The legalization of marijuana promises to provide governments with a tidy little windfall. That's the dirty secret the country's finance ministers didn't want to talk about when they were cutting up the cash this week. But it's true. To hear the provinces talk, you'd think legalized cannabis would be nothing but a drain on their revenues. They complain that the legal pot regime will be more costly to police than the current illegal one - - without exactly explaining why. [continues 605 words]
Court Trashes Harper Laws In decisions released last week, Canada's Supreme Court has accomplished two things. First, it has cocked a snook - again - at the law-and-order agenda of Stephen Harper's previous Conservative government. Second, it has significantly expanded the number of Canadians eligible for full aboriginal status under the Constitution. On Friday, the court unanimously swept aside provisions of the former Conservative government's Truth in Sentencing Act that limited a judge's ability to give credit for time served in pretrial detention. [continues 618 words]
In decisions released last week, Canada's Supreme Court has accomplished two things. First, it has cocked a snook - again - at the law-and-order agenda of Stephen Harper's previous Conservative government. Second, it has significantly expanded the number of Canadians eligible for full aboriginal status under the Constitution. On Friday, the court unanimously swept aside provisions of the former Conservative government's Truth in Sentencing Act that limited a judge's ability to give credit for time served in pretrial detention. [continues 619 words]
Justin Trudeau's pot gambit is a calculated and rather clever move. The Liberal leader's revelation that he smoked dope as a sitting MP earned him an expected scolding from the governing Conservatives. But that, surely, was Trudeau's aim. The unexpected decision to highlight marijuana laws is also eerily similar to a strategy that allowed Trudeau's father, Pierre, to be Canada's prime minister for 15 years. In his attempt to outpace Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau has little manoeuvring room. On the economy, the Liberal leader's position differs little from that of Harper. Like the prime minister, Trudeau sees pipelines, resource development and free trade as the keys to Canada's future. [continues 541 words]
Thank goodness for common sense. Stephen Harper's Conservative government is finally privatizing marijuana production. Cannabis entrepreneurs have long been irked by unfair government competition. How are private-sector dealers supposed to operate in the marketplace if their customers have access to what federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq justly calls taxpayer-subsidized weed? Aglukkaq's surprise announcement on Sunday claims the privatization move will affect only the 26,000 people in Canada who use marijuana for so-called medical purposes. But astute Harper watchers will recognize that, once again, this far-sighted prime minister has identified a booming new Canadian resource industry that - in time - could rival the oilsands. [continues 520 words]
Thank goodness for common sense. Stephen Harper's Conservative government is finally privatizing marijuana production. Cannabis entrepreneurs have long been irked by unfair government competition. How are private-sector dealers supposed to operate in the marketplace if their customers have access to what federal health Minister Leona Aglukkaq justly calls taxpayer subsidized weed? Aglukkaq's surprise announcement on Sunday claims the privatization move will affect only the 26,000 people in Canada who use marijuana for so-called medical purposes. But astute Harper watchers will recognize that, once again, this far-sighted prime minister has identified a booming new Canadian resource industry that - in time - could rival the oilsands. [continues 520 words]
It's hard to know what to make of Health Minister George Smitherman's front-page revelations that he was once addicted to unspecified illegal drugs. At one level, this is a so-what story. To the general public, what Smitherman does now as health minister is considerably more important than the fact that he once snorted coke -- or whatever it was he used to ingest. It would be more impressive if, for instance, the health minister put his efforts toward solving the crisis in long-term care homes, which are still desperately short of cash and staff. [continues 643 words]
When he refused to join President George W. Bush's illegal war against Iraq, Prime Minister Jean Chretien did this nation proud. But since then, Chretien and his government have been falling over themselves to convince the Bushites they didn't mean it -- in a manner so fawningly obsequious that it is hard to be anything other than desperately embarrassed. Chretien began the process by pronouncing that the Bush war (illegal under the United Nations charter) was justified -- a curious position that undercut his own decision not to join in. [continues 748 words]
A SCANDAL IS brewing in Ottawa, a scandal far more important than the question of how a sex-crazed U.S. president handled his videotaped grand jury testimony. The Ottawa scandal, unrolling in an obscure Sparks St. hearing room before a public service grievance tribunal, involves government stonewalling, allegations of cover-up and an all-too-cozy relationship between the powerful multinational drug industry and those federal officials who purport to regulate it. If the complainants at that hearing - six scientists employed by the federal Health Protection Branch - are correct, it is a scandal which puts the health of all Canadians at risk. [continues 682 words]
MARIJUANA GROWERS even have their own lobbyist, in the forrn of transplanted Ontario libertarian Marc Emery. He is the man Vancouver dopers love and the RCMP loves to hate. Constable Vince Arsenault, of the Surrey drug squad, refers to Emery as part of the "dark side" - pro-pot forces that constantly agitate in the media to have marijuana legalized. Indeed, the former London, Ont., bookseller has long been crusading against the state. A one-time candidate for the right-wing Freedom Party of Ontario, Emery made a point of flouting Sunday shopping laws in the late '80s and anti-obscenity laws in the early '90s. In 1991, he was convicted for selling obscene, anti-women rap music tapes. The same year. he openly sold what is called illegal drug literature - magazines and comic books that promoted pot smoking. [continues 460 words]
Home-grown, highly potent marijuana is now as economically important to the province as logging WALK DOWN the creaking stairs into the basement of the man who calls himself Ken Black and there it is, the wave of the future, the saviour of the creaky British Columbian economy, the newest Canadian export success story. Dope. Also known as grass. A.k.a pot. Real name, marijuana. Green gold. B.C. marijuana plantations are no longer just isolated plots located deep in the province's interior. [continues 1610 words]
BRITISH Columbia marijuana is prized through-out the world because of its potency. Run-of-the-mill marijuana contains only 2 to 3 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active mood-altering ingredient. B.C. pot is stronger. Some hauls seized by the RCMP have contained as much as 15 per cent THC. Two years ago, marijuana from Surrey, B.C., won an intemational pot award, according to RCMP Constable Vince Arsenault. But is high-potency dope more dangerous to the health? [continues 228 words]
