Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be dismissive about the fact that the states of Washington and Colorado voted in favour of legalizing marijuana last week, but they have set the stage for a game changer, however complicated.
Ironically, last Tuesday’s vote on the day of the U.S. election fell on the same day that the Harper government’s Safe Streets and Communities Act with tougher drug possession laws came into effect.
Whether Harper likes it or not, individual states in the U.S. are inching forward while Canada’s drug laws are going backwards.
If there's one thing that can get the nation's pot smokers motivated it's the legalization of marijuana.
After two U.S. states okayed pot for recreational use in ballot initiatives on Tuesday, activists in this country renewed their call to legalize it in Canada.
"This is monumental. I finally feel like we're beginning to see the end of the war on cannabis around the world," cannabis crusader Dana Larsen, a founding member of the Canadian Marijuana Party and the B.C. Marijuana Party, told QMI Agency Wednesday.
But just as Colorado and Washington loosened up, Canada tightened its drug laws.
Most British Columbians, I'm sure, won't weep over the murder in Mexico of drug kingpin Tom Gisby and other B.C. gangbangers.
They'll figure that, if you play with fire, you deserve to get burned — and that assassins in the Land of the Hot Sun are simply taking care of a problem our criminal-friendly justice system has failed to address.
However, I'm more inclined to agree with jailed pot activist Marc Emery that no good can come from pumped-up Canuck drug-dealers mixing directly with Mexican cartels for whom survival is everything and life is cheap. Read more »
People authorized to use medical marijuana can bake it in brownies and drink it in their tea, not just smoke it in dried form, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Justice Robert Johnston concluded that the restriction to dried marijuana in the Health Canada’s Marijuana Medical Access Regulations is unconstitutional as it breaches Section 7 of the Charter of Rights.
“The remedy for this breach is to remove the word ‘dried’ where it appears in the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations and I so order,” said Johnston.
The decision arises out of a constitutional challenge by Owen Smith, the head baker for the Cannabis Buyers’ Club of Canada. Read more »
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to a weekend summit in Colombia where his hard line on drugs will put him at odds with some Latin American leaders who are calling for a debate over whether drug use should be decriminalized.
Harper's position on Cuba also could run afoul of a possible consensus by countries in central and South America.
Harper is attending the Summit of the Americas, a conference of leaders from 34 nations that is held every three years.
The talks this year will include such issues as trade expansion, and Harper will meet with senior business executives from Canada and elsewhere who are attending the summit to discuss investment in the Western Hemisphere. Read more »
Prominent public health figures are speaking out against the way Ottawa approaches drug policy, asserting that the government is putting ideology over hard facts.
An analysis published Wednesday in the journal Open Medicine calls on the federal government to shift the focus of its drug strategy from law enforcement to health and harm reduction.
Among the study's authors are the chief medical health officers for British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, who critique Ottawa's anti-drug legislation, which includes mandatory minimum prison sentences for minor drug law offences. Read more »
I haven't spent a lot of time in the United States, but I've gotten the impression that among drug policy activists, Canada gets a lot of respect. The city of Vancouver is well known for InSite, the only legal safe-injection site in North America; busting marijuana users is a low priority for Canadian law enforcement; and so far, we've avoided locking people up at the unprecedented rate that Americans have.
It's not that life is perfect, or that the winters don't get you down. But as far as drug policy went, Canada just seemed more sensible. In 2003, Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker ended a commentary on our relaxed approach to marijuana (and gay marriage) with this much-repeated gem: Read more »
The B.C. budget has no extra money for justice at a time when Ottawa is thumbing its nose at cash-strapped voters with an omnibus crime bill that threatens to ramp up criminal costs.
Not surprisingly, there was plenty of hand-wringing by the bar and other legal stakeholders who delivered a similar response: Victoria is maintaining the status quo, which means the situation remains a crisis.
It’s bad news for families in conflict, children in care and victims hoping to see justice done. But it’s welcome news for accused criminals who continue to have a good chance of walking free because of clogged courtrooms. Read more »
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be dismissive about the fact that the states of Washington and Colorado voted in favour of legalizing marijuana last week, but they have set the stage for a game changer, however complicated.
If there's one thing that can get the nation's pot smokers motivated it's the legalization of marijuana.
Prominent public health figures are speaking out against the way Ottawa approaches drug policy, asserting that the government is putting ideology over hard facts.
I haven't spent a lot of time in the United States, but I've gotten the impression that among drug policy activists, Canada gets a lot of respect. The city of Vancouver is well known for InSite, the only legal safe-injection site in North America; busting marijuana users is a low priority for Canadian law enforcement; and so far, we've avoided locking people up at the unprecedented rate that Americans have.
The B.C. budget has no extra money for justice at a time when Ottawa is thumbing its nose at cash-strapped voters with an omnibus crime bill that threatens to ramp up criminal costs.
