Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina has ordered the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology to conduct an inventory of inmates in district, city and municipal jails nationwide who are facing drug charges. Provincial DILG Officer Ralph Lozada said the directive comes in preparation for the surge of jail population due to the government's renewed campaign against illegal drugs. The inventory is necessary to identify which jails should be prioritized for expansion and/or renovation in the light of the intensified campaign by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine National Police against illegal drugs. [continues 153 words]
Nice photo! (July 10, front page.) It looks like the cop is the one smoking the bong, and by his appearance he looks as if he should be smoking it. I think police should spend their time and money for unsolved violent crime and property crimes, instead of harassing pot smokers. The courts have officially thrown out the pot laws in Ontario, P.E.I., and Nova Scotia. Manitoba should follow. John Kirkman (Don't hold your breath. Or inhale.) [end]
A Huntly trust is hitting back at a growing epidemic of "P" abuse on the town's streets. The Waahi Whanui Trust launched Whakahonotia te whanau in Huntly's Garden Place yesterday. The day's activities, including rap music, art and displays, were a drive to educate residents on the growing problem of methamphetamine (which comes in a form known as P) abuse. Event organiser Hori Awa said he had attended several hui concerning the growing problem of drugs in Maori communities, and decided more needed to be done than talking. [continues 143 words]
Invercargill: The James Hargest High School board of trustees is standing by its decision to allow four boys who committed indecent assault to remain at school, while kicking out another pupil for smoking cannabis. Chairman Murray Frost broke his silence after the Invercargill school board reversed an earlier decision not to talk to media. The high school has been publicly criticised this week for the apparent disparity in punishments it meted out to pupils involved in two separate incidents. The first, in May, involved an indecent assault on a 13-year-old third form girl during school time. [continues 293 words]
OTTAWA (CP) - A Toronto doctor who has AIDS has resigned from Health Canada's advisory committee on medical marijuana, saying he doesn't trust Health Minister Anne McLellan to handle the file. Greg Robinson, one of two people with serious illnesses on the committee, is upset by McLellan's decision to terminate a study by the Community Research Initiative of Toronto (CRIT) into the use of cannabis as an appetite stimulant. CRIT had spent about $800,000 of a $2-million grant before its funding was terminated in March, just as it was about to begin clinical trials. It has since closed its offices. [continues 390 words]
Despite fears to the contrary, recreational marijuana use apparently has little lasting effect on the brain. UC San Diego researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing the results of 15 studies comparing brain function in cannabis users and nonusers. The study included data on nearly 2,000 people, 704 of whom ranged from heavy users to those who smoked two to three times a week for a few years. Researchers looked at data from tests of memory, perception and reasoning, including reaction time, verbal and motor skills, and the ability to evaluate information and take action on it. Except for a small deficit in users' learning and memory tests, results were similar in pot smokers and nonusers. The researchers question whether the minimal difference in learning and forgetting (failure to recall or recognize something) would even be noticeable in real life. [continues 66 words]
Our federal government has set a precedence showing that cannabis is medicinal. The Federal Medical Marijuana program has not only shown that cannabis works but that it's a safe and effective medicine. The federal government sends out several thousand pre-rolled joints every couple of months to the few medical marijuana patients still enrolled in the program. It is urgent that we all show compassion for those seriously ill patients being mistreated by our government and denied safe access to medicinal marijuana. [continues 66 words]
COUNTY police have welcomed a proposed crackdown on people driving while under the influence of drugs. The number is steadily increasing and county police are leading the way in testing drivers for evidence of drug use. The force has been carrying out roadside field impairment tests to detect evidence of drug use in drivers for the past two years and is now backing plans to extend the test to include the power to take saliva samples. Assistant Chief Constable Derek Talbot said: "We are already very proactive in drug-drive testing. [continues 172 words]
What can be done to help this state with the budget? My suggestion is to take some of these inmates in our prison system out of prison and have them under a home monitoring system. Let there be a fee that these people should pay on a weekly basis. A lot of people in our prison system are first-time drug offenders who have been sentenced to long, fixed prison terms without even a chance of rectifying their mistake. These laws are costing our state millions of dollars. [continues 156 words]
Acute social observers here and overseas contend America depends far too much on prisons, as reported in the Daily Press, June 1. Critics claim America is on an "imprisonment binge." If the mindless incarceration of two-bit drug dealers and occasional recreational drug users were stopped, they say, prisons would have a vacancy problem. Finally, who goes to prison is shaped by racial bias. Black offenders unfairly, and thereby too frequently, are sent away. However, reality presents a different picture. Using the standard measure of the number of prisoners relative to the size of the general population, state prison incarceration has been decreasing steadily since 1997. That downward trend is expected to continue. [continues 99 words]
Britain's covert operations in Colombia, which pose a threat to the country's indigenous peoples are matched by the Foreign Office's opposition to the recognition of indigenous peoples' collective rights at the UN. The UN's declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, already stuck in UN committees for 10 years, is aimed at ending 500 years of discrimination and signalling international recognition of the right to self-determination and control of their lands. Britain's opposition now makes acceptance of this declaration unlikely. [continues 99 words]
ALBANY - Gov. George E. Pataki on Tuesday released his latest proposal to overhaul the Rockefeller-era drug laws that require long prison sentences for possession and sale of even small amounts of narcotics. The proposal was immediately rejected by the Legislature's top Democrat, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who said it was "slipped under the door . . . after-hours last night." Pataki said if his proposal becomes law, hundreds of nonviolent offenders would be released from prison and thousands of others would have their sentences reduced. [continues 347 words]
OTTAWA - Doctors will be allowed to dispense medicinal marijuana from their offices under a federal plan that drew criticism last week from medical officials and patients. As early as Thursday, the government will start delivering the drug to doctors treating up to 582 Canadians who have the right to use it. The drug will be in the form of seeds - so patients can grow it themselves - or mature cannabis cultivated at an abandoned mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. The marijuana will sell for $3.64 (U.S.) per gram, well below the estimated street value of $7.27 to $18.18, and the seeds for $14.55 per bag of 30. [continues 615 words]
Allow me to congratulate the Globe-News on your successful propaganda campaign to release most of the convicted Tulia drug pushers. It was as mendacious and misleading as any I have seen in 40 years of interest in propaganda technique. You, like the national media, ran the endless allegations that the fact 39 of the 46 people arrested in the sting were black proved that racism was the motivation. Your April 3 front-page story about the charging of 26 people in a drug task force amphetamine investigation was of similar interest. Of the 16 individuals named in the article, 12 had Hispanic names. [continues 375 words]
