RE: Kalamalka Road - 60 marijuana plant and a free pass. What are the RCMP thinking?? The last time I checked, growing marijuana was highly illegal and considered a grow-op. With all of the problems that stem from illegal drugs and drug use, I am totally baffled why someone was not put in cuffs and charged with manufacturing a controlled substance. I'm so frustrated, steaming mad, confused and in disbelief as to how this whole thing has been handled. What kind of precedent does this set for other wanna-be growers, manufacturers and future drug dealers? How is it that one person gets charged and jailed for this type of illegal activity and the other does not? [continues 65 words]
Between cynicism and hypocrisy lies the 2,000-mile U.S.- Mexico border. America is raising a wall in the desert to separate Mexican drug exporters from American drug consumers, to separate Latin American peasants who will work for low wages from the Americans who would hire them. The Great Wall of America, straddling less than half the length of the border, descends into canyons and across the desert floor. For the Mexican, it represents a high hurdle. For the American, it is an attempt to stop the Roadrunner's progress with an Acme Border Sealing Kit. [continues 1040 words]
Michigan's Legislature may not have gone far enough when it approved legislation following voter approval of medical marijuana in 2008. But it was clear that it did not legalize the sale and purchase of marijuana by those with no medical needs. And the law and how it should be implemented weren't all that difficult to read, even for someone in a pot-induced haze. So what's the fuss about raids of several sites in Oakland County where marijuana was allegedly being smoked, bought and sold? [continues 373 words]
The percentage of injection drug users who report sharing needles has risen from 10 to 23 since the closure of the fixed-site needle exchange. The data collected in late 2009 comes from the latest report by the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research. The centre has been monitoring drug use for three years. "The closure of the fixed-site needle exchange in May 2008 and the subsequent 15,000 fewer clean needles distributed each month in Victoria since then likely explain these results," said study co-author Andrew Ivsins, a research assistant. [continues 155 words]
If you're unfamiliar with the terms K2, Pep, Kind or spice, ask your son or daughter who's in high school or college. Unfortunately, you could probably ask your elementary student. Chances are they know about it; perhaps they know someone who uses it. Maybe they've got first-hand experience. In a nutshell, spice is an herb mixture marketed as an incense laced with a synthetic chemical that mimics the high produced by smoking marijuana, but it's said to be 10 times more potent. [continues 498 words]
In Thursday's Voice of the People ["Drug Users, Cartel Killings"], Lakeland resident Frances Clark wrote, "Innocent people are dying by the thousands in Mexico because of the drug cartels, and we must ask why." The why is money. Illegal drugs make money for gangs and cartels because they are illegal. Marijuana (hemp) represents 60 percent of the money earned by Mexican drug cartels. Members of said cartels are already upset by California's legalization of marijuana for medical purposes because it is cutting into their profits. [continues 96 words]
Following the recent indictment of several Tulsa police officers, the district attorney's office has widened its review of drug cases to include cases that involve eight officers whose names have surfaced in a grand jury investigation. District Attorney Tim Harris' office told the Tulsa World that the number of cases under review has grown exponentially since the indictment of five police officers and the naming of two additional officers cooperating with U.S. Attorney Jane W. Duke of the Eastern District of Arkansas. An eighth officer has pleaded guilty. [continues 1049 words]
Oblivious Canadians Romp on the Beach As Thousands Executed in Vile Drug War What conflict has resulted in more than four times the deaths of allied casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan combined? Would it help to know it's a country where more than one million Canadians vacation every year? Would you be surprised to know it's right here in North America? It's Mexico. As we contentedly sip margaritas on the beach from behind protected resort walls, more than 28,000 Mexicans have lost their lives in a vicious drug war. [continues 602 words]
Hundreds of Addicts Will Receive High-Grade Government Heroin or Dilaudid Heroin treatment in Vancouver is a joke. The majority of addicts participate, to varying degrees, in the so-called methadone maintenance program, which received unwanted media attention in 2008 due to alleged corruption and kickback schemes involving methadone pharmacies in the Downtown Eastside. The program includes no mandatory counselling or supplementary drug treatment and many addicts remain on methadone for decades. Living addicted lives. Robbed of their destiny. From this destitute population, organizers of SALOME (also known as the Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness) plan to enlist 322 participants for an unprecedented Canadian experiment. [continues 628 words]
