About Ross Rebagliati taking on Stockwell Day. I wonder if Rebagliati has sensible views on the legalization of marijuana. Maybe he follows the gangster-and-cop-subsidizing status quo -- like Iggy does. Or does he prefer the non-committal non-word meaning a non-thing: "decriminalize"?

( We think he's well versed on pot laws. )

[end]

Flavoured rolling papers banned in Canada? Really?

On June 17, 2009, Bill C-32 quietly passed through the House of Commons, amending the Tobacco Act "to provide additional protection to youth from tobacco marketing." This followed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2008 election promise to ban "fruit or candy-flavoured cigarillos" in Canadian stores. "These products," Harper told anyone who would listen, "are packaged as a candy, and this is totally unacceptable."

Rationally unacceptable themselves, the amendments, which have only to pass through Senate before taking effect on the streets sometime around December, target "flavoured cigarillos" (Prime Times, for example), as well as other products "targeting youth" like flavoured rolling papers and "blunt wraps." Bill C-32 passed through the house easily, as it would have been hard for anyone to take a public stand against "protecting youth" from the big-bad tobacco boogeyman, no matter how ineffectual the actual legislation.

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The Conservatives are hypocrites. It's OK for them to drink (and allegedly drive), but not OK for adults to choose a safer alternative to alcohol.

The Conservatives are risking our Canadian sovereignty by extraditing Canadian citizen Marc Emery for running a transparent seed-selling business that paid taxes for 10 years in Canada. Call Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and ask him not to extradite a Canadian citizen to the States for a "crime" committed here.

Marianne Kochan

Edmonton

[end]

Re: 'Crowns overworked,' Oct. 8. The easiest way to decrease the burden on prosecutors is to repeal our fraudulent prohibition laws. The great big stinking lie we're harangued with by our government is that getting tough on crime decreases crime.

Dead wrong. It increases crime, profits for so-called criminals, prisons we don't otherwise need because crime has been going down since 1992. If not for prohibition, none of this rot would need to be discussed.

Bruce Codere

Fox Creek, Alta.

(Get real. Tougher sentences please.)

[end]

Re: 'Ditch the drug war,' Letters to the editor, Sept. 29.

What kind of a stupid comment is that? It's fine for politicians to ban the drugs so that pharmaceutical conglomerates don't make massive profit on nor own patents to. Besides, what drugs are they currently pushing? I guess you like being taken for a fool and having your money wasted on housing non-violent criminals for "punishment" for ingesting what you deem unsavoury. It's jail where organized crime finds recruits, and they recruit well because non-violent cannabis smokers may just want protection, considering how they aren't violent.

Give me a snarky comment answering that question when you publish this.

(Snarky? Us?)

[end]

Filling jails and tougher sentencing does not work and the United States is proof of that. There is a solution to the gang problem that no one wants to hear. End prohibition. Drugs are the main source of profit for organized crime. The justice system cannot keep gang members in jail. The gangs are fighting for turf and they are funded by drugs. Let's ditch the drug war. Tougher sentencing is not the solution, and it never will be.

(So, you want politicians pushing drugs?)

[end]

Re: Mike McIntyre's City man convicted in bid to toss drugs into prison yard (Sept. 18). One of his statements is misleading at best, and utterly ridiculous at worst. McIntyre was discussing the resale value of pot within the prison system when he claimed "a single gram could make up to 28 individual joints which could be sold among inmates for about $5 each." If he were assuming this gram of pot would be watered down with tobacco, that condition may have been helpful in attempting to make sense of this line. Even 28 joints, each rolled with one-twenty-eighth of a gram of marijuana among tobacco leaves is a stretch.

Dylan Williams

Winnipeg

[end]

If Successful, Proceeds Would Fight Crime

Manitoba's Criminal Property Forfeiture Act will be put to the test in the coming months as the province heads to court to seize three houses used as marijuana grow operations.

The province filed three statements of claim in court Thursday alleging the people who owned the houses knew they were being used as "instruments of unlawful activity."

"When the Winnipeg Police Service busted the grow operations, who they caught were the growers, the people that were tending the grow inside the homes," director of criminal property forfeiture Gord Schumacher said.

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Gov't Targets Alleged Grow Op Properties

After seven years of trying, Manitoba authorities are finally sending a message that crime doesn't pay.

The provincial government is making a claim in court for three properties in south Winnipeg -- homes police suspect had been used as marijuana grow operations by their Vancouver-area owners.

And if Manitoba's first effort under the seven-year-old Criminal Property Forfeiture Act is successful, money recovered from a sale of the homes and possibly items on the premises -- perhaps about $1.2 million -- will be handed to victims of the crimes or used to help cops curb illegal activity.

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Re: 'Crime bills die with election,' Mike Sutherland, Sept. 9.

Sutherland spews the usual dross we've come to expect from cops. He's more than welcome to whine about his distorted perception there's increased crime. Stats Canada says he's full of it. Overall crime has been going down since 1992. Cannabis arrests are, however, at an all-time high. That means more prisoners for gangs to recruit from. A rational clear analysis of Bill C-15 shows how it's nothing more than a back door for our lame lazy drug squads to bust the mom and pop cannabis garden growers. While Sutherland talks tough, perhaps believing that implies credibility, he's really just lobbying for more cops, more laws, more control over our lives, and good old-fashioned fascism.

FOX CREEK, ALTA.

(And the problem with more cops is?)

[end]

I was one of the lucky people who got to see AC/DC on Saturday and if there ever was a reason to legalize marijuana and ban alcohol, it was at the Canad Inns Stadium on Saturday night. Why is it necessary to drink yourself into oblivion, vomit all over the place, spill beer on other people, start fights in the parking lot and act like an ass -- yet, beer is legal, pot not.

If you can't control your beer consumption without acting like a fool, stay home!

Suzanne Livingstone

Winnipeg

[end]

Kudos to our federal Conservative government for funding research to study a link between pot use and mental illness. As part of the study, they will create "educational materials aimed at decreasing the use of illicit drugs among young people." From this, one can conclude that Harper's government has finally realized this perpetual war on drugs is simply unwinnable. They must be developing more tools for their arsenal to educate the public about the negative health effects of drug use once they roll out their new national policy on legalization of marijuana.

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It bears noting that 2009 is the 400th anniversary of cannabis is Canada. In 1609, French apothecary Louis Hebert grew the plant in Port Royal, Acadia (now Nova Scotia).

This is the United Nations international year of the fibre, and cannabis/hemp is the best plant fibre at our disposal. Yet how does the government choose to celebrate this remarkable feat of endurance on the part of Earth's most medicinally active and industrially versatile plant, and its gardeners?

It attempts to pass Bill C-15, an irrational, groundless, retrograde, fraudulent excuse for legislation. Our minister of justice rails against the Senate for not rubber-stamping the bill at break-neck speed.

[continues 61 words]

If bread were to be criminalized today, it would feed organized crime tomorrow, which more often than not wears a suit and tie or a uniform, in both private and public sectors. Prohibition means something will cost at least 10 times what it would if it were legal. The legal drug trade in Canada is about $20 billion. The illegal drug trade is over $200 billion!

Then there's the "Alice In Wonderland" case of tobacco, which is legal, and still costs 10 times what it should -- the most bizarre crime of all. Prohibition only creates a self-serving industry, which includes those who claim to be trying to eradicate it, that will protect its revenues to the death -- of us, the victims of it.

Steve Hartwell

Toronto

[end]

In Memoriam Of The Ganja Mine: 2000-2009

Lately, it seems like every day brings news of another celebrity death. It started in June with David Carradine. Since then, Arturo Gatti, Billy Mays, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Koko Taylor, Michael Jackson and the Taco Bell dog have all gone to join the Great Gig in the Sky.

So let's take a moment to remember the Flin Flon grow-op.

Since 2000, an unused mineshaft 600 km northwest of Winnipeg and 1,000 feet underground has been growing the only government-approved marijuana in the country.

[continues 496 words]

Escalating gang violence in Winnipeg is claiming more lives and police are not even putting a dent into the problem.

Police and policy makers need to wake up to the reality of what is driving gang crime and deal with those causes.

Anthony Orville Woodhouse, 30, originally of Fairford First Nation but called Winnipeg home. He was the latest victim. Most believe he was not connected to gang activity, but was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Woodhouse was found dead lying on the porch of his home. His assailants were high-level members of the Indian Posse (IP) street gang and face charges. Much of the recent violence has been attributed to violent rivalries between the Indian Posse and other gangs that are turning the North End into a war zone.

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Re: Drug laws spark drug wars (Free Press, Aug. 4.)

It's not so much that Canadian governments have been slow to recognize the obvious, it's that the Canadian government wants to maintain prohibition. Legislation that renders drugs illicit also legitimizes other legislation that triggers actions that would otherwise not be permitted by law.

Forfeiture law, for example, is not triggered by a conviction, but rather by suspicion thereof. It is a sad day in Canada when an individual doesn't have to be charged with a crime to be brutalized by the justice system and those who enforce it.

[continues 139 words]

The commander of NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, United States Gen. Stanley McChrystal, promised this week that he would commit thousands of American troops to fighting the Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan's most dangerous province, to back up Canadian troops fighting there.

The Canadian military's response is officially one of relief. Unofficially it might well be "It's about time," although it may also be tempered by doubts about the occasional recklessness of American tactics and the possibility of civilian casualties.

[continues 349 words]

Americans have historical amnesia of a general variety, but the blackout is particularly acute when it comes to what our grandparents, and their grandparents, did to get high.

Forty years after Woodstock, the nation is taking a fresh look at its twisted relationship with drugs and insobriety. But we're doing so without drawing lessons from the centuries of experience we have with inebriation and the effort to control it. Five widespread myths must be dispensed with if America ever plans on making rational drug policy.

[continues 878 words]

Police Pooch Expected To Start Sniffing Out Drugs This Fall

The Winkler Police Service is adding a new tool to its arsenal in the battle against drugs in our community.

City council recently gave the department approval to establish a canine unit in Winkler.

Chief Rick Hiebert says a police dog is an invaluable tool for a police service to have.

"It adds another level of professionalism to a police service," he said. "It's another service that we can provide to our citizens in helping to fight the war on drugs."

[continues 477 words]