Legalization Must Address Problem of Poaching From State's Streams California, the nation's top agricultural producer, also is the source of up to 70 percent of the marijuana consumed in the United States. The marijuana industry is largely unregulated and there are few protections to ensure illegal water diversions for grows don't dry up rivers and destroy salmon and steelhead habitat. As the state begins to debate whether to legalize recreational marijuana, these concerns are amplified. With or without legalization, California needs to grapple with the environmental consequences of this enormous industry. [continues 578 words]
Editor; This is truly an unjust world when you can go to prison for life, for sending seeds to another country; but if you send troops, you get a Noble Peace Prize. Do we really need a foreign government stepping in and disciplining one of our citizens, for something as trivial as selling seeds on the internet? As a nation, we should be ashamed of the way we have treated Marc Emery. The man has paid his taxes, given to charity and helped untold thousands of medical marijuana users. It disgusts me the lack of attention the media is giving this issue. [continues 105 words]
This is truly an unjust world when you can go to prison for life, for sending seeds to another country, but if you send troops, you get a Nobel Peace Prize. Do we really need a foreign government stepping in and disciplining one of our citizens, for something as trivial as selling seeds on the Internet? As a nation we should be ashamed of the way we have treated Marc Emery. The man has paid his taxes, given to charity and helped untold thousands of medical marijuana users. [continues 111 words]
Dear Editor: The time has come to legalize marijuana, tax it, and create a few hundred thousand jobs. Marc Emery is currently waiting to see if we will let the US extradite him, to face a possible life sentence for selling seeds on the Internet. Forty-four per cent of Canadians have admitted to smoking weed, leading to the obvious conclusion that millions of Canadians currently possess marijuana seeds. If you mailed a couple seeds to your friend in the US in a Christmas card, should you face a possible life sentence in prison? [continues 354 words]
Dear Editor: The time has come to legalize marijuana, tax it, and create a few hundred thousand jobs. Marc Emery is currently waiting to see if we will let the US extradite him, to face a possible life sentence for selling seeds on the internet. Forty-four per cent of Canadians have admitted to smoking weed, leading to the obvious conclusion that millions of Canadians possess marijuana seeds. If you mailed a couple seeds to your friend in the U.S. in a Christmas card, should you face a possible life sentence in prison? [continues 354 words]
In Sheryl McCarthy's May 6 column, "Hooked," concerning our nation's misguided drug policy, she correctly notes the painfully obvious truth that we focus too much on punishment and too little on prevention and cure. However, McCarthy's pronouncement that drug abusers (such as Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr.) "are hurting nobody but themselves and their loved ones" is egregiously false. Abusers support an industry that breeds violence and treats its workers and outsiders as a disposable commodity instead of people. From Colombia where opponents of the drug trade are murdered daily, to the streets of Mexico and Los Angeles where the poverty-plagued foot soldiers who smuggle the contraband are frequently shot or incarcerated, to Oklahoma where innocent victims include automobile fatalities caused by meth-enhanced drivers and individuals robbed by drug abusers to finance their illness, to society as a whole which is deprived of the full potential of its citizenry when a portion of it is incapacitated by drug addiction, drug abuse victims include a universe far beyond those who merely snort, smoke or inject. While the solution to the drug problem may not lie in indiscriminate punishment, it doesn't lie in acceptance either. We are all victimized when one of us falls prey to substance abuse. Brian Johnson Adjunct Law Professor, University of Tulsa Tulsa [end]
From Easy Rider To Blow, The Drug Movie Has Become An Addiction All Its Own Director Martin Scorsese once said that movies are "really a kind of dream state, like taking dope." But a lot of movies these days are not just like taking dope; they're about taking dope. Just look at some of the recent Oscar nominees. In Traffic, a 16-year-old white girl lying in bed -- an odalisque with baby fat -- watches in a stoned reverie as a naked black man shoots heroin into her ankle. In Requiem for a Dream, a junkie Adonis probes for a vein in a black-and-blue forearm, while his mother is strung out on diet pills and TV game shows. In Almost Famous, a rocker on acid proclaims he's God and jumps off a roof into a pool. And now comes Blow, a drug-culture version of the American Dream -- starring Johnny Depp as George Jung, the entrepreneur who unleashed cocaine on North America in the 1970s. [continues 2124 words]
