ALMAGUIN - Righting a possession charge in the Almaguin region takes a little more effort than the rest of the province. While sitting down with the Almaguin Highlands Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Staff Sergeant Stacey Whaley recently, theNews asked why the names were included alongside corresponding possession charges. "It's public information," the News was told. "We want you to publish the names because we want it to sting a little more than a $500 fine." "It's public shaming used in the middle-ages," Joseph Neuberger, a defence lawyer at Neuberger and Partners LLP in Toronto and frequent cottager in Magnetawan had to say after hearing our local staff sergeant's response. "It's hardly appropriate and in fact counter-productive to people who are integrated into society and doing well." [continues 788 words]
A lot the focus these past few weeks in the pages of the Almaguin News has been devoted to the Ontario Provincial Police and for good reason. Changes to the force's billing model is coming as a shock to local municipalities and come later this spring to property taxpayers and the resulting budget hikes show up on their bills. But those stories are about a subject that starts and ends above any decisions made at the Almaguin Highlands OPP detachment in Burk's Falls. [continues 457 words]
MAGNETAWAN - Property owners spoke out against the medical marijuana facility on Horn Lake last week but it didn't appear to change council's position. Jim Dyment, Magnetawan's planning consultant, spoke at a special meeting on April 23 explaining zoning bylaws and whether Magnetawan has authority over the grow operation. "Once we write a bylaw to say what's permitted, it's absolutely permitted," Dyment said. "Zoning bylaws are written in black and white. So if it says you can do something, you can do it. The council can't do anything about it." [continues 1227 words]
MAGNETAWAN - A proposed marijuana facility, if approved by Health Canada, will only remain for three or four years as part of their expansion plan. Craig Ferchat president of Herena Maris Health Products Inc. addressed the many concerns of residents during the Feb. 26 Magnetawan council meeting. Herena Maris is a natural health products company currently operating out of Mississauga. According to Ferchat, they were made aware of the change to medicinal marijuana legislation to take the growth out of the hands of the patients and responsibility went to licensed producers under the controls of Health Canada in November 2013. [continues 1120 words]
MAGNETAWAN - The Municipality of Magnetawan may be the first in the area to welcome a medical marijuana grow operation. According to a letter by Craig Ferchat, president of Harena Maris Health Products Inc., the company has submitted applications with Health Canada to become a licensed producer under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations. "One application is for a pre-existing building, the second is for a building that will be constructed upon acceptance of our application by Health Canada," writes Ferchat. [continues 647 words]
To the Editor: Speaking as a retired police detective, I learned up close and personal the horrific damage done by drug prohibition and the use/abuse of drugs. My colleague, Rick Dalton, was, I am sure, a fine officer but he must have flunked history and economics. Drug prohibition causes the massive crime we must deal with. The use of marijuana generated zero calls for service during my 18 years on the street. The use of alcohol generated about 1,300 calls including rape, child abuse, murder, suicide, assault, etc. Still, marijuana is too dangerous to leave its production and sale in the hands of criminals, gangs and teenagers...as those encouraging prohibition want to do. Howard Wooldridge, Detective/Officer Howard Wooldridge (retired), Co-Founder of LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Washington, DC [end]
To the Editor: These cops live in some sort of fantasy construct that sort of resembles reality, but not quite. Witness the letter from former (thank goodness) police officer Rick Dalton published in the Feb. 16 Almaguin News, "Former officer weighs in on pot debate." He calls out a serving officer who advocates for legalization of cannabis, ignoring the fact that LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) has been saying the same things for years, and ignoring also the courage that it takes for said officer to speak out. He says a bunch of nasty things about said officer, and ends by saying that he, like all good people would turn in their child for a cannabis offense. [continues 142 words]
To the Editor: Re: "Former officer weighs in on pot debate," Feb. 16 Almaguin News. Rick Dalton is wrong to castigate Dan Mulligan. Dan Mulligan deserves accolades for his courageous and candid stance. I do not know Dan Mulligan personally but I wish more police shared his sentiments and courage. Does Rick Dalton not understand that rampant widespread crimes, including his enforcement experiences associated with marijuana, are due to the prohibition of marijuana and not marijuana per say? Apparently not, he seems to think "decriminalizing" youth (his term, not mine) is not all that far removed from delousing a dog. [continues 51 words]
To the Editor: Re: Former officer weighs in on pot debate, Feb. 16, Almaguin News. I won't ask Mr. Dalton who he votes for - we all know! Mr. Dalton said, "This drug, as all illicit drugs or narcotics, in my respectful opinion, is the scourge of the earth." Hundreds of thousands of permanently ill people in Canada and around the world use cannabis (marijuana) to relieve their pain, to be functional while medicated, improve their quality of life and survive longer! What a scourge! [continues 175 words]
I was overwhelmed when I read the letter from Dan Mulligan in the Feb. 1 edition of the Forester. I am astounded that a currently serving police officer would agree that we should decriminalize marijuana. Does he not know the crimes associated with this illicit drug are rampant and widespread? I spent three years in an undercover capacity at a drug squad unit while employed by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. Maybe he should come down to the "big smoke" to see how we deal with it: executing a search warrant on a house where the occupant tried to kill me and my partner to protect his stash of 54 kilos of marijuana; the shootings that occur in the Jane/Finch corridor and eastern Scarborough over drugs and drug debts. [continues 159 words]
RE: Almaguin News, Feb. 2, Page 4, "Right promise to legalize marijuana" I'd like to congratulate and thank Dan Mulligan for his efforts as a new member and Parry Sound - Muskoka delegate. But mostly, I applaud his efforts for attempting to revisit the origins of marijuana prohibition. While Mulligan's explanation goes toward explaining why cannabis was initially criminalized - a means to grant the RCMP wide-ranging search and seizure authorities - it does not explain how "there is a new drug in the schedule," which was the only reference to something being added (to the schedule) mysteriously and became "cannabis indica" - or, on the other hand, maybe it does. [continues 117 words]
RE: Almaguin News, Feb. 2, Page 4, "Right promise to legalize marijuana" As someone who has been up to his eyeballs in pot activism for nine years, I would classify this Liberal vote to legalize pot as nothing more than a bamboozle. The delegates did the right thing, but the party will not. Not one single Liberal candidate has the intelligence or the guts to campaign on this issue because not one single Liberal candidate has the intelligence or the guts to explain to a voter what, exactly, marijuana legalization would even look like! [continues 223 words]
As a currently serving police officer, I must preface the following commentary with the proviso that the opinions expressed below are simply my own personal opinions and do not represent the position/thoughts/policy of my employer. They say politics is the art of the possible. Had someone suggested to me three months ago that a 35-plus-year Progressive Conservative would've switched federal political stripes at my age (and profession) I undoubtedly would've laughed it off. The hook was a proposed policy resolution (#117) brought forward to the Liberal Party of Canada's biennial convention in Ottawa recently. [continues 393 words]
Consequences. It's a word that's been on our minds a lot this week. That's because of an announcement that arrived late last week from our local OPP detachment about a major sweep of alleged, suspected drug dealers in five of our communities. Attached to the release were 13 names of individuals. Some we recognize, some we don't, but all will face consequences, not just from the arrest, but from having their name published here in the local paper of record. [continues 403 words]
No matter which way you worship the Invisible Giant that lives in the sky, but is also everywhere around and in us (God, Jehovah, Allah), your rights are protected. Whether you bow five times a day to a black box on the other side of the world, light fires in bowls and wave daggers around like the Wiccans do, or participate in the ritualized cannibalism of wine drinking in the Catholic church - your rights are protected. No matter which way you choose to commune with The Big Mind, Canadian law protects you. [continues 86 words]
ALMAGUIN - The word count for Muskoka-Parry Sound MP and federal health minister Tony Clement's annual speech to the Canadian Medical Association on Aug.18 was just under 3,500. Most of those words were used by the health minister to describe his problems with Insite - Vancouver's safe injection site for drug users - - from a public policy, scientific and ethical point of view. In the week that has followed Clement's address at the CMA's annual conference, numerous articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the national media both supporting and opposing his message and tactics, an outcome Clement is very happy with. [continues 730 words]
I am compelled to reply to Clint Haggart's recent rant on and condemnation of people with addictions and, particularly, people who inject drugs (August 30, 2006, Opinions: Government is endorsing drug use). Addictions are a medical problem - not a moral failing. People coping with the medical problem of addictions (tobacco, food, gambling, alcohol, prescription drugs, heroin, etc.) are entitled to access a full range of treatments that are based on scientific evidence and public health principles - as are all people who are coping with other chronic and debilitating illnesses. These are not only problems in big cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Injection drug use is also found in rural areas and small towns throughout Canada and should concern us all. [continues 439 words]
SOUTH RIVER - Did you know that the number of women in Parry Sound-Muskoka who are drugged and sexually assaulted every year is in the hundreds? A group of Almaguin Highlands Secondary School students is bringing that reality to television screens this summer with the warning that the stories of the 'date rape drug' aren't just happening in the big cities. Through Muskoka-Parry Sound Sexual Assault Services (MPSSAS), peer support students are making a television commercial warning women be vigilant about keeping an eye on their drinks. [continues 714 words]
ALMAGUIN: "House For Sale: Previous Marijuana Grow Operation, Any Offer Accepted." For sale signs like this could soon spring up in the real estate section with the increasing prevalence of in-house grow operations. A property, such as 6 Anderson Street in Sundridge, has been estimated by neighbours as having sold last year for a price of approximately $140,000, but today it may be un-saleable and is almost assuredly uninsurable. "I would seriously doubt you could sell that house if your life depended on it," said Powassan Century 21 real estate broker Debbie Burg. [continues 1243 words]
