In September 2000 we told you about Loren Wiberg, a businessman from Innisfail, Alta., who was seeking the Health Canada contract to grow legal marijuana for medical purposes. Mr. Wiberg's idea was to grow the weed hydroponically in the Diefenbunker near Red Deer, one of the abandoned underground nuclear-safe structures built during the worst days of the Cold War. The government wanted to demolish the Diefenbunker, but Mr. Wiberg's research showed that it was in good shape. Fixing it up with the necessary heat, electricity and security arrangements to grow herb would be a snap. [continues 405 words]
If City Counsellors Can Wipe Out Smoking, Why Not Try Them On Illegal Drugs? NOWHERE in Canada are smokers more ferociously treated these days than in the nation's capital, where a draconian bylaw last August entirely banished the hateful weed from all workplaces, restaurants and bars. Predictable indignation ensued among Ottawa smokers and restaurant proprietors, especially since their pleas for provision of separate, ventilated, air-filtered smoking rooms were summarily rejected. And now, adding insult to injury, chief medical health officer Robert Cushman, who lobbied heavily for the 100% ban, has proposed an exception: "smoking huts" for city bus drivers who cannot leave their employer's property. [continues 678 words]
A B.C. Hypnotist Helps Marijuana Smokers Break Their Dangerous Addiction For 35 years, hypnotist M. Vance Romane has used his soothing voice to help cure people of smoking, drinking and eating addictions. At a seminar of 40 people in Winnipeg this past spring, Mr. Romane took on another nasty habit, marijuana smoking. In attempting to help pot addicts, however, the 52-year-old White Rock, B.C., hypnotist also succeeded in stirring the pot in the decriminalization debate. Canada recently became the only country in the world to allow marijuana for medical purposes, but Prime Minister Jean Chretien has no intention of loosening the rules any further. That suits hypnotist Romane's customers. In the mid-'80s, he started getting about 10 people per year at his "stop smoking" seminars who wanted to quit marijuana. "Now we get 25 requests per year and it's still growing." The pot addicts tell the hypnotist the drug makes breathing more difficult, makes them more prone to illness, erodes their motivation and wrecks their short-term memory. Besides holding seminars, Mr. Romane is selling "stop-toking" CDs. [continues 319 words]
Re: "Letters to the editor," (April 30). The Lindesmith Center's program officer, Robert Sharpe, from Washington, D.C., no less, expressed his opinion that the DARE program is counterproductive. The recognized and acknowledged focus of the Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation is to liberalize drug laws (and as a consequence, drug use), and they spend a lot of money lobbying the American government towards that objective. One needs to be aware of the ulterior motives of those who purport to provide "neighbourly" advice. Ken Lane Canadian Communities Against Substance Abuse Victoria [end]
While substituting for a federal Marijuana Party candidate at an all-candidates' meeting in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam last fall, cannabis-products entrepreneur Marc Emery extolled the virtues of smoking pot and, according to two sources, urged everyone in the audience to toke up. While such declarations are to be expected from a man representing a party whose keystone platform is the decriminalization of marijuana, what was both unusual and highly controversial was the fact his audience was composed of high school students, some as young as 13. Today, Mr. Emery is the president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, which, like three dozen other minor parties, is attempting to make its mark in the May 16 B.C. election. [continues 422 words]
Quebec's Biker-Gang War Is Just One Part Of Ongoing International Criminal Consolidation The arrest of seven Hells Angels for the bludgeoning death of a Montreal- area bar owner last month was only the latest entry in the sordid diary of biker-gang violence infecting Quebec. The victim, bar owner Francis Laforest, joins a growing number of Quebeckers harmed or killed in the past few years by increasingly brazen and violent bikers. Authorities fear it is only a matter of time before similar drug-money mayhem spreads across the country. [continues 660 words]
B.C. addicts press for anti-discrimination protection even as the chief justice frets about equality Ask most any western Canadian politician and he will say that one of his constituents' most common complaints about modern jurisprudence is that " equality rights" are being extended to absurd ends. It is one thing to prohibit landlords from discriminating against Indo-Canadians, for example, but it is another matter entirely to prevent pub owners from keeping preoperative male-to-female transsexuals out of women's washrooms, as has been ruled in B.C. How far equality rights will eventually extend is a matter that perplexes even Canada's top jurist, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. But if a new B.C. case is any indication, the end may not be in sight. [continues 645 words]
A letter to the editor (April 2) makes the point that if the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program saves just one child it is worth continuing. What about all the children DARE harms? The scare tactics used are counterproductive. Students who realize they are being lied to about marijuana often make the mistake of assuming that harder drugs are relatively harmless as well. This is a recipe for disaster. Anti-drug education programs need to be reality-based or they may backfire when kids are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers. After almost two decades of DARE in the United States, heroin use among high school seniors has reached record levels. Minimizing drug use requires strategies based on proven effectiveness, not "feel-good" programs that please parents, educators and police. Robert Sharpe Program Officer The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation Washington, D.C. [end]
But Promised Changes To The Popular Anti-Drug Abuse Program Will Not Silence Its Critics As coach of his 11-year-old son's house-league hockey team, David Hoffman of Hornepayne, Ont., is used to hearing the odd bawdy comment in the locker room, even from players so young. What he was not prepared for, however, was a recent outburst of jokes, taunts and mock bragging all related to hard-drug use. "I was staggered," says the railway engineer and father of seven [continues 689 words]
When an anger management instructor in Hawaii killed one of his students, it raised eyebrows. When a domestic violence counsellor was convicted of attempting to kill his wife in Michigan, people were stunned. And this January, when it was revealed that a B.C. drug-prevention officer had died of a heroin overdose, the shock rippled far beyond the provincial borders. As a coordinator of the RCMP's drug-awareness program on Vancouver Island, Corporal Barry Schneider had led a crusade against drugs. His weapon was the Drug Resistance Education program (DARE). His friends and colleagues considered him a hero, a "good cop" who had made a tragic mistake, becoming a "a victim of the power of seduction of drugs." [continues 814 words]
