Prohibition

BY BARBARA YAFFE, VANCOUVER SUN

Taxpayers must be wondering how long the list of proponents will have to grow before Ottawa moves to decriminalize pot use.

Last week, the Union of B.C. Municipalities became the latest group to recognize the futility of Canada’s existing marijuana laws, with mayors voting at their Victoria convention to lobby Ottawa on the subject.

Specifically, their resolution called on governments to ”decriminalize marijuana, and research the regulation and taxation of marijuana.”

The voters were mayors and councillors: politicians at the level of government closest to the community, folks who understand how much time and money is being wasted on a useless pursuit.

The UBCM should go further and form its own task force to research pot regulation and taxation. Read more »

By David Newland, Macleans

Sometimes, it’s hard to see the plantation, for the pot. A recent report concluding that adolescent pot smoking affects intelligence got all the headlines. But a bigger issue was hiding behind smaller type: BC RCMP busted Hells Angels for growing pot to fund the importation of cocaine.

I’m dismayed to learn that the pot I smoked as a teenager has probably made me dumber. But I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew at the time that marijuana messed with my brain. That was why I smoked it. Read more »

BY DR. SCOTT HADLAND, THE PROVINCE

More than 40 years after U.S. President Richard Nixon launched the global "war on drugs" — with a bill to U.S. taxpayers of more than $1 trillion spent on the criminalization of drug producers, traffickers and consumers — illegal drugs remain freely available worldwide to those who seek them. Here in Canada, matters are no better. Read more »

By Jeremy Nuttall, The Canadian Press
Published by Global BC

VANCOUVER - A study called "surprising" by one of its lead researchers has found hard drugs are just ten minutes away for Vancouver's young users.

The study conducted by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS found that despite decades of efforts to combat drugs, heroin, crack, cocaine, crystal meth and marijuana can be obtained within minutes, particularly by young drug users.

Dr. Evan Wood, an internal medicine physician and senior author of the study, noted the U.S. declared the war on drugs 40 years ago, but that hasn't helped at-risk youth avoid falling into drug use. Read more »

by Mark Stone, Castanet

Five years after putting the finishing touches on marijuana documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, Kelowna filmmaker Adam Scorgie didn’t expect the film’s greatest impact would be made in the summer of 2012. Scorgie recently returned from a very successful journey to somewhere he never dreamed his film would take him: Parliament Hill.

Scorgie, along with The Union director Brett Harvey, were invited to speak in front of members of parliament about the pervasive issue of marijuana legalization. The official summons to Parliament Hill was initiated by the former Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, who wanted Scorgie and Harvey to help educate parliamentarians about the issue of violence and organized crime of smuggling in Canada. Read more »

by Jon White, New Scientist

David Nutt, former adviser to the UK government, says the ban on drugs like ecstasy is hampering neuroscience

How do the drug laws in most countries affect scientific research?

One of the things I find very disturbing about the current approach to drugs, which is simply prohibition without necessarily any full understanding of harms, is that we lose sight of the fact that these drugs may well give us insights into areas of science that need to be explored and may give us new opportunities for treatment.

In what way?

Almost all the drugs of interest in terms of understanding brain phenomena such as consciousness, perception, mood and psychosis are illegal. And so there is almost no work done in this field.

How bad is the impact? Read more »

By Mona Mattei, The Castlegar Source

A challenge to step up leadership was given to Grand Forks city council when mayor Brian Taylor asked them to join the campaign to end the prohibition of marijuana in Canada.

Taylor wants council to join in with the other B.C. municipalities, now over 13 of a possible 160 and growing, in the Stop the Violence campaign. The campaign asks provincial party leaders to pressure the Canadian government for a shift in attitude in drug policy. The provincial and federal governments need to realize that prohibition has been a costly failure and they need to find some other way to manage marijuana, Taylor said in comments to council.  Read more »

By: Walter Cordery, Daily News

Vancouver Island University professor of criminology John Anderson has been advocating for a reasoned approach to our current, "failed" drug policies since 1989.

He started to realize things needed to change as a university student after reading the evidence purporting to support prohibitionist policy and found it suspect.

Before getting a PhD, Anderson, now the vice president of the Canadian Chapter of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, he served as a correctional officer for five years in the maximum-security Vancouver Pretrial Centre. Read more »

By Kathy Tomlinson, CBC News

A B.C. man who raises tropical fish said his home and privacy were invaded when local enforcement agencies knocked on his door while looking for a marijuana grow operation, and then forced him to pay for an electrical inspection and upgrade his fish-tank operation.

“I felt violated,” said Mike Baynes, 67, from Surrey, B.C. “When they came in here and saw no grow-op, I think they should have said ‘I’m sorry Mike,’ and then turned around and walked out.”

Baynes is one of 128 Surrey residents who don’t have grow operations, but were nevertheless subjected to searches and electrical repair orders in recent months because they use a lot of hydro. Read more »