marijuana

By. Richard J. Brennan, Toronto Star

OTTAWA–As Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke to Canadians "unfiltered" in his first YouTube appearance, viewers talked back, weighing in online with hundreds of questions ranging from the legalization of marijuana to his inability to get a majority.

"You couldn't get a majority against the weak (former prime minister Paul) Martin or the lame duck (former Liberal leader Stéphane) Dion, & polls show you would also fail vs the foreigner (Michael) Ignatieff," one viewer wrote.

"When are you going to step down and let a real leader win a majority for the good of the party & the country?"

by Paul McKeever

Until Sunday, March 14th, the public will have the ability both to submit a question and to rank all of the questions submitted. The questions are not edited, so the whole process lacks the protection usually afforded by the mainstream media: Harper faces questions that concern the public, rather than questions designed to highlight the concerns or agendas of media interests.

The most shocking result, so far: all three of the three most popular questions so far – by a landslide – all deal with…cannabis legalization. I reproduce, below, the top three questions and their rankings (as of 6:05 PM on March 11, 2010), together with the fourth, which is not cannabis related.

By. DrugWarRant

Popular Science has made its archives searchable, and this has led to finding gems such as this article, from May of 1968

This was 42 years ago, an era when the science of marijuana was incomplete, yet they oddly seemed to know more than “we” do today. It was a time before science had been turned to proving an agenda, back when it was about learning the truth about stuff.

Let’s take a look at some of Popular Science’s conclusions about marijuana…

Though medical men agree that marijuana is not physically addictive (unlike cigarettes and alcohol), many classify it as “psychologically addictive” — a term that Dr. Malleson considers “extremely imprecise, misleading, and unuseful… In practice it means nothing more than the statement, ‘I want.’”

We have a chance to push marijuana legalization to the top of that list (It's currently #2 and #3). You don't have to be Canadian to participate, so please, wherever you're from, help us legalize marijuana in Canada.

Please, click here to vote for marijuana legalization! Let's make marijuana the #1 and #2 questions to Stephen Harper!

And here vote here again!

This is our chance to force this issue front and centre before the Prime Minister, so please, vote today.

By Carlito Pablo, Georgia Straight

Members of Parliament from three parties—Conservative, Liberal, and New Democrat—are poised to present petitions with thousands of signatures seeking to stop the extradition to the U.S. of Canada’s Prince of Pot, Marc Emery.

The politicians are Conservative MP Scott Reid of Ontario, Vancouver South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, and Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies, the Georgia Straight has learned.

“That’s correct,” Reid’s aide Mike Firth confirmed by phone from Ottawa. “We haven’t arranged a day yet. We’re still trying to get a day when the three of them will be available at the same time.”

Last summer, Emery entered into a plea bargain with American authorities that will likely see him thrown in a U.S. jail for at least five years for distributing marijuana seeds.

The petitions ask Conservative justice minister and attorney general Rob Nicholson not to sign the extradition papers of the Vancouver-based cannabis activist.

By. Ersun Warnke Salem-News.com Business/Economy Reporter

Comprehensive Marijuana reforms would increase revenues, create jobs, decrease law enforcement and incarceration expenditures, increase tourism, and create new educational opportunities in Oregon’s universities.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - The existing medical marijuana program in Oregon has been highly successful, but is in many ways less than optimal. I am not personally a medical marijuana user, nor do I have any association with the organizers of the medical marijuana regulation campaign in Oregon. My opinions on these issues are my own, and should not be confused with the proposals of any of the other groups who advocate on these issues.

By. Mike Meno

Talk about seeing the error of his ways.

John J. Dilulio, Jr., the man who once co-authored a book with two former drug czars that described America’s drug war as “the most successful attack on a serious social problem in the last quarter-century,” has now reversed course, writing in the journal Democracy that it is “insane” to “expend scare federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging ‘war’ against [marijuana] users.”

Specifically, Dilulio, who served for eight months in 2001 as director of President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, listed making medical marijuana legal as one of “six steps to zero prison growth,” along with removing all federal mandatory-minimum drug sentencing policies. He also said the United States should “seriously consider decriminalizing [marijuana] altogether” because marijuana arrests have “close to zero” effect on crime rates and there is “almost no scientific evidence” showing marijuana to be more harmful than alcohol or legal narcotics.