Canada’s crime rate has dropped to its lowest level in almost four decades, according to Statistics Canada, but marijuana-related arrests are dramatically increasing.
Stats Canada shows that 58,000 Canadians were arrested for cannabis possession in 2010, a number that is 14 percent higher than the year before, reports Renee Bernard at News 1130.
Pot smokers are being unfairly targeted by the Harper government, according to Jacob Hunter with the Beyond Prohibition Foundation.
Jacob Hunter of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, left, is arrested June 10 at a “Free Marc” protest in Ontario.
”There’s been very little evidence of any increase in use in Canada, but there seems to be a huge amount more attention being paid to just simple marijuana possession,” Hunter said. “Both the arrests for production and possession of cocaine and other drugs have gone down.”
The crackdown on pot use is a huge waste of money, according to Hunter, given that a large number of Canadians support legalization.
“The great irony of all this is that of every poll conducted in the last 10 years, more Canadians support the legalization of marijuana than actually voted for a Conservative candidate in the last election,” Hunter said.
The crackdown on simple marijuana possession is incredibly costly and ultimately futile, Hunter said.
“It’s become clear what this government’s priorities are,” Hunter said. “A crackdown on simple marijuana possession, mandatory minimum sentences for growing even one marijuana plant, and a dismantling of the medical marijuana program.
“This is nothing less than a total war on marijuana,” Hunter said.
“What we are seeing is a coordinated effort led by the Conservative government to crack down on simple marijuana possession as part of a multi-billion dollar increase in the war on drugs,” said Kirk Tousaw, executive director of the Beyond Prohibition Foundation, reports Phillip Smith at StoptheDrugWar.org.
“Why? Why did 58,000 Canadians need to be arrested over a plant that more Canadians want legalized than voted for Conservative candidates?” Tousaw asked. “Why is Mr. Harper spending billions to arrest Canadians for simple marijuana possession?”
The Nova Scotia government has been ordered to pay the costs associated with medical marijuana growing operations of a woman who said she could not afford to grow and maintain her alloted medicine.
The Income Assistance Appeals Board ruling says that the province’s department of community services must pay $2,500 in start-up costs as well as a $100 quarterly fee for growing supplies of $100.
According to a CBC report, the unidentified couple who live in Amherst have licences from Health Canada to grow up to 25 plants, but they can only afford to grow six and sometimes run low on their supply.
The appeals board said Her need for marijuana was real and that having the government pay for the grow-op equipment was preferable to paying another licensed grower.
The woman’s husband, who also uses medical marijuana, is currently suing community services, the cabinet minister responsible for the department, Denise Peterson-Rafuse, and the appeals board over the same issue.
Community services’ legal department is now weighing its options and said it would not make any statements at this time.
It is not known whether this ruling will affect his decision to proceed with his lawsuit.
Michael Joinson will receive a settlement of $300,000 for botched back surgery, including $50,469 for medication including marijuana.
A Canadian doctor has been ordered to pay a patient more than $300,000 to cover expenses including medical marijuana following a botched back surgery.
Michael Joinson, who heads the nonprofit Always Growing Green Society, which operates Taggs Medical Cannabis Dispensary in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, won a total settlement of $310,289.14 to cover his loss of earnings and medical care as well as medications to treat pain, including cannabis capsules, dried marijuana and cannabis edibles, reports Monisha Martins of Maple Ridge News.
Dr. Navraj Heran, above, going to be buying lots of marijuana. Not for himself — for a patient, after Dr. Navrag botched the surgery.
Dr. Navraj Heran, a neurosurgeon, admitted he was negligent while performing surgery on Joinson’s lower back. However, Dr. Heran denied his surgery was solely responsible for the gradual onset of Joinson’s chronic pain.
Dr. Heran targeted the wrong vertebrae in the first operation, which resulted in Joinson having two additional surgeries to his lower back.
Joinson said he consented to the first surgery, did not consent to the second, then consented to the third.
Besides asking for compensation for lost wages, Joinson asked for more than $800,000 to fund a lifetime supply of medical marijuana.
The court awarded Joinson far less for his medical costs, including $50,469 (part of the $310,000 settlement) for medication, including marijuana.
Joinson said he smoked about 10 grams a day to treat pain in his back and knee, according to a written judgement released last week.
Another doctor testified that Joinson’s use of cannabis had allowed him to reduce his consumption of the narcotic painkiller morphine.
Joinson’s dispensary, Taggs, opened in Maple Ridge last year and currently has more than 300 medical marijuana patients as members.
All members of Taggs are required to have documentation from Health Canada or a registered physician to buy marijuana.
Vapes on a plane! Lisa Mamakind was told that as long as patients aren’t using the devices during the times when passengers aren’t allowed to use electronics, she was free to medicate as needed.
Health Canada-licensed medical marijuana patients are now allowed to consume cannabis through vaporization both in airports while waiting for their flights, and while on the plane during the flight, according to Lisa Mamakind and Cannabis Culture magazine.
“At the end of May 2011, as a license-holder, I took it up myself to clear up any ambiguities in regard to where and when I’m able to medicate,” Mamakind writes in Cannabis Culture. ”Up until this point, we could only speculate as to what exactly were the policies of the corporations and agencies we deal with when we choose air travel.”
According to Mamakind, cardholding Canadian medical marijuana patients have been hassled going through security, as Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA — think TSA) agents haven’t been trained to recognize either medical marijuana cards or licenses.
“The old policy stood that even if the cannabis is legal, if it’s found amongst your carry-on items, a report would have to be made, sometimes involving police stationed in the airport — and it could take up to a good 20 minutes to work through the process,” Mamakind said. “Often insensitive agents pull out bags of medicine to display for the entire security area, remarking at the scent and/or asking what strain it is.
“After the last time this happened to me, the CATSA representative for Calgary International Airport suggested that I file a complaint in order to get the policy changed,” Mamakind said.
According to Mamakind, she was contacted by a CATSA representative this week, informing her that the policy is indeed changing and that a memo to that effect will be circulated nationwide in Canada within the month.
This memo will explain to CATSA agents bout the new policy of recognizing medical marijuana cards and paper licenses, and explain that filing a report when they come across one isn’t necessary.
“There will be special notes made regarding the professional, courteous conduct required when an agent does come across marijuana; this medicine is to be treated as they would any other prescription medication,” Mamakind said. “Agents don’t pull our your Viagra and comment on it, so therefore, the same should be true for your pot.
Mamakind naturally then started wondering: If licensed patients can now bring marijuana with them through airport security, what about medicating in the airport?
“That’s the bailiwick of each individual airport authority, so I called the two airports I was dealing with, YYC (Calgary) and YYZ (Toronto),” Mamakind said. “I asked both if there was any reason why I wouldn’t be able to use my vaporizer once I’m past security and they said, ‘As long as you an find a plug…’ “
Mamakind then wondered if perhaps it might be possible to vaporize medication on the airplane as well, so she called WestJet, explained what a vaporizer is and how it works, and confirmed that as long as the device is battery-operated (as in no plug-in required, and no flames needed), and as long as patients aren’t using the devices during the times when passengers aren’t allowed to use electronic devices — that is, not during take-off or landing — she was free to medicate as needed.
“Once on the plane and in the air, the NO2 vaporizer was packed with the much-needed AK47 and I was able to periodically relieve my nausea throughout the over-three-hour flight, becoming the first person to legally and openly vape on a plane,” Mamakind said. “I suppose high at 30,000+ feet is about as high as anyone’s ever gotten on a commercial airline without medibles.”
Mamakind received somewhat less encouraging news from airline Air Canada after contacting them about their policies on vaporization aboard planes.
“Not only did I wait several hours to speak with an agent, Air Canada claimed that, ‘…it’s not on our list of things you can bring on the plane, so therefore it’s probably not allowed on the plane.’ “
Mamakind is encouraging all Canadian medical marijuana cardholders to contact Air Canada themselves and demand that the same courtesy which is given to WestJet fliers be given to those traveling on Air Canada as well.
“In fact, I encourage everyone to contact any and all domestic airlines and find out their policy about vaping on a plane,” Mamakind said.
Turns out, looking only at electric usage from a residence, the consumption for bitcoin mining won’t look much different from a marijuana grow-op. Cue clueless cops.
You don’t have to be growing marijuana to get raided for it. At least one Bitcoin miner has been raided by police because unusually high power usage led them to suspect he was growing marijuana, according to unconfirmed reports on Monday.
The tip comes from an IRC chat captured by blogger Mike Esspe, though there are no corroborating details, reports Jerry Brito of Techland.
Bitcoin is the anonymous virtual currency that uses distributed computing power to validate online coins. “It’s like gold mining, except that instead of digging, a miner uses cryptographic math,” reports Techland.
Does this mean, that with the growing number of bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.
Like clandestine indoor marijuana growing operations, Bitcoin mining uses large amounts of electricity and runs up big power bills. It does this because it employs super-fast computers.
High power consumption has often alerted police to marijuana growing operations and has thus led to busts.
“The Canadian town of Mission, B.C. has a bylaw that allows the town’s Public Safety Inspection Team to search people’s homes for grow ops if they are using more than 93 kWh of electricity per day,” according to the blog Bitcoin Miner.
Though a typical mining rig will consume only a fraction of that amount, Bitcoin miners are adding capacity, and with multiple rigs, more and more miners are exceeding the level which triggers police interest, according to the blog.
Residents have been charged a $5,200 inspection fee – even if no marijuana or signs of a grow operation are found, reports Cam Tucker at the Delta Optimist.
Some Mission residents who feel their rights have been violated by the arbitrary searches, and have begun a class-action lawsuit against the District of Mission in B.C. Supreme Court.
There had already been speculation that mining Bitcoins will bring unwanted and misdirected attention from the police.
“I’m still waiting for the first bitcoin grow-op raid,” a Bitcoin mining pioneer had commented on an IRC channel back in January.
Increasingly ubiquitous supercomputing could lead to more and more false positives, not just for Bitcoin miners, but for hardcore gamers too, as well as anyone running video rendering farms or web servers from home, according to Techland.
“It will be interesting to see how courts will adapt to such uses when interpreting reasonable suspicion standards,” Brito writes.
Does this mean, that with the growing number of Bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.
The infamous marijuana bears of British Columbia have woken after their winter hibernation, and they have the munchies — but they seem to be weaning themselves off dog food, according to the man who was once feeding them $100 of kibbles a day.
Allen Piche of Christina Lake, B.C., pleaded guilty in March to feeding the roughly two dozen wild black bears on his remote property after the B.C. Conservation Service last summer charged him and ordered him to stop, reports CBC News. Piche was charged after police found the mellow bears when they raided a marijuana grow operation on his property last August.
Initially there was speculation the bears might be guarding the cannabis crop, but Piche denied that.
Allen Piche: “I’m counting on the bears to do the right thing. So far, they have.”
He was allowed to continue feeding the bears until they went into hibernation, but was ordered not to feed them when they woke up in the spring. If the bears couldn’t kick their dog foot habit, they might have to be shot, conservation officers said.
Most of the bears did come back to his remote property this spring, according to Piche, but once they figured out he wasn’t going to feed him, they left.
“I’ve had 80 percent of the bears come and now 80 percent are gone,” Piche said. “I’m counting on the bears to do the right thing. So far, they have.”
However, Piche said he is worried that the bears might come back this summer; they tend to return in early July after mating.
Piche, who describes himself as an “aging hippie,” said his former partner began feeding the bears, and he carried on when she was warned to stop because the bears kept returning.
The feeding continued for years until Piche was visited by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police last summer. RCMP officers arrested him and three others for allegedly tending a large outdoor marijuana growing operation.
That’s when the bears came ambling out of the forest and nuzzled up to police officers. One even sat on a police cruiser for awhile.
Piche has pleaded not guilty to the cannabis cultivation charge.
10. “Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”- William F. Buckley Jr.
9. “Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.” – Jay Leno
8. “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast” – Ronald Reagan
7. “The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it.” – J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada
6. “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot” – Darryl Gates Head of Los Angeles Police Department United States Senate Judiciary Committee
5. “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” –Bill Clinton
4. “When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” – Barack Obama
3. “Now, like, I’m President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? … I bet if they did, I hope I would say, ‘Hey, get lost. We don’t want any of that.’” – George W. Bush
2. “I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.” – Andy Warhol
1. “I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk.” – Steve Martin
Soon, you’ll be able to drive hemp. Literally, thanks to the Kestrel car, named after the colorful raptor.
Meet the Kerstel and its hemp composite body
Right now, Canadian company Motive Industries, Inc., is testing the materials for a biocomposite hybrid electric car made from hemp and other natural and synthetic fibers. If all goes according to plan, Motive will finish its prototype mid-2011, and make the car available to the public in late-2012 or -2013, according to Nathan Armstrong, Motive’s president.
The material used to manufacturer the body is impact-resistant composite from hemp mats; these are supplied by Alberta Innovates-Technology Future (AITF), while hemp is grown in Vegreville, Atlanta. Here’s the kicker, AITF is Crown corporation, owned by the Canadian government.
“Plus, it’s illegal to grow it in the U.S., so it actually gives Canada a bit of a market advantage,” said Armstrong to the CBC.
The four-passenger, three-door electric vehicle—created to showcase new automotive technology coming out of Canada—can reach speeds of almost 85 mph. It’s the result of Project Eve, a for-profit collaboration aimed at combining “Canadian skills for the purpose of producing and supporting Canadian electric vehicles and components,” according to Project Eve’s website.
The Kestrel’s a solid step in that direction. “It won’t have any smell. It should be quieter. It should be warmer,” Armstrong says. “The vibrations that we get from the natural fibers are actually quite pleasant.” Plus, he adds, the car’s safer in a crash because it springs back rather than crumbles into a squished-metal ball.
Because of the nascence of the technology being used, Motive doesn’t yet understand how long-term wear and tear will affect the biocomposite car. However, the idea’s to create something durable and easy to repair. If it comes to fruition, “we’re really leaning toward something that’s going to last a long, long time,” Armstrong says.
CBC is reporting that several battery options will be available making the hemp electric vehicle affordable to many people.
Where does the reference to the colorful kestrel come in? “It was initially because we were using design cues from the bird, for aerodynamics,” Armstrong says, “but later [we] found out the kestrel is quick and nimble but has a limited range—perfect for an EV [electric vehicle]!” Get ready to fly in this lightweight, better-for-the-environment, cool-looking hemp-mobile.
VANCOUVER — Canada’s so-called “Prince of Pot” has been told he won’t be allowed a prison transfer and must serve his entire sentence in the United States.
Kirk Tousaw, a Canadian lawyer for Vancouver resident Marc Emery, said American authorities told his client in a letter received Friday that the U.S. government refused his transfer on April 6 due to the “seriousness of the offence” and “law enforcement concerns.”
He received the news in a federal holding institution in Oklahoma awaiting transfer to a prison in Mississippi.
Emery, who had been imprisoned in Georgia, pleaded guilty May 24 2010 in Seattle to selling marijuana seeds to Americans through his Vancouver-based catalogue company and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Tousaw said he can re-apply for transfer to a Canadian institution again for two years.
Emery’s wife Jodie was disheartened.
“There’s nothing we can do at this point beyond asking for a presidential pardon in the U.S., which I’m going to start campaigning for, actually, because I have to do whatever I can to get Marc home,” she said Friday. “We’re both devastated to hear this news. The idea of him spending the next three or four years in the U.S. federal prison system for political activism financed by seed sales — sales that now happen legally across America every day — is sickening and heartbreaking,”she adde.
“I’m still in shock. I’m asking everyone who has ever felt Marc’s treatment was unjust to get out and vote against the Conservatives on May 2 to punish them for extraditing Marc in the first place, one year ago on May 10.”
Tousaw said that with good behaviour, it’s possible Emery could get out after serving 85% of his sentence.
“This refusal is a terrible affront to the sovereignty of Canada,” he said. “Marc is a target of political persecution that appears to have transcended his conviction and now infects the treaty transfer process. He qualifies under every relevant factor and should have been allowed to serve out his jail term in Canada, close to his wife Jodie and in the country in which all of his activity took place. We call upon Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper and the leaders of the Liberal Party and NDP to stand up for this
Emery’s announcement comes the same week an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that two key parts of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act are unconstitutional and gave the federal government three months to respond to the decision.
If the government does not respond with a successful delay or re-regulation of marijuana, the drug will be legal to possess and produce in Ontario, where the decision is binding.
This file photo from 2010 shows a Toronto protest against a raid on a medical marijuana club.
Colin McConnell/Toronto Star File Photo
Jennifer Yang Staff Reporter
An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the federal medical marijuana program is unconstitutional, giving the government three months to fix the problem before pot is effectively legalized.
In an April 11 ruling, Justice Donald Taliano found that doctors across the country have “massively boycotted” the medical marijuana program and largely refuse to sign off on forms giving sick people access to necessary medication.
As a result, legitimately sick people cannot access medical marijuana through appropriate means and must resort to illegal actions.
Doctors’ “overwhelming refusal to participate in the medicinal marijuana program completely undermines the effectiveness of the program,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
“The effect of this blind delegation is that seriously ill people who need marijuana to treat their symptoms are branded criminals simply because they are unable to overcome the barriers to legal access put in place by the legislative scheme.”
Taliano declared the program to be invalid, as well as the criminal laws prohibiting possession and production of cannabis. He suspended his ruling for three months, giving Ottawa until mid-July to fix the program or face the prospect of effectively legalizing possession and production of cannabis.
The judge’s decision comes in a criminal case involving Matthew Mernagh, 37, of St. Catharines who suffers from fibromyalgia, scoliosis, seizures and depression.
Marijuana is the most effective treatment of Mernagh’s pain. But despite years of effort, he has been unable to find a doctor to support his application for a medical marijuana licence.
Mernagh resorted to growing his own cannabis and was charged with producing the drug.
Taliano found doctors essentially act as gatekeepers to the medical marijuana program but lack the necessary knowledge to adequately give advice or recommend the drug. He also found that Health Canada has made “no real attempt to deal with this lack of knowledge.”
Taliano said the issue is Canada-wide.
Twenty-one patients from across the country testified in the case, saying they were rejected by doctors a total of 113 times.
One Alberta patient was refused by 26 doctors; another in Vancouver approached 37 physicians without finding a single one to sign off on the form.
Patients also face lengthy delays — as long as nine months — in having their medical marijuana applications processed by Health Canada.
“The body of evidence from Mr. Mernagh and the other patient witnesses is troubling,” Taliano wrote. “The evidence of the patient witnesses, which I accept, showed that patients have to go to extraordinary lengths to acquire the marijuana they need.”
Lawyer Alan Young, a longtime advocate of marijuana legalization, said the ruling is a step in the right direction.
“It’s significant because it’s a Superior Court ruling which has binding effect across the province,” Young said.
“By enacting a dysfunctional medical program the government now has to pay the high cost of losing the constitutional authority to criminalize marijuana.”
He said the real test, however, will be whether the judgment stands up in the Ontario Court of Appeal.
“If the government is not successful on appeal, they are going to be caught between a rock and a hard place because they don’t have an alternative program in mind,” he said. “They don’t have a plan B. They’re in trouble.”
The medical profession has been wary of the medical marijuana program since it came into effect in August 2001.
On May 7, 2001, the Canadian Medical Association wrote a letter to the federal health minister expressing concerns with recommending a drug that has had little scientific evidence to support its medicinal benefits.
“Physicians must not be expected to act as gatekeepers to this therapy, yet this is precisely the role Health Canada had thrust upon them,” the letter stated.
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This file photo from 2010 shows a Toronto protest against a raid on a medical marijuana club.
