Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams plead guilty.

Seed company staffers plead guilty in pot case; lawyers suggest probation
4/25/09|The Globe and Mail| by Rod Mickleburgh

Two close associates of Canada's self-styled "prince of pot," Marc Emery, pleaded guilty in a Seattle court yesterday to selling marijuana seeds over the Internet, the same charge that has Mr. Emery facing the possibility of life imprisonment in the United States.

The surprise pleas were entered by Michelle Rainey, 38, and Gregory Keith Williams, 54, both of Vancouver, who were arrested, along with Mr. Emery, by the RCMP on extradition warrants in 2005.

The case has caused an uproar among pro-marijuana and some legal activists who accuse Canadian authorities of co-operating with the States' harsh war on drugs to put Mr. Emery behind bars when no similar charges have been laid against him in Canada.

Defence and prosecution lawyers made a joint submission to the court, recommending Ms. Rainey and Mr. Williams each receive a sentence of two years' probation. They will return for sentencing July 17.

Ms. Rainey told the court in a statement that she made up to $1,000 a week working for Mr. Emery's seed-selling business, with 75 per of its customers located south of the border.

Mr. Williams said he was being paid $300 a day by Mr. Emery. He added that Mr. Emery's claim of making more than $3-million annually from the marketing of marijuana seeds from his Vancouver headquarters was accurate.

An earlier attempt by Mr. Emery to broker his own plea agreement and serve about five years in a Canadian jail, if charges were dropped against his two employees, foundered when the federal government refused to go along.

Jody Emery, editor of Cannabis Culture Magazine and wife of Mr. Emery, said her husband is "very happy that Greg and Michelle will not be punished with a 10-20 year jail sentence.

"The United States wants Marc," she said, "and he has never wanted it on his conscience that Greg and Michelle were taken in, too. So he feels relieved."

The extradition trial of the so-called cannabis crusader begins in B.C. Supreme Court on June 1. "Now he gets to defend himself, and that's the way he wants it," Ms. Emery said.

"If he's punished, it should be here in Canada. That's where all his activities have been carried out. He has never operated in the United States."

The three were arrested after undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration in the U.S. alleged in affidavits that they had been sold marijuana seeds directly at Mr. Emery's cannabis operation on Vancouver's West Hastings Street. Since the arrests, the business has closed.

Random Friday Night Thoughts

I'll type in a dark green today. It is 9:03 on a Friday night. I have a freeroll touney at 9:15. I wonder how long I'll last this time?

I went to St. Mary's to play golf today. This was my first time at St. Mary's Golf and Country Club. It was a beautiful day and once again I forgot to take my camera. I almost forgot my putter too. It was that kind of day. I conveniently forgot my score. I do recall having six 7's and an 8. I also recall a par 3, so at least something went well. My shots were coming up short and my drives were very long but nowhere near straight. One of those days, but better to be out there than not.

I am sipping some Buzz Beer, made by Cool Beer. It is made from Hemp! How cool is that? I put a couple bottles in the freezer for about 1/2 an hour. That seemed about right. It is a very dark beer. Very smooth and dammit, very nice. Leave it to me to find a new favorite beer that is likely very hard to find in a bar or restaurant.

I keep thinking about the Stoner Games in Toronto on the 3rd of May. I really want to go but don't have $150 to spend. Anybody else going? Wanna take me? I can find accommodations. Sure, maybe it'll be under a bridge, but it'll be a nice bridge. :P I just emailed a buddy in Toronto to ask if he wanted to take me to the games and put me up too. I wonder if I will hear from him again?

The poker tourney started. I got a K3 and folded to an all-in. In freerolls there are a lot of early all-ins. Sometimes I bite. Usually not. I always try to hang in to see the flop. Cool, I just doubled up with a JJJ22 tight.

Washington is beating up on NYR 4-0 with 5 minutes to go. Looks like there'll be a game Sunday in NY.

Words are not flowing tonight. I am at my typing best in the morning. I think I'll go play poker and watch the end of the game. Then maybe I'll go to Runescape and hunt penguins or maybe do my slayer task of too many Nechryaels. I need to go clear out Miscellania, which leads to planting trees, but that can wait until tomorrow, or next week. So much to do, so little time.

1030 players out of 1500 still in tourney. I am around 20th. Still a long time to go. To win takes a few hours. Only the top 10 positions pay. Washington won 4-0. No surprise there. Ovechkin had a great goal that will be seen 100's of times in highlights. 2 buzz beer now and a buzz smoke in the grinder. 9:39pm on a Friday night and I am feeling like it is almost bedtime. Man, do I know how to live it up. :P

Cheers,
Randy

Reefer Poker

Are you an online poker player? I am. I only play the free stuff, though. I'll save my real playing money for live tables. I prefer to see the person I am playing against. Body language counts for a lot. Reefer Poker is not that much different than other poker sites except it is 420-friendly. For that alone it gets my vote. It also has frequent freeroll games, which appeal to a freeloader such as myself.

I play in the 9:15am (est) $50 Hold 'Em freeroll, the 1:15pm HORSE $50 freeroll, the 5:15pm Badugi $50 freeroll and the 9:15pm Hold 'Em $50 freeroll. The top 10 places pay from $1.00 to $15 real money. I finished 5th once and got $2.50 which I built up to over $11 in sit and go tourney's. It is not a lot of money for sure, but it is free and gets me into more games. I like the $2.20 10 seat games and the $.06 tourney.

I am putting that banner here so one can find it easily. I signed up for the affiliate program so I get a bonus if someone signs up through me. It's not much, but it's something, eh? So if you are into online poker, backgammon, blackjack and maybe some other games, sign up. Who knows, you might freeroll your way to a check in the mail. I have done it so you certainly can to. I know I am not a great poker player. Maybe not even good. :P

I am not sure if you can search for players, but if you can, I am 420londonont, for 420-friendly London, Ontario.

World Stoner Games

Click the image above for a link to The World Stoner Games.

Click here for info on The 2009 World Marijuana March.

The Day After 420

Tuesday the 21st. The day after 4/20 is Holocaust Remembrance Day. From a high to a low. Did you enjoy your 420 Day? I sure did, despite the weather.

It was cold and raining. I did not get to the park until 4:00. I waited as long as I could for the rain to let up. It did, but only enough to fool one into going out, then it would start up again. I did not take my camera. It was not a good day for photos.

I'd guesstimate about 200 people were in the park. There would have been 10 times that many if it wasn't raining. At 4:20 a great cheer went up. I am sure it could be heard all the way across the park to City Hall. I wonder if they were listening? Following the great cheer was a huge plume of smoke as the gathering crowd let out a collective exhale. Then another cheer. Now THAT was ubercool!

After the damp celebration in Vic Park my buddy and I walked around downtown a bit. We then stopped in at The Poacher's Arms for a beer, then Joe Kool's, then The Ceeps and then Molly Blooms. That was were we party company since my buddy had a blind date at 7. LOL. He was in fine shape for a blind date. I wonder how that went. :P I continued homeward and stopped at Marino's for a final pint. Every pub I went to was very quiet. I guess that shouldn't have been too much of a surprise for a rainy Monday. I got home in time to watch 24, but cannot recall what happened. :P

For those following this tale... I shared The Perfect Blunt with a few people, but mostly it was my buddy and I who smoked it. Actually, it was mostly me. My buddy stopped taking the pass before it was halfway done. I continued to smoke as we walked through the park. There was something special about freely smoking while strolling through the park exchanging "happy 420" with all I saw. I was carrying a couple lesser joints, but never got to them. That blunt was enough to last me all day. Sweet!

What shocked me the most was this morning while reading the newspaper (something I rarely do) and looking through the London Free Press online, I saw not one word mentioned about the gathering in Victoria park. Not ONE word. It's not like it was a secret. I can only surmise that the conservative "Free" press was directed to stay away so as not to draw attention. Is the 420 celebration not newsworthy? I am sure the 200 that showed and those who let the rain keep them away thought it was. Maybe the Western or Fanshawe papers have something. Maybe not.

I hope we can do better on May 2nd (or 3rd as some cities are doing). Will London have a parade? I doubt it. I don't see anyone taking on the chore of organizing one. Toronto will have a great parade, the Stoner Games where you can win tickets to The Cannabis Cup. I would like to take part in something local, but figure I'll probably have to go to the Toronto events instead. We'll see.

Most of the day was great, despite the weather. Seeing no press coverage was a huge dissappointment, but I am used to being dissappointed by our local paper and City Hall. Maybe I should start looking for a 420 friendly city and move; or better yet start working to make London a 420-friendly city. When's the next election? I got excited yesterday when I saw a nice big marijuana leaf on the front page of the LFP. Turns out the story was about yet another grow-op bust, not about 420 Day.

In other news.......

I think I am going to sell 420-friendly.com. I am not the guy to take it where it can go. I am more of a blogger and will stick to that for the time being. I am not too unhappy with this blogging format. The only thing that bugs me is how the comments are hidden and how one cannot use much html in them. At least the editor isn't there as it is whilst making a new post. Now if I just make a new post intead of "commenting" my new words are at the top of the page so it has to be read bottom to top, which is not what I want. Is there a blog site out there where commenters have as much editing ability as the author? And where comments are visible below the main post? Let me know if you see one and I'll take it for a test blog.

Later.....happy Post 420 Day!

HAPPY 420TH!!!!

HAPPY 420th!!!

That picture is a sample of my 420 Day stash. Yummy! Today is being treated as a holiday in my household. No work, no school, no chores. The morning will be spent in preparation for the afternoon. Mind you, this is my very first 420 Day so I am really not sure what to expect.

As far as I can tell the place to be is Victoria Park. I sent out word to my friends that that is where I was going to be. I am going to head downtown around noon. I'll start with a stroll through the park, just to see what the lunch crowd is like. I'll be strolling around downtown and Richmond row and looking forward to a late lunch at Stobies. I mean really, no visit to Vic Park is complete without it.

Between 4:00 and 4:30 I will be meeting my friends (and maybe even you) at the Holy Roller. At 4:20 I will set alight a very special blunt to honour the occasion. :D After that who knows? A beer at The Ceeps? Dinner at Molly Blooms?

I am going to be wearing my finest Armani suit with freshly cut hair all clean shaven. Why? Just in case there are pictures. :P If I happen to show up in some representative shot of Vic Park's 420 celebrations, I want to give a good impression. Why substantiate the stereotype, eh?

Got any comments? Do you wanna' meet up? What are your plans for the day? Share with us.

Do You Do Drugs?

Do You Do Drugs?

April 5, 2009
London,Ontario
by Randy Yeo



Do you do drugs? If you say no, you are a liar! We all do drugs of some kind.
I mean, if you are going to say an herb, like marijuana is a drug, then you have to say any herbal remedy is a drug. Therefore, when we include herbs in with pharmaceuticals (even aspirin), caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and even sugar, we all do drugs. Still no? How about in the food you eat. What drugs/toxins are in that?

So? Do you do drugs?

Chemicals (drugs) in food are okay. I think all of us except the most diehard organics have accepted this. Read any contents label and you'll see plenty of drugs. And make sure you wash the drugs off of your fresh fruits and veggies.

Herbal mood altering blends and remedies are pretty much accepted. I believe we are welcome to our herb patches and can do with those herbs as we please. Granted, maybe not ones that kill, but most of them.

[I was thinking of Remembrance Day and poppies and wondered if we were allowed to grow them? Can I grow my own Coca to make chocolate?]

Tobacco is taking a beating. That has opened the door for reserve smokes to enter the grey market. A great juxtaposition I see when I walk into a corner market here is all the marijuana paraphernalia out in the open and the legal but frowned upon tobacco products all hidden away behind secure walls. And I agree with this. Hide the legal killing stuff and lay open the peaceful pot stuff. Too bad you can only get paraphernalia, eh?

Alcohol is hugely accepted. You can go just about anywhere and find a nearby drink. In some circles, if you do not offer your guests a drink, you are looked upon as flat-out rude. You can walk into a beautifully appointed liquor store and browse. Heck, you can bring the kids along! Teach 'em how to chose only the "good brands.”

Pharmaceuticals. Meds. How many meds do you take? How many friends do you have that take doctor prescribed medications? How many people who are taking meds need to take other meds to combat the side effects of the first meds? Do you have to eat a handful of pills every day to just stand a chance? 'nough said on that.

Oh yeah I mentioned sugar. We know it isn't good for us. Most know it is REALLY bad. Yet we feed it to our kids, ourselves and it can cause cancer, diabetes, gingivitis, etc... and we don't care 'cause it's yummy and legal.

Am I missing anything? Right. Marijuana. Cannabis. A plant that not only has great medicinal properties, but also calming effects in recreational users. Nobody has died using marijuana alone. Marijuana users are not prone to rage and violence. Perhaps that stuff comes in with hard, easy to manufacture and transport drugs, but not marijuana. Marijuana is an herb that is illegal. It was made illegal primarily as an attack on certain racial groups. That fact alone makes me feel ashamed.

These days, even if you are say, 60 and never got as much as a speeding ticket, you can be jailed for growing a marijuana plant. That same plant that can contribute to our environment. It can save trees! The same plant with proven (time and again) medicinal properties. Yes, that very same plant.

Our governments are acting on centuries old propaganda. If not that they are being manipulated by tobacco, alcohol, big pharmaceuticals, maybe even the forestry industry. Yes, marijuana is a threat. It is a threat to some big businesses because available, legal pot may well replace a number of their products. Marijuana is not a threat to you or me. It is not a threat to society, just Big Business.

It is sad not enough of us vote. It is a crying shame and social injustice. By not voting we allow the same old dinosaurs to dictate our personal freedoms. I can understand that those with the wisdom to vote for new ideas are those wise enough to see there are no candidates to vote for. I mean really, can you trust ANY politician? Still, we MUST vote. If not for us, then a generation or few to come. Maybe my grandkid's kids will initiate a change. Maybe.

I am Canadian. I am free. Well, unless I grow just one marijuana plant. Then I am a criminal worthy of serving time in jail. I wonder what I would learn there? Would I be rehabilitated? Is there such a thing as jail/prison and rehabilitation? What if I, a person who grew one plant, was housed with say a safecracker. What if I had not much else to do with my time but fear for my life and take up a new hobby? What if? What if I was just left alone, hurting no one, with my treasured herb garden.

And then there's the economy, but I guess it isn't a given what cash crop could well save the government money as well as line its pockets. Senators, think of the junkets!

If I were in the control seat, I would say "just leave marijuana alone.” Not legalized or decriminalized. Flat out left alone. It's nothing. It’s a plant. Let some big business guys have a go at marketing it. Go ahead and make your cash, just leave us alone who would rather the pleasure of growing our own.

London, Ontario Courth House Photowalk

Bill C-15 could fill prisons

Bill C-15 could fill prisons

By Carlito Pablo

Will Bill C-15 kill the twin scourge of illegal drugs and gang violence?

Libby Davies

NDP MP, Vancouver East

"There's a lot of information, both in the United States and in Canada, that shows that mandatory minimum sentencing regimes for drug offences are ineffective. This is all about window-dressing for the Conservatives' crime agenda. They want to impress people with their tough-on-crime approach. One thing that will happen is that it could very much overcrowd our prisons. We find the bill to be misdirected and based on a very faulty premise. It's based on the U.S.'s war on drugs, which has been a complete failure."

Ed Fast

Conservative MP, Abbotsford

"What Bill C-15 does is it's connecting the sale of drugs to aggravating factors. If there's a sale or production or growing of drugs that occurs and violence is present, we will put those guys behind bars. But we also want to make sure that low-level dealers that are dealing in drugs simply because they're addicted can actually get the help that they deserve. We believe it's a balanced approach. We're not going after the marijuana users. We're going after the guys who really present an ongoing danger to our community."

Ujjal Dosanjh

Liberal MP, Vancouver South

"Bill[s] C-14 and [C-]15? We have said that we'll support both of them. We agree with tougher penalties for serious and violent and chronic offenders. But that alone isn't going to do the job. That's why we believe this government is failing significantly in their drive to deal with the issue of crime. They're failing Canadians because they're not emphasizing crime-preventing, they're not providing resources for youth programs, they're not providing actual police officers on the ground, [and] they're not providing prosecutors."

Adrianne Carr

Deputy leader, Green Party of Canada

"The Green party doesn't support mandatory sentencing because it has proven to not work. It's coming from this tough-on-crime perspective. What we've seen is that our court system wastes extraordinarily high resources in prosecuting the petty criminals involved in drug cases, particularly marijuana. We should be legalizing marijuana, which has been suggested by the Senate of Canada and the Fraser Institute, and these are hardly radical institutions. What we have to do is delink the profit

motive from drugs."

On March 2, the Pew Center on the States, a Washington, D.C.--based think tank, released a report on the staggering growth of the American correctional system.

Entitled One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections, the report noted that "sentencing and release laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s put so many more people behind bars that last year the incarcerated population reached 2.3 million and, for the first time, one in 100 adults was in prison or jail."

It also cited the tremendous increase in the number of people on probation or parole, such that "combined with those in prison and jail, a stunning 1 in every 31 adults, or 3.2 percent, is under some form of correctional control."

Why is this relevant to Canada?

"We only need to go south of the border and see a nation that enacted mandatory minimums related to drug offences from the mid-1980s on," criminologist Susan Boyd told the Georgia Straight. "It didn't reduce violence and drug use. So here we are saying, 'We're going to do this.' "

Boyd -- an associate professor at UVic and research fellow at the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C. -- was referring to the reintroduction in Parliament by the Conservative government of a bill that proposes mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug offenders.

If passed into law, Bill C-15 would, among its other provisions, throw people caught with one marijuana plant into the slammer for a minimum of six months. If growing a single plant is done on a property that belongs to another person or in an area where it may present a hazard to children, minimum jail time is nine months.

Worse, the bill seeks to increase the maximum penalty for this particular offence to 14 years.

Vancouver's so-called Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, who is fighting extradition on charges of selling marijuana seeds to American growers, is a potential U.S. prison statistic.

Emery was handing out leaflets condemning drug prohibition, along with his wife, Jodie, on the south side of the city when the Straight asked him about Bill C-15. "Anything that puts more people in jail for drugs is going to fill prisons," he said. "It's a very expensive and failed policy that will only bring us more misery."

The Pew Center on the States report pointed out that many states in the U.S. "appear to have reached a 'tipping point' where additional incarceration will have little if any effect on crime".

In Washington state, which shares a border with B.C., the report stated, "from 1980 to 2001, the benefit-to-cost ratio for drug offenders plummeted from $9.22 to $0.37.

"That is, for every one dollar invested in new prison beds for drug offenders, state taxpayers get only 37 cents in averted crime," it noted. "An updated analysis from 2006 found that incarceration of offenders convicted of violent offenses remained a positive net benefit, while property and drug offenders offered negative returns."

Conservative Abbotsford MP Ed Fast deflected criticism that mandatory jail times haven't worked in the U.S.

"First of all, on the issue of deterrence there's contradicting evidence," Fast told the Straight. "I don't base my support for the legislation on the deterrent effect. I base it on the prophylactic effect of the legislation. Prophylactic means taking repeat, violent offenders out of our communities for longer periods of time."

Bill C-15 is a reincarnation of Bill C-26, which the Conservatives introduced in November 2007.

In February 2008, a few months after Bill C-26 was tabled in Parliament, Boyd started sending Prime Minister Stephen Harper a weekly letter in an attempt to educate the Conservative leader about harm reduction and drug regulation.

Boyd did this for a year, and she sent her 52nd and final letter in early February this year. Bill C-15 was introduced on February 27, a day after the Conservatives filed Bill C-14, which toughens penalties for gang-associated violent activities.

As an educator, Boyd has this to say about mentoring Harper: "The prime minister gets a failing grade on drug policy."

The economics of prisons in Canada

} Total correctional-services expenditures in 2005-06: almost $3 billion

} Share spent on custodial services or prisons: 71 percent

} Associated policing and court costs in 2005-06: more than $10 billion

} Number of correctional facilities in Canada in 2005-06: 192

} Annual cost of incarcerating a federal female prisoner in

2004-05: $150,000 to $250,000

} Annual cost of incarcerating a federal male prisoner in 2004-05: $87,665

} Daily cost of incarcerating a provincial prisoner in 2004-05: $141.78

} Daily cost of alternatives such as probation, bail supervision,

and community supervision: $5 to $25

Source: prisonjustice.ca

Obama Is A Criminal

There, did that get your attention? I was thinking about how President Obama talked about smoking pot when he was younger. Where would he be today if he was one of the many who were arrested for smoking pot? He'd have a criminal record, no? Can you be President if you have a criminal record? Obama admitted to smoking pot, therefore he must have been in possession of marijuana. He broke a federal law.

I am not saying Obama should be impeached or otherwise held accountable. I think he should just decriminalize marijuana and relegate it in the same category as say, strawberries. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been ruined over simple possession. Obama has the power to undo these injustices. Instead, he puts more money into the losing cause of "The War on Drugs". Go ahead and have you political fun, but at least get marijuana out of the illegal drug category.

Sunday's pictures.

Reefer Poker

Shots of London

You might have to hover over the image to read the caption.

420-friendly

Oh Canada. Our home and backward land.

I spent the weekend in agony. No, I did not injure myself. I read countless articles by every active politician I could fine. Very few made much sense. We seem to be governed by blind dinosaurs, just waiting for the world to end. I just can't figure it. The latest is Bill C-15. Mandatory Prison sentences. I agree with harsh sentences when they are deserved, but am slow to judge because of all those jailed unjustly. What is jail for? It is for no other reason than to keep the criminals off the street. If you come at me with the rehabilitation argument I will just walk away. Prison and rehabilitation are two words that do not go together, like government and common sense. Write your MP, write your local newspaper, yell at your friends to help do something to stop Bill C-15 and anything that closely resembles it!

Dang, now I am ranting. See what even an intro to a video will do? Please, watch this short video. Post your comment. I really want to hear what you have to say about it.

Mandatory Sentences

As painful as it is to read....

It is this kind of drivel that sets us back a few decades. Marijuana CANNOT be associated with other illegal drugs, nor can it be associated with most legal drugs. Marijuana stands on it's own and until people can wrap their heads around that we will always have "false prophets" such as this bonehead. That said, go ahead and read this article without bias. LOL



Drug legalization lobby lacks business plan
3/4/09|North Shore News| by Wallace Gilby Craig - North Shore News

PUBLIC outrage over recent gang murders by feuding traffickers in B.C. Bud and other illicit drugs has forced the federal government to target gangsters in upcoming changes to our criminal law.

But according to our local drug-legalization crowd, led by marijuana's false prophets, those feds just don't understand the way we choose to live in la-la-land. This clutch of deceitful addicts and their myopic supporters propose legalization of cannabis and other illicit drugs, and the introduction of a bureaucratic system of drug regulation and distribution.

Their dream-world fantasy is based on a misty notion that illicit drugs could be produced and distributed like alcohol; that by the stroke of a pen the multi-billion dollar gangland drug manufacturing/importing/exporting business would be transformed into a legal, manageable and taxable government monopoly. Yet to be explained by marijuana's false prophets: How a pussycat government monopoly hopes to persuade gangsters to trade in their guns for bongs, become choir boys, and refrain from continuing to sell drugs in an inevitable black market.

Fat chance, I say.

Marijuana's false prophets send a steady stream of misinformation about a supposed similarity between the brief period when alcohol was prohibited and our hundred years of criminalization of illicit drugs, always ending with the same catchphrase: Let's take control of marijuana -- tax it, standardize and regulate it.

On Feb. 27, marijuana's false prophets were on the street outside the Vancouver police station in front of television cameras with signs proclaiming Gang Violence Is Caused by Drug Prohibition . . . End Drug Prohibition to End Gang Violence.

It is a false message. Gang violence and murder will not end with fairy-tale legalization. International crime syndicates, coupled with source countries around the world profiting in the production of narcotics, will continue to target Canada and the United States. Legalization would cause them to increase their activity to accommodate an increase in the numbers of addicts in Canada.

On March 1, criminologist Neil Boyd, perched in the surreal world of academia atop Burnaby Mountain, was interviewed by the Province. Boyd apparently said that the new anti-drug law fails to address the reality that prohibiting cannabis doesn't work, and is out of step with the threat the substance poses.

"It makes sense to focus on the issue of violence, but we've had so many reports at the same time that the criminal law is not an appropriate response to cannabis use and production," said Boyd.

Boyd is a thoughtful and knowledgeable person who understands all aspects of the criminal justice system. It is not clear from his remarks whether Boyd supports legalizing only possession of marijuana or whether he proposes decriminalization of possession of all drugs. A thornier question is whether Boyd advocates that Canada decriminalize trafficking in all illicit drugs.

The question remains: Of all the "many reports" Boyd refers to, is one of them a detailed and comprehensive business plan for the federal and provincial governments to take over the production and distribution of all illicit drugs sourced in Canada or exported into Canada by source countries around the world?

I am convinced that there is no such comprehensive business plan in existence laying out, in detail, a viable transition from the chaotic sprawl of criminal production and trafficking to a staid agency of government.

In 2005, England's Anthony Daniels, physician, prison doctor and essayist, writing under the pseudonym of Theodore Dalrymple, published Our Culture, What's Left of It, a collection of essays on a wide range of subjects including the legalization of drugs.

Two brief quotations bear directly on any debate in British Columbia:

"In claiming that prohibition, not the drugs themselves, is the problem . . . many . . . even (some) policemen have said 'the war on drugs is lost.' But to demand a yes or no answer to the question 'Is the war against drugs being won?' is like demanding a yes or no answer to the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?' Never can an unimaginative and fundamentally stupid metaphor have exerted a more baleful effect upon proper thought.

"Analogies with the Prohibition era, often drawn by those who would legalize drugs, are false and inexact: it is one thing to attempt to ban a substance that has been in customary use for centuries by at least nine-tenths of the adult population, and quite another to retain a ban on substances that are still not in customary use, in an attempt to ensure that they never do become customary. Surely we have already slid down enough slippery slopes in the last 30 years without looking for more such slopes to slide down."

Dalrymple's observations are apropos to today's campaign of drug legalizers, including marijuana's false prophets, to destroy the moral and ethical integrity of our precious individual liberty by including in it an absolute and unfettered right to dally with marijuana, chemical drugs and narcotics.

Wake up Canada! Dedicated narcissistic marijuana users and psychosocial hard drug abusers are parasitical citizens, engaged solely in their own interests and pleasures.

Their creed: I care for nothing but myself.



Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Marijuana_Headline_News/~3/KpXKJahMq6s/115747-can-drug-legalization-lobby-lacks-business-plan.htm

An American view, but worth the read.

Thanks to CJ117 at www.marijuana.com forums.

SO -- I have a lot of comments to make on this entire thread... I guess I'll have to start at the beginning.

As for the growing of marijuana... I read a lot of comments about how people wouldn't buy marijuana, they'd just grow their own. I have to rebut that with the fact that Tobacco isn't very hard to grow. And yet how many people do you know that grow their own cigs? I don't know ANYONE. I've never even heard people discussing it.
If marijuana is legalized, people have the option of growing their own, but they'd almost definitely prefer to buy it. It's SO much easier, and we all know americans are fucking lazy as hell and would much rather fork over a few bucks to get their "fix" than wait 2-6 months for their crop to shell out. It's common sense people. Obviously, there'd be people like buzzby and possibly myself who would really love to try growing our own. It's an experience all in itself. But the vast majority of people would end up stopping by the liquor store instead of Home Depot Garden Center.

As for the "increase in consumption"... think about it - people are going to be curious to try this stuff that's had such a huge political fiasco surrounding it. People are BOUND to pick up a pack and give it a shot. It's a given that more people will begin to smoke weed, or at least try it. I'm willing to bet many people will like it. But as soon as all the regulations change regarding employment, driving; the social policies we instill on one another; studies emerge, etc. you have to realize there would be a massive culture reformation surrounding this plant. As it has in other countries, marijuana use would find its equilibrium in our society and dwindle down to a reasonable statistic.

The DUI issue -- Consider that not everyone that drinks and then drives, and then is pulled over is immediately arrested. I can drive perfectly fine after chugging a 24 oz bottle of smirnoff (yeah gimmie all the shit about it not being beer its still alcohol dammit!) and I don't drink at all. I have zero tolerance for the stuff so it hits me hard.
This is why we have sobriety tests. Police will undoubtedly devise tests and mandates that surround the pot issue. I can drive fine when I'm high. But I get to a certain point and I don't feel so up to driving. It's scary fun, but its a risk I'd really rather not take. If you're really baked and unable to drive, you're obviously gonna get busted. If you're able to function behind the wheel, that would be reflected in your sobriety test.

Additionally, it would be wise to consider the following: Do you feel up to driving when you're blasted? Isn't there a point you REALIZE you'd rather not drive? People who smoke weed don't go out and do the same stupid shit they do while drunk. It doesn't have that same effect like alcohol that makes you feel daring and destroys your reasoning skills (due to the fact that its KILLING YOUR BRAIN!!!). For those who do, as I'm sure there's exceptions to that observation, the sobriety tests police would administer would surely expose that fact and said offenders would be punished accordingly. It's COMMON SENSE.

One more thing I've gotta say about drug policy in the workplace... I think it would be ridiculous if companies were to continue the same mandates about marijuana after the legalization. Consider that people are not tested for alcohol in the workplace. Rightly so, intoxication is grounds for dismissal. So you don't often see beer bottles in office cubicles. The same should be for marijuana. Responsible people who use during off hours should be allowed to continue to do so. I see many lawsuits in the future of legalization revolving around this issue should companies not revise their laws. I feel sobriety is necessary in the workplace. I think most people do. But after hours it shouldn't matter.

As for this bill, I feel it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that we EDUCATE the public about Marijuana. We can't just expect this bill to PASS ON ITS OWN. People are STILL IGNORANT of the TRUTHS about marijuana. Its effects, its contents, w/e.. people still believe the myths they've been told all their lives. WE HAVE TO DO OUR PART TO CHANGE THIS. If we don't, if we sit on our asses, this bill is BOUND FOR FAILURE. THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW. It's now or never. (or maybe again and again and again but seriously let's put a stop to that!)

CMON GUYS I WANT TO SEE THIS AS MUCH AS YOU DO!!!

NOW GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!!!!
__________________
"In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."
Legalize! Regulate! EDUCATE!

What's wrong with a little puffsky?

What's wrong with a little puffsky?
2/6/09|CBC News| by Neil Macdonald - CBC News

This is a country whose new president has smoked pot. Not just smoked it, he inhaled, too. Got stoned and everything.

At least that's what Barack Obama said in his book, Dreams of My Father. Apparently a little puffsky here and there helped him in his search for racial identity as a young man.

Now, Obama doesn't specify where exactly he smoked dope. But he says he did it when he was a high school and college student, meaning it was likely in Hawaii, where he spent his teenage years, or in California, New York or Massachusetts, where he pursued his higher education.

That means the president is probably safe from retroactive prosecution. Safer, anyway, than Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimming sensation who was photographed with his snout in a big, smoke-filled bong at a university party in South Carolina in November.

Phelps, who can't really use the excuse about searching for his racial identity, has already publicly grovelled and apologized for his actions, but that just made things worse.

Sheriff Leon Lott of South Carolina's Richland County considered that apology "a partial confession" and, when taken together with the incriminating picture, it may well land Phelps in front of a judge.


Checkerboard laws
President Obama, though, is in no such danger. California, New York and Massachusetts are among the 11 U.S. states that have decriminalized pot.

Police in those jurisdictions barely bother with personal marijuana use these days. And while Hawaii hasn't joined that club, it always imposes probation for a first offence.

Being a Harvard-trained lawyer, the president must know about the weird, lopsided legal inequalities here as far as marijuana is concerned, which might explain why he hasn't uttered a public word about Phelp's predicament. This, apparently, is not the kind of change he wants anyone to believe in.

But these inequities are pretty stark. Phelps, says Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is a "victim of geography."

According to NORML, roughly 115 million Americans now live in jurisdictions where possession of a small amount of marijuana is no longer a criminal offence. Had Phelps hit the bong in, say, Ohio or Mississippi, he'd be in danger of nothing more than a traffic ticket type fine.


Less reefer madness
State governments here are increasingly paying attention to the wishes of voters, the vast majority of whom think possession of marijuana should not be a criminal offence. Four in 10 Americans tell surveys they've smoked up at least once in their lives.

The public stigma of pot is declining, too, given that this country is now run by people who came of age in the 1960s and '70s.

Along with Obama, the list of prominent admitted pot-smokers in the U.S. includes: former vice-president Al Gore, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former congressman and right-wing icon Newt Gingrich, and former Democratic presidential nominee Howard Dean.

Bill Clinton, of course, toked but claimed he didn't inhale. And given George W. Bush's coy tap-dancing around the subject of his cocaine use back in university, chances are he fired up the odd joint then, too, during his frat days.

Still, as St. Pierre puts it, "where this subject is concerned, there is still no good reason to be honest."

That is because, while state governments might be relaxing their rules, the federal enforcement system, now ultimately headed by Barack Obama, remains rigidly, implacably, militantly anti-pot.


Beware the feds
Federal agencies, which wield enormous power here, dismiss state marijuana laws as irrelevant. Even laws allowing for medical marijuana use.

"It's Orwellian, Kafkaesque," says St. Pierre, who clearly relishes the chance to hold forth on the subject.

"There are some people who might well be a bona fide medical marijuana patient in a state," says St. Pierre, but if they wind up in the sights of a federal agent, "they're going to face federal charges, and they do."

Then there's the border. At the border, you can be penalized not just for possessing dope, but for having talked about possessing dope.

Crossing into the States, Google can be your enemy. U.S. customs agents have computers and often do searches to try to find if someone entering the U.S. has had what they call "a primary relationship with cannabis," St. Pierre says. Even if they have never been arrested for it and don't possess it, they can still be denied entry.


Canadian travellers
Canadian travellers need to understand this: fessing up anytime, anywhere, can mean a permanent ban from the United States.

And it happens. Last March's edition of the West Kootenay Contact, the newsletter of that region's chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, carried the story of Karyn, a 54-year-old B.C. woman who suffers from the disease and had a problem at the border. I spoke to her by phone.

On a trip to Spokane, Wash., to drop her son off for a flight to Florida, she was asked by a U.S. customs agent at the Nelway border crossing if she'd ever smoked marijuana.

Being a rule-obeying Canadian, she said yes, she had, as treatment for her painful leg spasms, and produced her medical permit, issued by Health Canada. She is one of the 2,812 people to whom Canada has granted official permission to use medical marijuana.

"I was truthful in all ways," she told me. "I had cards in my possession that identified me as a licenced user, and I didn't want to be caught lying."

The border agent, she said, examined her federal permit, photocopied it and then informed her she was being barred from the U.S. for being an "admitted drug user."

She says she was fingerprinted, forced to pose for mug shots, "and warned that if I attempt to enter the U.S. again, I will be heavily fined and any vehicle I'm in will be confiscated.

"It was horrible. Horrible, horrible horrible."


Enforcing American law
I called U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which confirmed that Karyn's story fit their policy.

It does not matter to them that the Canadian government licenses its citizens and even provides them with government-grown marijuana. As far as the U.S. government is concerned, that just makes Canada a big, official dope dealer.

"A Canadian licence isn't valid under U.S. law," said the Customs and Border Protection official who returned my call.

Yes, he said, it might sound unfair, and yes, he knows about the states that have decriminalized: "That's state law. We apply federal law."

So I called Health Canada in Ottawa and asked spokesman Philippe Laroche if the Canadian government tells its citizens that possession of a valid, federally issued medical marijuana licence is grounds for being barred from the United States.

"No one has ever asked that question," he responded.

Canada Customs, incidentally, shares information with its U.S. counterpart and you can definitely be barred from Canada for drug use, too.

Again, though, President Obama shouldn't worry on his trip to Ottawa later this month. Canada Border Services Agency generally only bars people with a drug conviction in their past.

Obama has never been convicted of marijuana use, or for snorting cocaine, something else he's acknowledged doing. And besides, the president will be travelling to Canada later this month on a diplomatic passport. There shouldn't be any problem at all.

Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Marijuana_Headline_News/~3/535193070/114118-can-whats-wrong-little-puffsky.html