With a mandate to prevent infectious disease, Canada HIV/AIDS Legal Network launched a report last week weighing heavily on offering a needle exchange program to offenders incarcerated in Canadian prisons. The irony of the report is that as it tries to convince the reader to side with the arguments for the needle exchange program it shames the effectiveness of our penal system. The report offers testimonials from offenders hooked on drugs before going to prison and their stories of how they found access to drugs and continued to use drugs while incarcerated but their words lacked evidence towards the effectiveness of public needle exchange programs and how they contributed, if at all, to their rehabilitation after being released from prison. [continues 266 words]
To the editor, I believe Bill C-15 is designed specifically to increase crime. It is designed to manufacture more criminals so that the new multi-billion dollar for-profit prison industry. Also, by scaring off the small time pot growers with threats of mandatory jail time, the government is handing more of the business to the gangsters who are not afraid of anything. This will result in more wealth for them, which means more violent competition. Future governments will use this inevitable increase in crime to justify the increased budgets and powers of police, the building of a dozen more jails, and the further erosion of our collective civil rights and liberties. It also helps them pander to their myopic and misinformed voter base, and paints anyone sensible as soft on crime. [continues 258 words]
Dear Editor, Michael J Dee wrote, "The Prince of Pot is going to prison in the United States for selling seeds." I must strongly disagree. Yes, Marc Emery sold cannabis seeds to willing customers. He also paid taxes of over $580,000 to the federal and provincial governments, from 1999 to 2005, on those seeds. However, Marc Emery, if extradited, will not be going to prison in the United States because he sold seeds. There are many cannabis seed sellers, in Canada and the United States, who won't be going to jail. [continues 193 words]
To the editor, The Prince of Pot is going to prison in the United States for selling seeds. Did the seeds in the mail pose a threat to public safety? Hell no. Marc Emery is going to jail because marijuana is not a fundamental right. Lawyers and judges do not recognize marijuana as property. Never mind that the right to acquire property is a fundamental right. Never mind that Mr. Emery is being deprived of his liberty, a legitimate fundamental right. [continues 194 words]
Dear Editor. Implementing the recently proposed changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act will be devastating for chronically and critically ill Canadians. The Justice Department website reveals that Bill C-15, if passed as written, would send anyone convicted of cultivating as little as one cannabis plant to jail automatically for six months. This government already leaves hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients out on a limb. Health Canada's unconstitutional Medical Marijuana Access program provides legal protection to only 2,812 of the approximately 400,000 Canadians requiring medicinal cannabis (Canadian Medical Association Journal; May 15, 2001). [continues 180 words]
CUMBERLAND COUNTY: Canadian law has changed to catch motorists suspected of being one toke over the line. High drivers won't be able to refuse roadside drug tests under new laws that kicked in last week. Police can now require drivers to submit to roadside tests and have the power to take suspected drug-impaired drivers to a police station or hospital to give a blood, urine or saliva sample. Refusing the test will be considered a criminal offence. Drivers convicted of drug-impaired driving face a minimum $1,000 fine for a first offence and a month in jail for a second conviction. [end]
