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]
RICHMOND - After months of an undercover investigation in 2008, a York County sheriff's deputy finally had enough evidence to charge Brandon Gomez, then 18, with intent to distribute marijuana. "I had actually been just basically the middleman," Gomez said, describing himself as an intermediary between a dealer and users in marijuana sales. During the investigation, the undercover officer bought 4 ounces of marijuana. After Gomez spent a few nights in jail, the officer offered him a deal: If he turned in his dealer and buyers, the felony charges would be reduced to misdemeanors. Gomez reluctantly agreed, and spent the next six months betraying the people who trusted him most. [continues 1282 words]
In a new book, Mark Haskell Smith explores our relationship with the cannabis plant Franco walked into the coffee shop dressed head to toe in yellow and black motorcycle racing leathers. He had asked me to meet him for lunch at the Green House United Coffeeshop on Haarlemmerstraat. It's one of several coffeeshops owned by Green House and Green House Seeds, where Franco is a partner. I had been sitting under a vibrant gold-colored mural depicting what looked like the ancient Phoenician or Minoan alphabet and watching the ornamental carp swim back and forth in the massive fish tank installed under the glass floor. [continues 1277 words]
Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies, said the government and the National Institute on Drug Abuse has a "monopoly on marijuana research" at Suffolk University NORML's 2012 Cannabis Curriculum and Hemposium on Tuesday. "The only place in the country that has NIDA approval to grow marijuana for research is a government-run facility at the University of Mississippi," he said. "We have been in court for six years trying to get clearance." About 65 students and speakers gathered at Suffolk University for a forum that encouraged students to do research and projects on cannabis and its prohibition, in addition to providing a place for students to showcase their results. [continues 477 words]
"[Michael] Ondaatje once called me Canada's most famous addict." Dean Wilson shared this anecdote with students in the Norm Theatre on Tuesday evening after Cinema Politica's screening of FIX: The Story of an Addicted City. Wilson, the ex-president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), is a central figure in Nettie Wild's 2002 Canadian documentary. "After that, I called up my mother and said, 'Hey! Look, something became of me!'" Wilson joked. After 33 years of battling addiction, Wilson has proudly maintained two years of sobriety at the age of 49. [continues 424 words]
Leading Thunderbird Lodge the youth treatment centre, in Fort Qu'Appelle, has been changing lives. The centre opened its doors in 2007, the goal was to focus on spirituality and culture. It has evolved over the years, but culture has remained a key component. Michael Tyance, a former client of the centre, is happy such a place exists. Originally from Thunder Bay, Ont., the now 20-year-old took a chance and travelled to Saskatchewan to seek treatment for his addictions. [continues 368 words]
A Dozen Years After Fleeing the Valley, Bill Conde Remains As Pro-Hemp As Ever Editor's note: Today is the first installment in a monthly series that revisits and updates stories we reported on as the 21st century began a dozen years ago. Lots of people around the mid-valley remember William Conde, formerly of Harrisburg, who from 1984 to 2001 was a lumberyard owner, festival promoter, failed candidate for governor and champion of hemp and of legalizing marijuana. The impressions of him, developed before he moved to Central America, remain quite vivid to his former customers, the law enforcement officers who investigated him, the Linn County Board of Commissioners that dealt with him, and the reporters who wrote about him. [continues 1093 words]
Career Took Him From Saving Addicts to Scouts Chaplain, but He Was Always Happiest on the Streets While he was training to be a priest in the 1960s, Jean-Claude Proulx bristled at the monastic life. It was too quiet, too rule-bound, too confining. He was a non-conformist who wanted to shake things up. And so, a few years after leaving the Major Seminary on Kilborn Avenue, he took on the drug trade of Vanier, standing in steely defiance against the dealers who were defiling the community. [continues 1176 words]
