legalization

By Walter Cordery, The Daily News

 

Forget the collapse of the housing market in the United States -- and recent statistics show it remains in the tank -- which means B.C.'s moribund forest industry will remain on life support, voters in California this fall could spell the death knell for a thriving B.C. industry.

 

It looks as though some Californians have taken legendary Reggae singer Peter Tosh's song 'Legalize It' literally and are running with it. If passed in November, a state-wide voter initiative would legalize the cultivation, possession and sale of marijuana.

 

Legalizing marijuana has broad support in the state, with some 56% of Californians surveyed in an April, 2009 Field Poll saying they favoured making it legal for social use and taxing the sales proceeds. In October, Gallup found 44% of all Americans favoured legalization.

 

By Christopher Foulds - Kamloops This Week

 

I spoke to Kevin Krueger this week to ask him to explain the difference between his party’s voracious criticism of gambling expansion (in particular online wagering) while in opposition and the fact it is salivating as it expands gambling like no other government in North America.

 

(His comments can be read elsewhere under Opinion on this website.)

 

During the conversation, the Kamloops-South Thompson MLA and tourism minister compared government involvement in cyber-casinos to the failed prohibition experience of eight decades ago.

 

By Jillian Follert, Durham Region

 

OSHAWA -- The second attempt at Oshawa Cannabis Day went more smoothly than its predecessor last summer and managed to attract a much bigger crowd.

 

Organizer Ben Fudge estimated about 200 people gathered at Memorial Park in downtown Oshawa on July 1 to show their support for issues such as legalization of marijuana and recognition of the drug's medicinal benefits.

 

"I'm really surprised by how many people came, we're going to aim for 500 people next year," he said.

 

Participants ranged from "die-hard activists," he said, to everyday people interested in learning how to fill out paperwork for a medical exemption.

 

Thanks to Robert Ling who attended the Socialist Caucus meeting to present the End Prohibition legalization resolution, and to the Socialist Caucus for passing it! We are asking NDP members to bring this resolution to their federal riding association to endorse in advance of the federal NDP convention next June, 2011. The resolution passed reads:

 

WHEREAS simply decriminalizing marijuana would still leave possession as an offence punishable by a fine, and would leave all the other harms associated with prohibition intact,

 

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the federal NDP actively campaign for the elimination of all fines and criminal penalties for personal cultivation and possession of cannabis, and the establishment of a taxed and regulated framework for production and distribution of cannabis to adults, with amnesty for previous cannabis convictions;

By TODD COYNE, Vancouver Sun

 

VANCOUVER — A new Canada-wide study argues for the elimination of Canada's "one-size-fits-all" criminalization of marijuana use in favour of a public-health drive to educate the minority of early- and high-frequency users who face the greatest health risks.

 

The study — directed by Prof. Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University's health sciences department — was published in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research.

 

Fischer divided Canadian cannabis users into four categories based on frequency of use, age of first use and reason for use — social or medical.

 

Letter to the Editor, Vernon Morning Star

 

There is a huge dragon in our living rooms that is named the war on drugs. Our elected leaders are reluctant to talk about it, and it is not a popular topic in daily conversations either.

 

The war eats up our resources, robs our society of scarce finances, and is an agent of social harm. The dragon's fire is prohibition, and collateral damage from that is huge. Prohibition's aim is to produce a drug-free society, and we will never totally achieve that. It's far better to manage drug use in intelligent ways.

 

By Bruce Livesey, Special to The Gazette

 

JUAREZ, Mexico – Like most cops in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Jesus Manuel Fierro-Mendez was dirty.

 

In fact, soon after being promoted to the position of captain, he was smuggling enormous quantities of cocaine into the United States. And when Fierro-Mendez quit his job in the spring of 2007, after someone tried to kill him, he went to work for the Sinaloa drug cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug-trafficking organization, run by Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, the richest drug lord in North America and the second most wanted man in the world after Osama bin Laden.

 

By Oakland Ross, The Star

 

Where else in the world do they have a single noun to denote a man who turns up dead in the trunk of a car?

 

In northern Mexico, they call the wretch un encajuelado, and the phenomenon has become a sufficiently frequent feature of the local landscape that it merits a word all its own.

 

Meanwhile, as if killing were not bad enough, beheadings have become a morbidly common feature in battles among the region’s drug gangs, often recorded on video.

 

In all, more than 20,000 Mexican lives have been sacrificed in drug-related violence since December 2006, in a conflict pitting federal authorities against the drug traders or the drug traders against each other.

 

By Kendall Walters - Kamloops This Week

 

Marijuana producers growing as few as six plants for sale could face minimum jail sentences if a new bill becomes law in Ottawa.

 

The Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act, or Bill S-10, was introduced in the Senate on May 5 by Conservative Sen. John Wallace.

 

If enacted, it will change laws surrounding drug charges, particularly those involving cannabis.

 

The bill has been considered twice before, dying first due to the general-election call in 2006 and again in December 2009 when Parliament was prorogued.