Video Surveillance to Be Extended to St. Laurent Blvd.

Robot Cam is headed for the Main.

A three-year-old Montreal police pilot project using surveillance cameras on St. Denis St. to discourage crime is to spread to St. Laurent Blvd. this year, city councillor Claude Dauphin confirmed yesterday.

The cameras, dubbed Robot Cam when they were first set up on St. Denis in 2004, were to be installed on St. Laurent last year but major work on the artery caused a delay, he said.

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Prosecution Was Country's First. Trial Was Test of Law's New Definition of 'Criminal Organization'

Five drug traffickers who held a street in Montreal North "hostage" while their gang dealt crack on sidewalks and out of a high school parking lot have been convicted of gangsterism in a case described as a first in Canada.

Rendering his verdict yesterday after the three-month trial, Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Bonin said he could summarize the case this way: "A band of criminals literally took hostage a part of Pelletier (Ave.) between Henri Bourassa Blvd. and d'Amos St. In that area the group took control of drug trafficking, in particular crack, partly by using violence and threats to exclude all other groups."

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Verdict Against Small-Time Thugs Lowers Bar for Organized-Crime Charge, Lawyer Says

MONTREAL -- Convicted street-gang members could face tougher sentences in the wake of a landmark trial in Montreal where, for the first time, a judge has recognized a small local street gang as a criminal organization.

Prosecutors said that yesterday's verdict by Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Bonin against the Pelletier Street Gang effectively lowers the bar they have to meet to prove someone belongs to a criminal organization, under the so-called gangsterism charge.

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5 Convicted in Canadian First: Drug Traffickers Hijacked Montreal Neighbourhood

MONTREAL - Five drug traffickers who held a street in Montreal hostage while their gang dealt crack cocaine on sidewalks and out of a high school parking lot have been convicted of gangsterism in a case described as a first in Canada.

Bernard Mathieu, 35, his two top lieutenants and two other men were convicted of at least four charges each in a trial heard at the special courthouse built years ago to handle the Hells Angels megatrials.

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In a case believed to be the first of its kind in Canada because it targeted a street gang, five drug traffickers who controlled a street in Montreal North were convicted of gangsterism.

Bernard Mathieu, 35, his two top lieutenants and two other men were convicted of at least four charges each in a trial heard at the special courthouse on Gouin Blvd., built years ago to handle the Hells Angels megatrials.

But in delivering his verdict on Wednesday, Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Bonin said there wasn't enough evidence to convict five other men who were also charged with gangsterism, or committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization.

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The federal government will be working to tackle crime issues in several Mohawk communities in Quebec, after recent allegations of spending issues with policing.

Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, today announced a total of $356,550 in funding to support two crime prevention community-based projects, one for the community of Wendake and the other for First Nation communities in Quebec.

"Canada's New Government is providing support to Quebec's youth at risk and helping to prevent them from committing crimes or joining gangs," said Minister Day. "These projects will support Quebec's Aboriginal communities, such as Wendake, and encourage Aboriginal youth to make positive and healthy life choices," he added.

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CIA, Canadian Government Funded Cold War Era Experiments

MONTREAL (CUP) -- Five decades after a McGill University researcher subjected her to massive electroshocks and experimental drugs, and forced her to listen to hours of recorded messages, a Montreal woman is seeking compensation from the Canadian government.

Janine Huard was one of hundreds of people Dr. Ewen Cameron experimented on without their knowledge in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Last week, her lawyers argued before a federal court judge that she should be allowed to file a class-action lawsuit against the government of Canada, who funded the experiments jointly with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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Canadian Government's Cold War Experiments Involved Electroshocks, Drugs

MONTREAL (CUP)--Five decades after a McGill University researcher subjected a Montreal woman to massive electroshocks and experimental drugs, and forced her to listen to hours of recorded messages, she is seeking compensation from the Canadian government.

Janine Huard was one of hundreds of people Dr Ewen Cameron experimented on without their knowledge in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Last week, her lawyers argued before a federal court judge that she should be allowed to file a class-action lawsuit against the government of Canada, who funded the experiments jointly with the United States' Central Intelligence Agency.

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Day Announces Funding Renewal. Montreal-Based Organization Will Use Some Of It To Conduct Study On Street Gangs

A Montreal-based international crime prevention organization has been given $400,000 in financial aid from the federal government in part to conduct a study on street gangs.

"Our government recognizes that one of the best ways to prevent crime is to study the phenomenon and share our expertise in the domain," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said during a news conference yesterday to announce the funding renewal.

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Regarding Russell Barth's letter, "Prohibition's gotta go," [Jan. 4]: As far as cannabis (kaneh bosm/marijuana) is concerned in the war on drugs, it's an eye opener when [political leaders] are "blinded by religious or quasi-moralistic ideologies," since Christ God Our Father indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good on literally the very first page of the Bible. (See Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30.) It is Luciferous to cage humans for using or growing the God-given plant.

Stan White, Dillon, Colorado

[end]

Allan Memorial Patient In Court To Seek Class Action

As a young child, Martine Huard could never understand why her mother spent so many hours in bed - or why she rarely played with her.

For years during the 1960s, Janine Huard was severely depressed and unable to cook or care for her four children.

Years of undergoing electroshock treatment and other brainwashing techniques at Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute in the 1950s had left her mentally ill and emotionally unstable.

She suffered memory loss and migraines, and struggled with depression for years.

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Ewen Cameron, the man behind the brainwashing experiments, was a Scottish-born psychiatrist who worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill's Allan Memorial Institute.

From 1950 to 1965 he subjected hundreds of patients at the Allan Memorial to unorthodox treatment involving LSD, huge doses of electroshock, drug-induced comas and tapes that they sometimes listened to for weeks at time. One woman received the treatment through most of her pregnancy.

Funding came from the Canadian government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as part of a project called MK-ULTRA. In that Cold War era, the spy agency thought these techniques might be useful against the Soviet Union - perhaps LSD could be used as a truth serum, brainwashing drug or incapacitating agent, given to prisoners or foreign leaders like Cuba's Fidel Castro.

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A Holocaust denier is someone who refuses to admit that the Nazis killed six million people, despite solid, indisputable and overwhelming evidence to prove that it did, in fact, happen. The notion is regarded to be about as sensible as asserting that the Earth is flat.

When it comes to the topic of drug prohibition vs. regulation, this so-called "Conservative" government is literally no better than Holocaust deniers!

The Tories, police, churches, and anyone else who supports drug prohibition, are refusing to admit to the solid, indisputable truth: Like alcohol prohibition in the last century, drug prohibition is a colossal failure. It subsidizes gangsters, costs a fortune, increases danger and gets bigger the more we fight it. Prohibition is ruining society, but they still insist that it must not only continue, but increase.

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A growing body of research that indicates many alcoholics and drug addicts also suffer from the after-effects of trauma is leading some Quebec treatment centres to alter their approach.

One goal of the change is to prevent clients from dropping out.

If trauma syndromes go undetected, "an awful lot of these people will not last more than a few weeks in treatment," said David Ross, co-ordinator of professional services at the Foster Pavilion, an English-language addiction-treatment agency that treats about 1,200 Quebecers annually.

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Coroner Catherine Rudel-Tessier confirmed what everybody already knew.

The coroner's report released last week on Stevie Reilly's death confirmed what has already been said: the 13-year-old Rigaud girl died on Feb. 6 of this year, two days after taking too much of the amphetamine MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. According to the report, Reilly overdosed on the drug after her 16-year-old supplier gave her an additional half a pill when the first one did not produce any effects.

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Re: Medicinal 'Weed' Helps the Ill: Doctor (the Suburban, Dec. 13).

Mark Ware is a quack. Marijuana is great medicine, but the bunk-weed that Dr. Ware is using is barely even marijuana!

The research Ware is conducting uses the PPS marijuana grown in Flin-Flon.

This pot has been widely criticized as being weak and possibly contaminated. It has been zapped with gamma-irradiation, which kills a lot of the active ingredients.

So technically, Dr. Ware isn't doing research with real marijuana -- he is doing research with contaminated, weakened and treated half-weed, which will completely skew any scientific results. Any scientist worth his reputation would realize that this research is a joke and scientifically worthless!

Russell Barth

Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder

Ottawa

[end]

I'm writing about Lucille Hagege's story: Medicinal 'weed' helps the ill: doctor (The Suburban, Dec. 13). I agree that the medicinal 'weed' helps the ill. And the recreational 'weed' also helps people relax, enjoy food and sex more.

So why do adult citizens of a so-called free country need permission from their government to do so? And why does a so-called sovereign nation need permission from its neighbouring country to allow its adult citizens to buy, sell, produce or use this medicinal and recreational 'weed'?

Kirk Muse

Mesa, AZ

[end]

When Sally headed down the road of drug addiction, she ended up in a very dark place.

She contracted HIV at age 37 and believed she "would be dead in a year."

That was 13 years ago. Sally has been off drugs for three months and is able to talk about her life with raw honesty.

Sally is among the thousands of people who are to receive $125 cheques from The Gazette Christmas Fund this year.

The money helps make the holiday season a little more cheerful for needy families and individuals.

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On December 8th , 2006, officers from the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service arrested an Akwesasne, Quebec resident at his home during the execution of a search warrant. Officers seized a large quantity of marihauna and proceeds of crime.

The arrest and seizures were the result of an investigation conducted by the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service Joint Investigative Team and the Central St. Lawrence Valley Integrated Criminal Intelligence Section involving the movement of the illegal substance and cash onto the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory.

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One day, when he was in a Jamaican hospital doing graduate research on chronic pain, Dr. Mark Ware noticed that some of his patients were coping with their pain much more easily than others.

Intrigued, he asked an old Rastafarian his secret.

"It's the herb, Doc," replied the man.

That's when the doctor found his vocation.

Ware is now a leading authority on the medical uses of cannabis and works at the McGill University Health Centre Pain Clinic.

But in order for his medical research to continue, he says the public and the media need to stop confusing the therapeutic use of cannabis with recreational use.

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