of one illicit drug becomes a protected right. There will still be meth, cocaine, heroine and scores of designer narcotics, pharmaceuticals, off-the-shelf substances and unregulated pot that will come across the border and continue to spread in all parts of the country. [continues 234 words]
Family Council president Jerry Cox opposes the ballot measure to legalize medical marijuana. "It's a family values issue," he said. So, let's talk medicine, marijuana - and, especially, family values. I began suffering undiagnosed leg pain in childhood. At 17, my doctor's best advice was to take aspirin until my ears started ringing. I married, had two children, and started smoking marijuana when I returned to college in my 20s. To my surprise, the leg pain abated. I continued to smoke for almost 25 years, roughly a joint a day. As I never smoked in secret, I'm betting I've got a perspective on marijuana and family values that Mr. Cox does not. [continues 696 words]
On Wednesday, Sept. 26, the municipal leaders of B.C. approved a resolution calling for the decriminalization of Marijuana. Just as the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and 1930s failed to stop consumption of alcohol, so has the prohibition of pot failed to stop marijuana consumption. Today, according to WHO, alcohol is the largest risk factor for premature death and disability in the Americas. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 37,000 annual U.S. deaths are attributed to alcohol use alone (this figure does not include accidental deaths). [continues 360 words]
DAVENPORT - On Sept. 5, 2002, the country was debating whether to invade Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, just as it was bracing for the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Stocks were still down, but the Oakland A's had just notched their record 20th straight win. Early that morning, 30 federal Drug Enforcement Agency-led law enforcement officers stormed the Wo/Men's Medical Marijuana Alliance, a high-profile collective with a small pot farm outside Davenport, chopping down plants and setting off a furor with lasting impacts on the statewide medical marijuana debate that endures today. [continues 1425 words]
St. John's Antigua- A move to consider the decriminalisation of small amounts of marijuana in Belize has evoked reaction locally. Rastafarian elder King Frank-I said Antigua & Barbuda's Rastafarian community, which has been making repeated calls for the drug to be decriminalised, wants authorities here to pattern the Belize model. The government of Belize is looking into the possibility of allowing small amounts of marijuana possession in an effort to clear up space in the country's overcrowded jails. [continues 254 words]
The question prompted a furious row between Russell Brand and Peter Hitchens. But who's right? Paul Peachey was granted rare access to a prison rehab scheme to find out the truth When Simon Pearce was jailed for the 13th time, he finally recognised that the game was up. Heroin and cocaine had cost him his liberty, his family and almost his life. "I've done jail and I've swerved nuthouses by the skin of my teeth," he says. "The only thing that was left for me was death." [continues 898 words]
To the editor: Re: We'd Be Crazy to Legalize Marijuana, Aug. 7 Capital News. In response to the letter We'd be Crazy to Legalize Marijuana. I found the letter to be totally off the mark and typical of the kind of thinking that leads to misplaced blame. There is so much written about marijuana and its use that I would invite Mr. Mellis to do a bit more investigation before levelling such criticism. A few points in response: Any person who would do a dangerous job such as he illustrated has a responsibility to the safety of fellow workers. A marijuana-stoned idiot is the same as a drunk idiot or drugged idiot-the operative word is idiot not marijuana. Someone in that condition should be dealt with as severely as a sleep-deprived bus driver high on legal amphetamines or a pilot with an elevated blood alcohol level. Stupid behaviour will not be eliminated by prohibiting any substance. [continues 201 words]
Hawaii island marijuana advocate Roger Christie once again has lost a bid for his release while awaiting trial, scheduled for January, on federal marijuana possession and distribution charges. Christie has been in custody for more than two years since his arrest in July 2010, but U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi noted Tuesday that he faces three marijuana charges carrying prison terms of five to 40 years, and she said she was concerned about Christie's ability to follow bail conditions if he is released. [continues 169 words]
After 150 years of broken promises, the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota are nurturing their tribal customs, language, and beliefs. A rare, intimate portrait shows their resilience in the face of hardship. Almost every historical atrocity has a geographically symbolic core, a place whose name conjures up the trauma of a whole people: Auschwitz, Robben Island, Nanjing. For the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that place is a site near Wounded Knee Creek, 16 miles northeast of the town of Pine Ridge. From a distance the hill is unremarkable, another picturesque tree-spotted mound in the creased prairie. [continues 4115 words]
The Western Cape department of social development has embarked on a visionary project to provide a social crime prevention and upliftment programme for the young people who live in the drug, and crime-ridden towns and suburbs of the province. The New Age last Thursday evening witnessed the enthusiasm and dedication of 180 young girls, who had just completed the three-month upliftment programme at their graduation ceremony at the Chrysalis Academy in Tokai, Cape Town. "These are all girls from gang-infested areas who had somehow fallen through the cracks," social development MEC Albert Fritz told TNA. [continues 341 words]
A Cumberland County libertarian who supports the use of marijuana to fight cancer has lost his bid to have weapons charges against him stayed. Daren Wayne McCormick adheres to the Phoenix Tears and the Freeman-on-the-Land movements. A jury found McCormick guilty of threatening to kill police officers on March 31, 2011, and of weapons offences after an Amherst search the next day. He was arrested in town with a loaded revolver in a holster on his hip, hidden under his long coat. [continues 527 words]
Marley Is Standing Up for the Civil Rights of the 'Herb' Ziggy Marley has been openly crusading for the rights of a plant ever since the release of his fourth and latest album, Wild and Free, last summer. A breezy duet with actor Woody Harrelson, the title track envisions fields of hemp growing wild and free, set in a landscape of lilting roots-reggae. "The herb," Marley says, warming up to a recent phone interview, "Cannabis, hemp, marijuana, whatever name you want to use. I was into learning more about it, and trying to understand why the world is not taking advantage of it as a natural resource. It was a big influence on the record, the idea of hemp and growing hemp." [continues 412 words]
HAMILTON, Ont. - Walter Tucker was probably grinning from the heavens as a small party of friends gathered at the Fletcher Creek park last month to share some cannabis "sacrament" and spread his ashes over the verdant countryside. The 79-year-old legal gadfly and pot-smoking preacher had finally returned to the lush pastoral retreat he called Clearwater Abbey where he founded the Church of the Universe in 1969. He and his disciples had enjoyed an idyllic romp on the site for several years - soaking up the sun, growing and smoking pot, and cavorting in the nude - until their eviction in 1986 over a lease dispute. [continues 749 words]
Waimate councillor Sandy Mulqueen's bid for cannabis decriminalisation may be gone, but it's not forgotten. Mulqueen hit the headlines over the past fortnight when she formed a lobby group and made a submission to her own council's long-term plan outlining a project to decriminalise marijuana for personal and medicinal use. Her cause attracted national media attention when she admitted being stoned while working as an Auckland city bus driver. A Timaru Herald poll which ran alongside the story attracted more than 3000 votes and raised much debate on the topic, indicating wide public interest. [continues 989 words]
A sudden policy change by Brentwood Recovery Home - banning anybody on addiction medication such as methadone - has angered some doctors who call the move discriminatory. A letter dated May 16 and signed by Brentwood administrator Mark Lennox says that, effectively immediately, the residential substance- abuse facility is merely returning to its core beliefs of abstinence because it has more success keeping people sober that way. "We're not saying drug-replacement therapy is wrong. We're saying it's wrong for us," Brentwood interim executive director Dan Soulliere said Friday. [continues 513 words]
