Lawyers contemplate class action to push government into cannabis amnesty OTTAWA - At Anthony Morgan's law office, the calls keep coming: Parents of young black men hoping their son's marijuana possession charge will be wiped clean when the country legalizes the drug this year. The Liberal government has talked about granting amnesty for past marijuana crimes, but isn't likely to move until after the new cannabis regime comes into effect this summer. For black communities across the country, that's not soon enough - and frustrated lawyers in Toronto are now considering lighting a fire under the feds with a class-action lawsuit. [continues 796 words]
Sometimes so little is going through my head that if Ralph were to say something, I'd actually have room to listen to him. Those few times that's happened also seems to be my week to write an article which then leaves me scrambling. Other times, I start the article only to be sideswiped by some event making me set it aside and start over. Such as todays. I am an old fogey when it comes to the decriminalization of marijuana. [continues 777 words]
When California voters legalized recreational weed in 2016, they made the law retroactive, allowing residents to petition to overturn or reduce old convictions for possession, cultivation and distribution of marijuana. But it is a difficult and expensive legal procedure, advocates say, and many people are not even aware they are now eligible to clean up their records. State courts received 4,885 petitions in the first 11 months after Proposition 64 passed, while the pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance found more than 460,000 arrests for marijuana offenses between 2006 and 2015 alone. [continues 275 words]
Group to ask about opioid crisis at town hall Edmontonians will line up at MacEwan University on Thursday in hopes of getting face time with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Moms Stop the Harm, a group of parents who have lost children to drug overdoses, plans to have 10 to 15 members at the town hall to challenge the PM on the opioid crisis. "It's very upsetting for us how silent he has been on this issue," said group member Petra Schulz. "There are thousands of Canadian families like ours that are mourning the loss of a loved one, and the prime minister has not even spoken on the issue in the house." [continues 310 words]
Dissenting opinion found charter rights were violated during 'fishing expedition' A senior Ontario judge has called out Toronto police officers who arrested a man on gun and drug charges for "casually intimidating and oppressive misconduct," and wondered if their actions would have been different in a whiter and wealthier neighbourhood. The criticism came in a dissenting opinion from Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Peter Lauwers, who recently disagreed with his two colleagues on a panel hearing the appeal of Tom Le, convicted in 2014 of firearm and drug-related offences and sentenced to five years in prison. [continues 742 words]
Punitive approach behind OD crisis, Susan Boyd says. Canada has been inching toward legal regulation of cannabis for many years. But the fears that paralyzed our country for more than a century are still very much in evidence, despite decades of proof that none of the punitive policies we cling to help reduce drug-related harm. Increasingly, drug prohibition is understood as an issue of social justice and human rights by those who have fought for a better way. The history of Canadian drug prohibition is marked by many pivotal moments and challenges to the status quo, brought forward with passion and insight by community activists, people who use drugs, organizations, constitutional lawyers, researchers, and health and service providers. [continues 633 words]
When I think about the people I've met in Kensington over the last eight months, the people who've opened up to me about their addiction, about their lives, talking to me from the cardboard mattresses and train bridges and alleyways and library lawns where they live, I think about the ones I haven't seen in a while. No, Philly did not just approve of 'Hamsterdam' Could City Council block Kenney's proposed safe injection sites? I think about how many of them by now are dead. [continues 752 words]
The Trudeau government's decision to legalize marijuana was a welcome and overdue acknowledgement of what has in recent decades become a truism of both the health and justice fields: treating pot-smokers as criminals is a costly, dangerous mistake. The government is right that the prohibition on pot has driven up the cost of policing, contributed to a national crisis of court delays, compounded racial and class inequities and unnecessarily criminalized people for doing something that by and large poses little threat to them or others - all without delivering the promised benefits for public health or public safety. [continues 559 words]
Legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada is only a few months away, but it's going to take a lot longer than that to clean up the mess left behind from almost a century of prohibition. One of the most pressing issues has to be to wipe the slate clean for Canadians who have criminal records for possession. When Bill C-45 (the Cannabis Act) was tabled, the government said there would be no general amnesty for past convictions. But now it seems the Liberals are starting to come to their senses - at least a bit. [continues 679 words]
If drug users shouldn't be treated as criminals, then Canadians who have criminal records for pot possession convictions should receive amnesty The Trudeau government's decision to legalize marijuana was a welcome and overdue acknowledgement of what has in recent decades become a truism of both the health and justice fields: Treating pot smokers as criminals is a costly, dangerous mistake. The government is right that the prohibition on pot has driven up the cost of policing, contributed to a national crisis of court delays, compounded racial and class inequities and unnecessarily criminalized people for doing something that by and large poses little threat to them or others - all without delivering the promised benefits for public health or public safety. [continues 566 words]
Earlier this month, Kansas state Rep. Steve Alford embarrassed himself by mistakenly repeating racist rhetoric that was originally used by Henry Anslinger, an avowed racist from the late 1920s, when referring to use of marijuana by people of color. I do not believe Alford is a racist. But I do believe, like so many others, he is misinformed when it comes to the facts and issues related to marijuana and the history of marijuana prohibition. Presently marijuana is considered a Schedule 1 drug under the federal government's Controlled Substances Act -- right next to heroin. I think most of us would agree marijuana is not the equivalent of heroin. Nevertheless, it remains as a classified drug for the purposes of federal prosecution. [continues 521 words]
Canada will be the greatest tourist destination for drug sales and tourism Editor, There is a lot of talk about legalizing the marijuana weed and other psychedelics. Pay no attention to the narrow-minded, inconsiderate, uneducated opposition aligned with the anti-democratic, misogynist, racist, reactionary old school. One thing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows is drugs, and that's why legalizing marijuana is a high priority for our Liberal Federal Government. Considerate people like us have an obligation to command progress for social change for the working class. [continues 178 words]
Licensing vapour lounges would enhance safety, say Jenna Valleriani and Abi Roach. If you've been following the plans for cannabis legalization across Canada, one of the key concerns is not just how it will be sold, but where exactly people will be allowed to consume cannabis. Not in parks, or in the streets, certainly not in restaurants or even in places where there are existing tobacco allowances. In Ontario, the proposed legislation boils down to this: The only place we can consume legal cannabis will be in the privacy of our homes. [continues 619 words]
For Jack in the Box Inc., the warm smell of marijuana is rising in the air. As California prepares for legal recreational pot on Jan. 1, the fast-food chain is partnering with a digital media company backed by rapper Snoop Dogg on a new "munchie" meal aimed at cannabis enthusiasts. While marijuana's connection to fast food is well-established, Jack in the Box will become the first national chain to explicitly embrace the drug. The "Merry Munchie Meal," which will be available at three California locations for a week in January for $4.20, features two tacos, french fries, onion rings, five mini churros, three chicken strips and a small drink. The price isn't random: The number 420 is used as a code by potheads. [continues 283 words]
Known for his mishandling of Veterans A airs, corruption scandals within his constabulary and, shall we say, colourful comments on race and marijuana, former Toronto and Ontario police chief Julian Fantino is launching a pot business with a former RCMP senior leader. It has rightly been met with outcry. It exposes not only his personal hypocrisies but also those of the pot legalization process. A focus on criminalizing personal use rather than public health concerns (i.e., accessibility to children, mental health issues) has contributed to the circumstances that make young Black and Indigenous people known to police. Along with carding, illegality of marijuana has introduced more young racialized, especially Black, people to the criminal justice system than is patently fair. [continues 348 words]
Stateline, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy. When Californians voted to legalize marijuana last year, they also voted to let people petition courts to reduce or hide convictions for past marijuana crimes. State residents can now petition courts to change some felonies to misdemeanors, change some misdemeanors to infractions, and wipe away convictions for possessing or growing small amounts of the drug. "We call it reparative justice: repairing the harms caused by the war on drugs," says Eunisses Hernandez of the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group that helped write the California ballot initiative. [continues 1219 words]
In just three years, the number of marijuana arrests in Buffalo dropped by more than half. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of people arrested continued to be people of color. A new study, released Tuesday, found 86 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession in Buffalo during the five year-period ending last year were black or Hispanic. In Erie County, people of color accounted for 77 percent of all marijuana possession arrests over the same five-year period, according to the study. [continues 587 words]
A proposed deal to cut through San Francisco's cannabis debate and allow existing medical dispensaries to sell recreational pot on Jan. 1 could put a choke hold on the industry, two former supervisors said Tuesday. Scott Wiener and David Campos, who formed an unlikely partnership to intervene in the city's cannabis legislation, blasted the proposal by Supervisor Aaron Peskin hours before it went to the full board. Peskin's idea of granting recreational permits to the city's 46 existing pot businesses, when coupled with zoning rules that other supervisors have introduced to keep the pot trade out of their neighborhoods, would create a monopoly for those already in business, Wiener and Campos said. [continues 155 words]
Each of San Francisco's 11 supervisors has called for "equity" in the city's cannabis laws, meaning they want to create a racially diverse industry that gives former drug offenders a shot at success. On Wednesday, Supervisor Malia Cohen presented an ordinance to help the city achieve its social justice goals when sales of recreational marijuana become legal throughout the state in January. The city won't issue permits to sell recreational cannabis until an equity program is approved. Cohen's proposal - modeled after a similar program that Oakland approved in March and another that's being considered in Los Angeles - would prioritize permits for dispensary operators with marijuana arrests or convictions between 1971 and 2009. Also eligible for priority would be entrepreneurs who committed other nonviolent crimes during that time period, or who earn 80 percent of San Francisco's area median income, or who were displaced from their homes within the past 22 years. [continues 475 words]
Does Trudeau back harm reduction or not, ask Sandra Ka Hon Chu and Richard Elliott Implementing needle and syringe programs in federal prisons could prevent numerous new HIV and Hepatitis C virus infections each year, saving tens of millions of dollars. Five years ago, we started a constitutional court case, because it was clear that, despite the evidence, the previous government would never agree to implement these health services in federal prisons. But the Trudeau government has repeatedly declared its commitment to harm reduction and evidence-based policy, to Charter rights, and to the health and welfare of vulnerable Canadians. Prison-based needle and syringe programs reflect all of these. [continues 585 words]
