[Re: Riff-Raff, July 12] Regarding the rant entitled "Oh, Cannaba!" (Oh, gawd, can't we have just one article about marijuana that isn't headlined by a pot-pun? Please?), would someone please explain the author's point? I cannot find a coherent thread running through this piece that constitutes a point, vague or otherwise, except, perhaps for the obligatory Netherlands bashing, which signals this as an anti-pot piece. Clue: Coffee shops began in 1975, and not earlier. ERIC JOHNSON [end]
[Re: "Oh Cannaba!" by Raf Katigbak, Riff-Raff, July 12] Writing under the pen name Janey Canuck in the early 1900s, an Edmonton woman, by the name of Emily Murphy, first warned Canadians about the dread reefer and its association with dark-skinned minorities. The sensationalist yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst led to marijuana's criminalization in the United States. At the time, marijuana use in North America was limited to Mexican immigrants and black jazz-musicians. Whites did not even begin to smoke marijuana until after it was prohibited. Almost 100 years later, Canada leads the industrialized world in cannabis consumption. Prohibition has been counterproductive at best. [continues 169 words]
Dollard des Ormeaux "just has too many teenagers" loitering and hanging around parks, shopping centres and other establishments, Dollard mayor Ed Janiszewski said in light of a change in a peace and quiet bylaw its council passed last week. The change to the city's peace-and-quiet bylaw saw the word 'loitering' added to the law's wording regarding prohibited activities in Dollard des Ormeaux, as well as banning the smoking of any substances other than tobacco in public. The change will allow public-security agents to cite offenders and hold them until police arrive, Janiszewski added. [continues 159 words]
Re: "Canada scores high on herb " (Gazette, July 10). Bravo, Canada! In the perpetual friendly combat between our countries to be No. 1 on this or that social issue, it appears for the moment that you've bested us with your, um, higher rates of cannabis consumption. It's probably reasonable to conclude cannabis-use levels are likely very similar across North America. But here in the U.S., a wide range of criminal and social sanctions can be levied against any adult who publicly acknowledges a preference for marijuana over martinis. So it's also reasonable to conclude Americans will under-report their true use of the bud. [continues 76 words]
Re: "Getting high: Quebecers push Canada to top of the list" (Gazette, July 15). If Canadians are smoking so much more pot than, say, the Brits, and our pot is more potent than just about everyone else's, why are Canadian emergency rooms not overflowing with schizophrenics? Maybe because the link between pot and schizophrenia is exaggerated. Correlation is not causation; coffee drinkers are about as likely to develop schizophrenia as pot smokers. Russell Barth Ottawa [end]
Four years ago, then-prime-minister Jean Chretien brought in a bill to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Unfortunately, that bill never became law, though many Canadians believe its outlines guide current policing. But that's not so. In fact, Canadian marijuana law is a shambles, with uneven enforcement and inconsistencies at every stage. Perhaps that's one reason why marijuana use is so great in this country - a new United Nations study says Canadians use marijuana at four times the world average, the highest rate in the industrialized world. [continues 420 words]
Province Alone Could Place First in UN Study Were it not for prodigious pot use in Quebec, Canada would not have placed first in a United Nations drug study of marijuana use in the industrialized world. In fact, were Quebec a sovereign nation, it would have finished first ahead of Canada, according to a breakdown of data supplied by Canada for the study. The biggest difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada is seen in the youngest age groups. According to the Health Canada 2002 Youth Smoking Survey, which looked at marijuana as well as tobacco, 32 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 9 in Quebec have smoked marijuana at least once. [continues 689 words]
MONTREAL -- Were it not for prodigious pot use in Quebec, Canada would not have placed first in a United Nations drug study of marijuana use in the industrialized world. In fact, were Quebec a sovereign nation, it would have finished first ahead of Canada, according to a breakdown of the data supplied by Canada for the UN study. The biggest difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada is among the young. According to the Health Canada's 2002 Youth Smoking Survey, which looked at marijuana as well as tobacco, 32 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 9 in Quebec have smoked marijuana at least once. That compares with 18 per cent in B.C., which ranked second in Canada, and 11 per cent in Ontario, which was ranked lowest among provinces and territories. The 2007 World Drug Report made headlines last week when it was revealed that Canada topped the list of industrialized nations for marijuana use. [end]
One arrest, more expected. Police seize 4,500 marijuana plants worth estimated $4.5 million JASON MAGDER The Gazette You can't see the small building from the street, but Laval police say it housed one of the largest marijuana growing operations in the city's history. Laval police raided the building on Dagenais Blvd. W., behind a trucking company, in the city's Fabreville district Thursday afternoon. They seized 4,500 marijuana plants, most of which appeared to have fully matured. [continues 339 words]
Well hip-hip hooray! According to a recent UN report, Canada has more weed smokers as a percentage of their population than any other industrialized nation. And yes, that includes the Netherlands, where they pretty much invented pot and where you need a degree in architecture and a minor in structural design to roll their overly complex joints. Personally, I don't get it. As someone who never smoked a joint before eight months ago (wait, does opium count?), I am certainly no expert on weed-smoking by any stretch. In fact, I've only smoked weed three times in my life. I'm not sure why, really. Maybe it's because even though I was a nerd, I found the whole weed culture even nerdier. I mean, bongs? C'mon dude, I want to get high, not suck on some weird science experiment that looks like a penis enlarger filled with ass water. [continues 564 words]
Substance Abuse Soaring Among Soldiers MONTREAL -- The number of Canadian soldiers battling drug and alcohol problems has more than doubled since Canada became involved in the war on terrorism in 2001. From 2001 to 2006, the number of soldiers assessed as requiring treatment soared 125%, according to access to information documents obtained by Sun Media. The number of military personnel evaluated for addiction by a medical officer or a drug counsellor went to 660 from 293 over that period. The Department of National Defence says it can't make any link between the Canadian mission and the staggering increase, but it can't deny there is one either. [continues 330 words]
Marc-Boris St. Maurice has been arrested so many times for marijuana possession that he serves as a one-man clinical study in the fate reserved for those caught with small amounts of pot. The study's theme would be inconsistency. The Montreal pot activist has been arrested about seven times and on a handful of other occasions he's been left alone by police without so much as a slap on the wrist. His mishmash of experiences with authority offers a glimpse into a law whose application appears at best erratic, and at worst improvised and arbitrary. [continues 530 words]
MONTREAL (CP) - Marc-Boris St-Maurice has been arrested so many times for marijuana possession that he serves as a one-man clinical study in the fate reserved for those caught with small amounts of pot. The study's theme would be inconsistency. The Montreal pot activist has been arrested about seven times and on a handful of other occasions he's been left alone by police without so much as a slap on the wrist. His mishmash of experiences with authority offers a glimpse into a law whose application appears at best erratic, and at worst improvised and arbitrary. [continues 1410 words]
Summer is unmistakably the growing season, whether your green thumb is producing a legal crop or an illegal one. But farmers finding their fields hijacked by marijuana growers may have a little extra help in dealing with the problem. In Brome-Missisquoi and in Coaticook, farmers can sign a "social contract" with the Surete du Quebec . The contract gives police permission to venture onto the land at any time in search of outlaw plantations. Otherwise police can't check a property without probable cause, or permission from the landowner. [continues 733 words]
Online Searches Are New, And Problematic, Tools For Border Guards There is nothing more perilous at a border crossing than a Google-happy border guard. Over the past year, two Canadians reported they were denied entry into the U.S. after a border guard Googled their names and decided, based on the search results, that they were undesirables. Substances and abuse Andrew Feldmar, a B.C. psychotherapist, was prevented from crossing to the U.S. when a border guard Googled his name and hit upon an article he'd written that described an Aldous-Huxley-like experiment involving hallucinogens he took 40 years ago. [continues 690 words]
GATINEAU, QUE. -- A Quebec man on the lam from a Mexican jail has lost his last bid to stay in Canada using this country's justice system. Regent Boily, 62, will now turn to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights' Committee Against Torture. Lawyer Christian Deslauriers says sending Boily back to Mexico is sending him to torture. Deslauriers is asking the UN body to order Canada to keep Boily in the country. Boily escaped a Mexican prison in March 1999 after serving one year of a 14-year sentence after being busted there with half a tonne of marijuana in the trunk of a car. During Boily's escape, one of his accomplices shot and killed a prison guard. Boily was arrested on an Interpol arrest warrant in 2005 after he had been living in the open for six years. He's been in custody in Gatineau ever since. [end]
A Quebec man on the lam from a Mexican jail has lost his last bid to stay in Canada using our justice system. Regent Boily, 62, will now turn to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights' Committee Against Torture, says his lawyer Christian Deslauriers. "Sending him back to Mexico is sending him to torture" said Deslauriers, who has asked the UN body's Special Rapporteur on torture to order Canada to keep Boily in the country. Boily escaped a Mexican prison in March 1999 after serving one year of a 14-year sentence after being busted there with half a tonne of pot in the trunk of a car. [continues 140 words]
Laval Police Launch Projet Cyclope To Counter Prostitution, Drugs In an effort to counter the growing phenomenon of prostitution and drug dealing in Chomedey South, the Laval police have launched a program that has proven quite successful in Montreal and Gatineau. The Cyclope Program aims at countering prostitution solicitation and harassment, which is quite bothersome to residents living in the area delimited by Cure-Labelle, Perron, 75th Avenue and 80th Avenue in Chomedey. Inspector Michel Pare says the police force became concerned with the growing prostitution and drug problem in the area. "Many citizens had signaled their discomfort towards the prostitution and drugs that has existed in the area for more than 10 years, but which has amplified over the past few years," he said. "We then looked at ways to resolve this growing problem." [continues 562 words]
A young police officer of the Haut-Saint-Laurent detachment of the Surete du Quebec has been recognized for two years of dedicated service as the coordinator of the Programme Cisaille, which targets marijuana production and trafficking each summer in the area. Officer Patrick Leclerc received an award of recognition in the category of "personal engagement" from Christian Chalin, the commander-in-chief of the Monteregie district, in the presence of several of his colleagues and regional leaders of the police force. The ceremony was held on Wednesday, May 16 at the Plaza Hotel in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. [continues 603 words]
Two Kilograms Allegedly Found In Car A Gatineau police officer has been charged with drug-related offences after more than two kilograms of cocaine was found in the car he was in late Wednesday. Peter Vranas, 41, remained calm as he was remanded yesterday. The 20-year veteran of the force will remain behind bars until his bail hearing, which is scheduled for Tuesday at the Gatineau courthouse. Also charged is Claude Dorion Jr., 31, of Gatineau, who is Mr. Vranas's brother-in-law. [continues 545 words]
Inside Quebec
