Colorado is raking in the taxes from its recreational marijuana industry, meanwhile Canada spends millions criminalizing it The Canadian government's marijuana rules make me dizzy. Take last week in Caledon, for instance. On Wednesday, it emerged that we are about to get our first regulated medical marijuana clinic. The next day, Caledon OPP sent out a press release announcing it had arrested and charged a 17-year-old with possession for the purpose of trafficking of a schedule II substance =C2=85 that's pot, for anyone who doesn't speak cop. [continues 476 words]
Agency says its guidelines were reviewed after entire busload was involved in 'nightmare' incident OTTAWA- A busload of American college and university students was strip-searched by Canadian border guards three years ago in an incident that violated government policy and may have contravened the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, documents show. According to an internal Canadian Border Services Agency report obtained by Metroland Media and the Star, the mass strip search was carried out at the Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing in Lansdowne, Ont., on Dec. 31, 2011. [continues 900 words]
Justice of the peace was 'misled' by Peel drugs and gangs officer Using uncommonly frank language, a Superior Court judge said a Peel police officer "misled" a justice of the peace in order to obtain a search warrant for a marijuana grow-op, then "lied" about his investigation on the stand afterward. "I cannot accept Officer (Aamer) Merchant's evidence," Justice Gordon Lemon wrote in a ruling last month. "He misled the justice of the peace. . . . Officer Merchant lied to the court." [continues 755 words]
The federal Health Minister is warning Vancouver's mayor not to regulate the city's illegal medical marijuana dispensaries, which she says would encourage drug use and increase addiction. Health Minister Rona Ambrose made her remarks in a strongly worded letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson on Thursday, one day after the city announced details of a proposed licensing system for marijuana-related businesses. The city says its proposal is a public-safety response to the rapid growth of such businesses, from 20 in 2012 to 80 today. [continues 544 words]
Health Minister Rona Ambrose sends letter to mayor, warning dispensaries are illegal The federal government drew battle lines with the City of Vancouver Thursday over the city's plans to regulate marijuana dispensaries, saying they are dangerously close to legitimizing an illegal substance. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government said municipal governments have no authority to regulate and license businesses that sell pot. "I am deeply concerned by reports that the City of Vancouver intends to discuss a proposal to regulate illegal drug dispensaries at an upcoming council meeting," Health Minister Rona Ambrose told Mayor Gregor Robertson in a letter. [continues 861 words]
Many of city's pot-related businesses may be forced to close, relocate Sixty per cent of Vancouver's marijuana businesses violate city hall's proposed rules that they not be within 300 metres of each other, and more than a third are too close to a school or community centre, an analysis by The Sun shows. The proposed rules could eliminate 25 per cent of Vancouver's 80 marijuana-related businesses, the city predicts, and will not grandfather in existing shops. [continues 589 words]
Zero shades of grey: Ottawa is unequivocal in its stance on marijuana A generation after Canada's first medical cannabis dispensary opened in Vancouver in 1997, city council and police are scrambling to regulate the business as if taken by surprise. City manager Penny Ballem says Ottawa has created "greyness and confusion," sounding incredulous that there is a pot precinct downtown and more cannabis cafes on corners than Tim Hortons. Where has she been? The federal government has never been clearer about the demonized weed and has used the plant to draw a hard line for the fall election between it and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. [continues 723 words]