The Prince of Pot Says Goodbye to Canada
July 7th, 2009 by Rick
The Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, is saying goodbye to Canada by way of a “fairwell tour”, scheduled to make its mark in 32 cities, before he is extradited to the U.S. for selling cannabis seeds to U.S. customers.
On Sunday, Emery began the tour in Calgary saying:
I’m being taken to a U.S. prison for something I did in Canada as innocuous as selling seeds, which don’t even have any drug quality, and yet I have to face a five year term for that. [...] It’s difficult to say what will happen in a U.S. federal penitentiary. It’s never very pleasant. American jails aren’t run nearly as well as Canadian jails. [...] I’m going away for a long time so I expect everybody to do their best and pick up the slack for me.
Emery is referring to the fight coming up in form of bill C-15, a federal bill that would impose mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana in Canada. The bill has already passed the House of Commons and it is now in the hands of the Senate. Emery advises activists to back the NDP, the Bloc, and the Green Party — all pro-cannabis political parties.
Emery’s fairwell tour continues in Saskatoon on Wednesday and Edmonton on Thursday.
Drone Aircraft to Patrol Canadian Border
June 22nd, 2009 by Russ
Look out, Canadians… Skynet is now online.
The US Border Patrol is preparing to deploy a ‘Predator B’ unmanned drone aircraft along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, presumably to detect drug growing and smuggling operations along the US-Canadian border.
Also known as the MQ-9 Reaper, the drone is a second generation version of the original Predator that the US military has been using in some capacity since 1995. Still enjoying the fruits of a post-9/11 spending spree, the Border Patrol now has at least five of its Predator toys patrolling the US-Mexico border. It launched its first US-Canadian mission along the Dakota-Manitoba border in February as part of the Border Patrol’s “Northern Border Air Wing,” a high-tech surveillance plan called for by the 9/11 commission.
Make no mistake, these drones are not toys. The Reaper has a wing span of 66 feet and can weigh up to five tons when fully armed and loaded. Part of that weight is the 3,000+ lbs of missiles and bombs that it is equipped to carry. Whereas the original Predators were designed primarily for surveillance, Reapers are lauded by the military for their role as “true hunter-killers.”
Of course, without human pilots, these drones are only as good as the electronics and software that keep them airborne, as evidenced by the 2006 drone crash in Arizona. Let’s hope that these new Reapers aren’t running Windows Vista.
Canadian Group Holds Meth Awareness School Assemblies
June 19th, 2009 by Russ
As a child of the 80s, I have vivid memories of a “Just Say No” campaign that introduced the dangers of crack-cocaine to a group of seven-year-olds in my second grade class. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In response to a widely spreading crystal meth epidemic among street youth, British Columbia is taking its fight back into the classroom.
The Crystal Meth Society of British Columbia holds school assemblies for grade school children of various ages, and doesn’t pull many punches in doing so. One of the main features of their performance is a grizzly video entitled, Death by Jib.
According to one parent:
After watching Death by Jib I wanted to immediately take the video home to show my teenagers. There is something in this video for everyone.
That is, assuming your teenagers enjoy watching grizzly youth deaths brought on by inopportune abuse of a hallucinogen. It’s hard to look at Canada’s Drug Aware101 program and see anything markedly different from the D.A.R.E tactics that have been in American schools for decades.
As several studies have shown, most D.A.R.E programs either have a completely negligible effect on the children’s likeliness to try new drugs, or actually can cause them to be more likely to experiment with drugs. As many drug academics and former law enforcement have argued, it’s often much more effective to simply inform kids about the realities of the drug world, rather than trying ot inflate or exaggerate the dangerous in an attempt to scare them. American kids seem to be a great deal more discerning than these drug educational programs give them credit for. It remains to be seen whether the same can be said of young Canadiens.
In the meantime, The Crystal Meth Society of BC will endeavor to be “crystal clear” about the realities of a very dangerous substance.
Horizon Shows Desperate Times for Prince of Pot
June 5th, 2009 by RickAs usual, before the Prince of Pot begins talking, we see him toking — yet this time it seems as if he’s more mentally exhausted than ever. His slouched body language and empty stare into the camera tell us that this man has a lot on his mind these days, issues that have been haunting him since the DEA made him their personal pet project by declaring him one of the top 50 drug traffickers of the world.
Emery and his wife Jodie, deliver the sad news that Cannabis Culture magazine has ceased print publication. The main reasons were the cost (every issue lost $40,000), finding printers and the fact that the articles within the magazine would already be covered by various sources online by the time the magazine was released.
Despite the end of the print form of the Cannabis Culture magazine, they are redirecting their energy into concentrating on their online website Cannabis Culture, and having different people in the scene participating. If interested in the remainder stock of back issues of Cannabis Culture magazine, they are being sold in a bundle package (60 issues) for $100. All of the back issues are also in the archives of their website.
Despite the city of Vancouver’s attempt to shut down his storefront businesses or at least wrapping it up with bureaucratic red tape, Emery still seems to be in somewhat good spirits. He’s willing to basque in the spotlight for his supporters — that is until the dark cloud of the U.S. federal government moves in.
There was somewhat good news on the case against Emery’s friends and employees, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams who plead guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana (a charge stemming back to the days when Emery’s seed bank was in operation,) are to be sentenced to two years of probation in July.
As for Emery, his lawyer basically told him he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in not being expedited to the United States. Once here in the states, he will be stuck here by a sneaky stipulation that will force him to pay whatever fine he is subjected to before he can even think about serving x-amount of time in Canada. He plans to plead guilty to one count of marijuana distribution, which doesn’t have a minimum sentencing or fines. The feds want to give Emery five to eight years and Emery plans to receive less.
Like a true master of the matrix, Emery plans on using his cultural influence and his supporters to pimp the system, particularly when it comes to social networking. His idea is to have people contact the federal judge in an effort to give testimonials or essays on why they should be lenient with sentencing. Unfortunately for Emery, if the government has made this much of an effort to convict him, then they plan to make him an example that the drug war is still on. If that’s the case, I’m sure that they will cover their bases and assign a judge to the case that may not be able to be influenced by any outside sources or parties.
Canada to Conduct Research for Heroin Replacement
June 4th, 2009 by Rick
Free heroin is planned to be given to over 300 addicts in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Montreal, as part of a three year project called Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness, research designed to find drug replacements to the highly addictive opiate.
In the first stage of the study, researchers plan on injecting some addicts with Dilaudid — a prescribed painkiller that derives from the same opioid family while a control group receives heroin. In the second stage they plan to give the addicts a pill form of Dilaudid and heroin — eliminating the need for nursing assistance.
Trish Walsh, executive director of the InnerChange Foundation, an advocacy group for addicts that funds drug research, said:
We have the potential to revolutionize treatment on an international basis. [...] It gives addicts the opportunity to move from a very unsafe, back-alley drug to taking an oral tablet.
Dr. Martin Schechter, who works at the the School of Population and Public Health at the University of B.C. said the Canadian Institute of Health Research is going to fund the research costs for the study, while the Vancouver Coastal Health and the Quebec Ministry of Health are to fund the clinical costs of the study.
Brazen Lawyer’s Lawsuit to Legalize Cannabis
June 2nd, 2009 by Rick
In response to Health Canada’s recent slight change in regulations to medical marijuana use in Canada, Ron Marzel, a lawyer in Ontario, plans on launching a challenge to the courts this summer in an effort to legalize marijuana. While at the same time, he hopes to have the charges dropped against the numerous Ontario clients he has that face marijuana trafficking charges.
Marzel has been part of the successful Federal court challenge that forced Health Canada to change their regulations in regard to medical marijuana — all eight times:
This is the only way. The courts have repeatedly given the government time to come up with a workable solution. They didn’t do it. Health Canada has brought this upon itself.
Marzel is going directly for the throat, knowing that the courts have left the decision up to Health Canada and ultimately the government as they’ve consistently shown their resistance to the issue of medical marijuana. Either they need to ease the restrictions on medical marijuana or legalize it completely and let people decide what to use it for.
A positive outcome of the potential court case would offer the legalization movement in the United States and other countries a serious boost.
Candian Cabinet Tweaks Medical Marijuana Law
May 27th, 2009 by Rick
After a Canadian Federal Court ruled last year that allowing only one medical marijuana patient per licensed grower was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s Cabinet increased the limit to two patients per producer. This slight increase has sparked heavy criticism from the MP’s and advocates for medical marijuana.
A Health Canada spokesman, Philippe Laroche, said in an e-mail:
As a result of (the Federal Court ruling), the government has moved quickly to address this regulatory void and has modified the (regulations) to allow one designated person to now produce marijuana for up to two authorized persons. [...] This modification is currently in force.
Eric Nash, a licensed Vancouver Island marijuana supplier under the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations said:
From one to two patients, that’s just insane.
Despite several hundreds of requests from medical marijuana patients, Nash and his partner are limited to one patient each.
New Democrat MP Libby Davies said:
From the beginning, the federal government has been dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the use of marijuana for medical reasons.
Davies also says that the government ruling is “abysmal” and that the courts should reverse the decision eventually. Health Canada is aware that thousands of medical marijuana patients receive their marijuana through “Compassion Centers” but that marijuana is not regulated for quality and safety and it’s source is usually the black market.
Vancouver to Host Weed Winter Olympics
May 26th, 2009 by Russ
In America, weed smoking may be for medicinal or recreational purposes. In Canada, they take their herb quite seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they have decided to welcome the entire international community to the 2010 Winter Olympics by hoisting a giant doobie above the stadium.
Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you. It’s not a scalpel statue, or an electric toothbrush, it’s a joint. A majestic, three foot, aerodynamic, joint. And it’s lit. Or it will be, in any case, when it makes its 21,000 mile journey all over the country of Canada as it is carried by over 12,000 canucks. This gives new meaning to the term “Puff, puff, pass.”
According to the torch relay director, Suzanne Reeves:
It’s quite magical. Most people’s reactions are emotional.
As it should be! After all, wouldn’t you weep before a nationally constructed fatty-to-end-all-fatties?
