ROCHFORT BRIDGE, Alta. (CP) - His voice tight with grim self-control, Alberta's commanding RCMP officer groped for a way Thursday to describe a catastrophic drug raid that left four young officers lying dead in a quonset hut. "I'm told you have to go back to about 1885 in RCMP history and the Northwest Rebellion to have a loss of this magnitude," said assistant commissioner Bill Sweeney. "It's devastating. We're all in terrible shock and mourning." The peace of this gently rolling farm country near the hamlet of Rochfort Bridge in northwestern Alberta was shattered Thursday morning in the tragic culmination of an investigation into stolen property and a marijuana grow-op. [continues 1989 words]
TORONTO -- A marijuana protest turned nasty Saturday when at least two people were detained during scuffles with city police on a park lawn near the provincial legislature. The dustup started after police -- accompanied by municipal bylaw officers and parks officials -- shut down the Canabian Day festival, a pro-pot rally when Toronto organizers failed to produce the necessary permits and insurance. "The major issue is the fact that we couldn't get any insurance," said organizer Marko Ivancicevic. "Basically, the last two years we've tried to get the (event) insurance but they keep denying us because it is a marijuana-based event." [continues 449 words]
Saskatoon - One of Canada's best-known marijuana activists was sentenced Thursday to three months in jail after pleading guilty to trafficking when he passed a joint to a supporter last March. Marc Emery, president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was charged with trafficking after he spoke at a political rally at the University of Saskatchewan in March. Mr. Emery's lawyer said the sentence is too strict for simply passing one joint to one person. "I do have an issue with the length of the sentence," said Leanne Johnson. "Three months is a bit of overkill, perhaps, for passing one joint to one person." [continues 74 words]
OTTAWA (CP) -- Police with reasonable suspicions have the power to detain people temporarily but can't go on "fishing expeditions" in their pockets for evidence, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday. It was the first time the high court had examined an everyday police practice that many law officers and prosecutors take for granted. The decision upholds a ruling by a trial judge in Winnipeg, who acquitted Phillip Henry Mann of trafficking after police stopped him on the street in relation to a nearby break-and-enter and found almost an ounce of pot in his sweatshirt pouch. [continues 209 words]
VANCOUVER (CP) - A clinic providing free heroin to Vancouver addicts will be recruiting 158 people for a study to see if prescribing the drug can improve their lives. Jim Boothroyd, project spokesman for the North American Opiate Medication Initiative, or NAOMI project, said Wednesday the clinic also now has an official site on the Downtown Eastside. But Boothroyd said the project has a long way to go before the volunteers are recruited and the clinic opens its doors. City approval has been received, but the study still needs Health Canada's blessing. Government security standards must also be met. [continues 435 words]
OTTAWA (CP) - Health Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana available in pharmacies, a move that could rapidly boost the number of registered medical users. Officials are organizing a pilot project in British Columbia, modelled on a year-old program in the Netherlands, that would allow medical users to buy marijuana at their local drugstore. Currently, there are 78 medical users in Canada permitted to buy Health Canada marijuana, which is grown in Flin Flon, Man. The 30-gram bags of dried buds, sold for $150 each, now are sent by courier directly to patients or to their doctors. [continues 690 words]
EDMUNSTON, N.B. - Belinda Stronach says she's smoked pot, but still won't decriminalize it. The federal Conservative leadership candidate admitted to reporters in New Brunswick Sunday that she's smoked up before - back in her highschool days. But Stronach says she's against decriminalizing marijuana because there are too many unanswered questions about the drug. Stronach says she's concerned for public safety because it is still not known what smoking pot does to your health. She also says until there is a better way to test for the drug, especially if someone is driving high, then penalties for pot should not be reduced. Stronach stressed that Canadians must seriously consider what decriminalizing pot might do to economic relations with the U.S. She says Canadians need to ask themselves if they are prepared to be stopped and searched for drugs at the border more frequently. [end]
Ottawa -- A federal law that bans possession of small amounts of marijuana does not violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, says Canada's top court. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 6-3 Tuesday that a law imposing criminal penalties -- including potential jail time -- for possessing even tiny amounts of pot is constitutional. In a separate judgment, the court also upheld by 9-0 federal law prohibiting possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. A key question was whether Parliament has the constitutional right to punish marijuana possession, given the lack of proven serious harms from its use. Another was whether federal law violates the charter by imposing criminal penalties, including potential jail time, for possession of small amounts of pot. [continues 339 words]
For a while it looked like we were poised to become Amsterdam West: cafes with patrons openly enjoying joints alongside lattes, activists toking up outside police stations with impunity, and government plans to make marijuana available to the chronically ill. But while that pipedream has apparently gone up in smoke, the ongoing debate over the sweet leaf's place in Canadian society -- whether for medicine or for pleasure -- promises to grow more heated in the coming year. With the federal government courting decriminalization -- still a thorny issue among the ruling Liberals themselves -- Canadians have found reason to voice their opinions on the contentious topic. [continues 1291 words]
VICTORIA -- Veteran B.C. journalist Hubert Beyer has died. He was 68. Beyer suffered a heart attack last week at his home in Port Alberni and died Saturday at Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital. It was his second major heart attack. He had undergone quadruple-bypass surgery in 1990. Beyer started his journalism career 40 years ago in Winnipeg and joined the Victoria Daily Colonist in 1969. For the past 20 years, he had been writing a weekly column on provincial politics that was published in dozens of weekly newspapers across B.C. His is survived by his wife, Eleonore. [end]
OTTAWA (CP) - People seeking access to medical marijuana now need the recommendation of one medical specialist, not two, under revised rules announced Monday by Health Canada. Under the new rules, which take effect immediately, it is legal for designated growers to receive payment. Designated growers are authorized to grow marijuana at the request of a patient entitled to use it. However, it will remain illegal for a grower to supply more than one patient, and for more than three licensed growers to cultivate plants together. The revisions respond to an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in October that struck down several provisions of the existing law as unconstitutional. [end]
Akwesasne Mohawk Territory (CP) -- The chase is on as twin 150-horsepower engines split the late-night stillness in smugglers paradise. An RCMP zodiac takes off down the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall, Ont. Reaching 80 kilometres an hour, it skips over a frigid surface that glitters like cut glass. Two Mounties and a local police officer race without running lights to catch a boat as it speeds into the darkness. "Over there," shouts RCMP Sgt. Gilles Tougas above the roar. He points north toward a swath of the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. [continues 940 words]
MONTREAL (CP) - Canada and other members of the Organization of American States must reject the trend to legalize drugs in order to better fight drug abuse, trafficking and organized crime, Mexico's attorney general warned Monday. But Canada's Solicitor General Wayne Easter insisted the federal government's plans to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana aren't contrary to Canada's participation in an international drug abuse control commission meeting this week in Montreal. Easter was responding to an opening address by Rafael Macedo de la Concha, Mexico's attorney general and outgoing chairman of the OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission. [continues 290 words]
OTTAWA (CP) - Justice Minister Martin Cauchon says he believes there's still time to pass his controversial bill to decriminalize marijuana. Cauchon acknowledged time is tight, but downplayed reports that Parliament will prorogue next week, killing the bill. "People expect that the House will close next week. We don't know yet about that so I'm working on a daily basis in order to make sure that we're going to go as fast as we can." The legislation would reduce the punishment for simple possession of pot to a fine rather than a criminal record, while boosting penalties for growers. Cauchon's comments came as British lawmakers voted to downgrade marijuana's status in their country. The reclassification places pot on par with steroids, rather than hard drugs. [end]
SAINT JOHN, N.B. (CP) - The owners of a Saint John cafe where patrons are encouraged to smoke pot and sip coffee are now offering over-the-counter sales of medicinal marijuana. Jim and Lynn Wood, founders of the Cannabis Cafe, announced Tuesday they have decided to sell high-grade marijuana from their store to people who need pot to ease their pain. "This will be Canada's first over-the-counter cannabis cafe," said Jim Wood. "Bascially, we're just trying to help people." [continues 503 words]
OTTAWA - The Health Canada marijuana that's getting bad reviews from some patients was not tested by users and could be improved, says the grower. "The individuals who tried this product are the first humans ever to use it," Brent Zettl of Saskatoon's Prairie Plant Systems said Thursday. "This is a very early-stage product. . . . We haven't hit the mark yet on this medicine." Zettl, whose company grows government marijuana on contract in Flin Flon, Man., was responding to complaints this week from patients who called the dope weak, disgusting and not fit for human consumption. [continues 527 words]
VANCOUVER (CP) - A B.C. provincial court decriminalized possession of marijuana Monday. In a ruling, the court said "there is no offence known to law at this time for simple possession of marijuana." The decision follows similar rulings in Ontario, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia. It relies on an July 2000 decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal in which the judge declared the law prohibiting simple possession to be constitutionally invalid because it did not have an exemption for medical use. [continues 92 words]
OTTAWA (CP) - Some of the first patients to smoke Health Canada's government-approved marijuana say it's "disgusting" and want their money back. "It's totally unsuitable for human consumption," said Jim Wakeford, 58, an AIDS patient in Gibsons, B.C. "It gave me a slight buzziness for about three to five minutes, and that was it. I got no other effect from it." Barrie Dalley, a 52-year-old Toronto man who uses marijuana to combat the nausea associated with AIDS, said the Health Canada dope actually made him sick to his stomach. [continues 1309 words]
SEATTLE (AP) - While police are aggressive about arresting people for drug crimes north of the border, Canada's court system treats marijuana and methamphetamine producers too leniently, the U.S. drug czar said Thursday. "What Canadian officials tell us is that they have laws on the books that could be used here, but that the Canadian system has developed the practice of not sentencing people to anything approaching serious time unless they commit a violent crime," John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy told The Associated Press. "So you can set up grows, you can ship drugs, you can be caught, and very little happens to you." [continues 724 words]
TORONTO -(CP)- An HIV-infected man who has been legally approved by Health Canada to smoke medicinal marijuana expressed relief Tuesday as he headed to his doctor to pick up the pot. "This is very important, I've been working for it for some time," said Jari Dvorak, who received a call on Monday saying the government-grown weed was ready. Dvorak, who says marijuana helps him combat nausea, is one of about 500 Canadians who have been legally approved to use the drug. [continues 197 words]
