What you can do: 
By. Kat LeeVote Online for Legalization of Marijuana in Canada - Update
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 1:37pm
By. Jacob Hunter, WhyProhibition.ca
On Tuesday, Stephen Harper and Google laughed “Talk Canada” an online town hall in which users were asked to submit questions to the Prime Minister.
As of 1:30 Friday, March 12, the legalization of marijuana was in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, and drug policy 6 of the top 10. It was not just the number of marijuana questions, which some estimates place at 30% of all questions posed, but the sheer size of the vote spread. The #1 question has 1350 votes, while the #4 question, the first non-marijuana question, has 451.
Voting ends Sunday, March 14, and the Prime Minister has promised to answer the most popular questions on Tuesday, March 16.
Please, keep spreading the word, and let's make sure everyone has voted. All it takes is a google/youtube account and you can help push marijuana legalization to the top of the agenda.
Lil Wayne trounces PM on YouTube
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 12:07pm
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?"
Pot prohibition has proven a bust
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:35am
By David Seymour, The Leader-Post
The front page of the March 9 Leader-Post reported the government can't even keep drugs out of prisons. Given that prisons are purposely designed to be secure, this news may be a good prompt for asking whether it's rational to try and prohibit cannabis from an entire country, which happens to be the world's second largest and the most sparsely populated. Regardless of whether it succeeds in preventing cannabis use, does the prohibition cure have side effects worse than the drug disease?
Indeed, cannabis law reform has enjoyed open minded publicity in specialist publications recently, from the conservative C2C Journal to the neo-Marxist This magazine. In a thoughtful C2C article entitled "the price of pot prohibition" Peter Jaworski gives a feel for the dimensions of cannabis prohibition and finds it to be a highly irrational policy.
Just want answers Mr. Toews
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:30am
By. Paul Rutherford, Winnipeg Sun
Rumours have surfaced the past few years about the future of Manitoba’s senior Conservative MP Vic Toews.
Each time the prime minister shuffles his cabinet, so-called knowledgeable sources claim Toews is out and yet he’s still there, currently minister of public safety. Mostly Toews has performed well but sometimes he gets a little carried away.
This week he’s upset at some of the media coverage of a controversial plea bargain handed to a former Tory MP. What in the name of God got into Toews’ head when he chastised reporters after Rahim Jaffer made a court appearance in Ontario? For the record, Jaffer ended up getting basically nothing for a brush with the law last fall.
Jaffer & Guergis: a power couple, unplugged
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:25am
by Colby Cosh with Chris Sorensen and Aaron Wherry
Wearing a navy pinstripe suit, a blue check shirt, and a vibrant yellow and lime-green striped tie, Rahim Jaffer cut a dapper figure in a courtroom in Orangeville, Ont., a sleepy town of 27,000 northwest of Toronto. The former politician, his hair gelled neatly in place, sat near the back of the gallery on the morning of March 9 while the court dealt with its quotidian diet of scandal: a domestic dispute, a 17-year-old arrested for marijuana possession, a woman caught skimming from her employer. For his part, Jaffer, 38, looked confident. With good reason.
Jaffer would shortly plead guilty to a charge of careless driving, and promise to pay a fine of $500; the court was told he had already made a charitable donation of an equivalent amount. As part of the plea deal, the Crown had agreed to drop two more serious charges against Jaffer—drunk driving and possession of cocaine—but did not offer much in the way of explanation. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2009, Jaffer had been pulled over by police for speeding through the village of Palgrave. The OPP officer detaining him was said to have smelled alcohol on his breath; the ex-politician was reported by the OPP to have failed multiple breathalyzer tests, and when he was arrested and searched, an unspecified quantity of cocaine was allegedly found “on his person.”
Harper’s Youtube Political Dilemma: Cannabis Legalization
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:15am
by 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.
US drug policy at the UN. Is the glass becoming more than half full?
Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:55am
Allan Clear, Huffington PostUN global drug policy meeting in Vienna, the public face of US drug policy has changed overall under the new administration -- and for the better. There's a more humane, compassionate message, plus a greater understanding of both drugs and drug users. Only time will tell where this will lead, but it's a start. And a very welcome one, too.
BMJ Group honours Dr Evan Wood with a Doctor of the Year award for Insite evaluation
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:52am
One of the world’s leading providers of trusted medical information and services, BMJ Group, today recognized Dr. Evan Wood, lead researcher at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CFE), for his groundbreaking research in HIV, public health, illicit drug policy and addiction.BMJ Group, publisher of the BMJ (British Medical Journal), named Dr. Wood as the recipient of its first
annual Junior Doctor of the Year honour, which is provided to a physician who is early in their career and
has done the most to improve the world we live in or to inspire others.
Hemp Technology Launches New Hemp Insulation
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:46am
Hemp Technology, has announced the launch of Breathe™, an innovative new natural fibre insulation. The sustainably sourced product, which will play a key role in the nation's drive to zero carbon construction, was officially launched at Ecobuild, the world's largest sustainable construction event, at Earls Court, London, on the 2nd March 2010.
Produced from UK grown hemp and flax, Breathe™ offers a renewable and low-carbon means of insulating lofts, walls and floors. An eco-friendly challenge to the dominance of mineral wools, it holds superb performance qualities.
With a thermal conductivity of 0.039 W/mK, Breathe™ performs better than many fibre products. This boosts thermal comfort by reducing overheating in summer and damping internal temperature fluctuations. A high resistance to settlement ensures its good qualities last as long as the building to which it is applied.
Legislature allows more than just docs to OK medical marijuana
Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:43am
By Associated Press
On a 34-13 vote Thursday, the Senate approved the measure after concurring with some changes made in the House. The bill now heads to Gov. Chris Gregoire for her signature.
It adds physician assistants, naturopaths, advanced registered nurse practitioners and others to the list of those who can officially recommend marijuana for patients under the state's medical marijuana law.
Under current law, only physicians are allowed to write the recommendation.
Free Marc Emery
