BPF Submission to Heath Canada on MMAR Changes

Submitted by Kirk Tousaw on Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:36am
in

SUBMISSION OF THE BEYOND PROHIBITION FOUNDATION IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO HEALTH CANADA’S MARIHUANA MEDICAL ACCESS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

The Beyond Prohibition Foundation was established in 2010 to advocate for the repeal of cannabis prohibition and its replacement with a system of regulated production and distribution.  It operates the website www.whyprohibition.ca, Canada's largest dedicated drug policy reform website and host to more than 30,000 members.  The Foundation's mission includes advocacy on behalf of safe access to medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts for those obtaining therapeutic and medicinal benefit.

This submission responds to Health Canada's consultation document titled "Proposed Improvements to Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Program" (the "Consultation Document").  In the Consultation Document, Health Canada foreshadows significant changes to Canada's medical cannabis policies.  The Foundation welcomes Health Canada's tacit acknowledgement that the current Marihuana Medical Access Regulation (MMAR) system is deeply flawed and in need of significant reform.  That reform is necessary in two primary areas:  (1) the need to improve access to the legal protections afforded by the legislative and regulatory scheme; and (2) the need to provide consumers with safe access to an effective supply of medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts.  This submission lays out the Foundation's view of the proposed changes and offers suggestions for making necessary improvements to the federal program.
Unknown Object Read more »

Form letter: Regarding Proposed Restrictions to Health Canada's Medical Marijuana Program

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/07/2011 - 7:31pm
in

Sign the petition and make your voice heard at Health Canada!

I am deeply concerned about the response by Health Canada to the various court decisions declaring its existing medical marijuana program unconstitutional. The proposals that have been brought forward fail to deal with the myriad of problems in the program. Specifically, I take issue with the following proposals:

Physician as “Gatekeeper”:
R v Mernagh found that physicians in Canada have effectively boycotted the existing medical marijuana program, and therefore the program itself was unconstitutional. Health Canada's response does nothing to address this boycott beyond the promise of making information accessible to physicians. Any changes to the Health Canada medical marijuana program must abide by the findings in R v Mernagh and meaningfully expand the “Gatekeeper” role beyond physicians, preferably to include Naturopaths, Nurse Practitioners, Doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacists.

Personal and Designated Production:
Individuals have spent thousands of dollars and often years of time setting up production facilities and finding appropriate marijuana cultivars (strains) for their condition. Court cases including Sfetkopolous, Beren and Hitzig have found that denying production licenses on arbitrary grounds violates a patient's constitutional rights to access medical marijuana. Read more »

Download almost 1000 Peer Reviewed Research Articles and Reports on Drug Policy Reform and More!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 2:20pm
in
 
This comprehensive (and amazing) collection of references includes the following categories of papers:
 
Alcohol harm reduction
Cannabis
Drug Education / prevention
Drug policy documents - the need for change
Drug policy history
Economic issues
Entheogens and psychedelics
Health and social consequences of drug prohibition
Incarceration
Needle Exchange
Policing and drug law enforcement
Positive or non problematic relationships with drugs
Post prohibition options
PowerPoint presentations
Ranking of drug harms
Science is trumped by ideology
Sex trade work
Supervised injection facilities
United Nations and human rights
Violence and drugs
 
The download time is approx 10 minutes and the file you receive will need to be unzipped. Read more »

Get Involved! Help Defeat Prohibition

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 12:00am
in
We need to get a lot of work done to legalize marijuana, here's some ways to help!
 
Get active helping build activism in Canada!
 
May 5, 2012 is the Global Marijuana March, and of course there is always 4/20 (April 20) and Cannabis Day, July 1. We need organizers working across Canada on these and other events.
 
Send that link out over Facebook and Twitter, encourage your friends to sign up! WhyProhibition.ca will is the basis for a number of important campaigns, including a new BC referendum to legalize Marijuana. We need people to register so they can find out about upcoming protests, rallies, and laws.
 
We need bloggers, researchers, newshawks, and activists to get posting! You can use the userblogs section to post blogs, news, upload files (especially pamphlets, we're looking to host as many drug policy pamphlets as we can find!)
 
One of the most important things you can do is get involved in your local community. Join other activist groups, volunteer at soup kitchens, march in local parades. When we get involved, not only do we reach out to potential allies, but we also represent the best of our community to people who may be unfamiliar with it. If you're unsure about a group, attend some meetings and see if they're amenable to drug policy reform.
 

Decision in R v Beren strikes 2 sections of Canada Medical Marijuana program as unconstitutional

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 7:27am

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Citation:

R. v. Beren and Swallow,

2009 BCSC 429

Date: 20090202
Docket: 131900
Registry: Victoria

Regina

v.

Mathew David Beren
Michael Andrew Swallow

Before: The Honourable Madam Justice Koenigsberg

Oral Reasons for Judgment
(Re Accused Beren)

February 2, 2009

Counsel for the Crown:

P.A. Eccles

Counsel for the accused Beren:

Counsel for the accused Swallow:

K.I. Tousaw

J.W. Conroy, Q.C.

Place of Hearing:

Vancouver, B.C.

INTRODUCTION Read more »

Change is in the wind for the decriminalization of marijuana possession

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 04/07/2009 - 9:12am

Liberal MP Keith Martin, who introduced a private member's bill this week, rightly maintains that 'the war on drugs has been a complete failure'

By Barbara Yaffe, columnist
The Vancouver Sun

If Vancouver has the equivalent of a public square, it's the fountain outside the old Vancouver Art Gallery downtown, where last week, I smelled an unmistakable aroma coming from the vicinity of two young men rolling white filter papers.

Pot. Right out there in the open -- in full view of, well, everybody.

I shouldn't have been taken aback; this same smell can be picked up in any Vancouver park or on a corner any day of the week. It once surprised me when I moved west 20 years ago. These days I'm accustomed to it.

But isn't possessing and using marijuana a criminal offence?

It is. But if a law is universally ignored, it becomes tough to enforce. It inevitably grows to be disdained, scoffed at by the community. Read more »

Seized property directorate grows with the times

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 9:49pm
in

By ELIZABETH THOMPSON
Toronto Sun

6th April 2009, 2:54am

It started out in 1993 with three employees, few resources and the job of dealing with all the stuff federal police forces were seizing from crooks across the country.

Today, the Seized Property Management Directorate counts 88 employees, a budget of $9 million a year, 30,000 open files and seven secret warehouses spread out across the country.

The directorate was born when police realized that they were really good at catching bad guys but not very good at managing the proceeds of crime that changes to the law in 1989 allowed them to seize.

The tipping point came when the RCMP cracked a sophisticated drug and money laundering network and seized its assets only to find themselves with Quebec's Montjoye ski resort on their hands.

In addition to handling assets seized in connection with federal prosecutions, the directorate sometimes handles assets seized at the request of a foreign government. Read more »

Canadian NGOs and Drug Policy

Submitted by rielle.capler on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 3:19pm
in

http://carbc.ca/portals/0/resources/CanadianNGOs.pdf

Great document from the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia about why Canadian NGOs should care about drug policy, who controls drug policy, how NGOs can get informed and engaged at the national and international levels.

Based on the following key principles:

KEY POLICY PRINCIPLES IMPORTANT TO CANADIAN NGOS

1. Drug policy decisions should be informed by the best available evidence.

While this principle is given almost universal lip service, debates and decisions on drug policy in Canada as well as at CND and other international forums are often dominated by ideological, political or diplomatic considerations, rather than an objective search for policies and programs that maximise human health and welfare. Read more »

Email Vancouver City Council to support Marc Emery's business license application!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 11:39am

http://whyprohibition.ca/content/i-support-marc-emerys-business-license-...

Marc is up before City Council on Wednesday for a hearing as to whether or not he gets his business license. We have the letter written, you just fill in the form and click send!

We need to send as many letters as possible in support of Marc Emery to keep the BCMP open!

Please DO NOT talk about the Vapour Lounge, this isn't about the Lounge, but the store and the occupancy of the building.

http://whyprohibition.ca/content/i-support-marc-emerys-business-license-...

Finally, a little honesty about America's inept war on drugs

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 11:09am

Through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the drug cartels rely on. We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

By David Sirota

Syndicated Columnist

Finally, a little honesty.

Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland, and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out of control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy. Read more »

Innovative ways to stimulate the economy: Legalize marijuana for cost savings, tax revenue

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 7:42am

Bruce Watson
Apr 4th 2009 at 1:00PM

As anyone who's ever attended an event hosted by NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) will attest, marijuana advocates are sometimes a bit excessive in their defense of cannabis sativa.

Promoting it as a solution for all problems, from soil and water conservation to gas prices, they occasionally give the impression that the weed has almost messianic properties, and its decriminalization is the only thing standing in the way of a perfect utopian world. Read more »

Think Tank: Lift Ban and Win the Drugs War

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 7:39am

THINK TANK: LIFT BAN AND WIN THE DRUGS WAR
By. Gerard O'Neill

Imagine a single policy measure that could wipe out criminal gangs, improve the health of the nation, transform the Irish legal system, empty our prisons, deal a blow to international terrorism and boost government tax revenues. I'm talking about legalising drugs. Yet, extraordinary as it seems, there is little or no support for such a measure. I suspect that will change in the next few years.

Ireland has a drug prohibition policy that isn't working. The latest report on Irish crime statistics from the CSO shows crime levels in every category falling with one obvious exception: controlled drug offences. Indeed, many of the worst crimes in other categories - gangland killings, for example - are a consequence of our failing prohibition policy. Read more »

Should Marijuana be Legal?

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 7:38am

SHOULD MARIJUANA BE LEGAL?
By. Michael Vitiello

Timing is everything and, no doubt, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano hopes that in economically hard times Californians will be receptive to his legislation allowing marijuana to be sold and taxed.

Ammiano's proponents claim that taxing sales of cannabis will add more than a billion dollars to the state's revenues and that his legislation, Assembly Bill 390, will reduce the prison population and the cost of prosecuting marijuana offenders, saving an additional billion dollars. With his legislation, the San Francisco Democrat may hope to bring together a coalition of those eager to decriminalize marijuana, members of the public eager for a fix to California's budgetary crisis, and prison reformers. Read more »

The myth of the Rockefeller-drug-laws repeal

Submitted by rielle.capler on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 8:44pm
in

Details of 'repeal' show how small the changes really are. There are concerns that these small measures will make it harder to make more meaningful changes.

http://nymag.com:80/news/intelligencer/55693/

The myth of the Rockefeller-drug-laws repeal.
By Jennifer Gonnerman
Published Mar 29, 2009

If you glanced at the Times last Thursday, you might think Governor Paterson and state legislators had finally woken up and decided to wipe the Rockefeller drug laws off the books. ALBANY REACHES DEAL TO REPEAL '70s DRUG LAWS, declared the page-one-above-the-fold story. Well, not exactly. By Friday morning, when the governor held a press conference on the proposed changes to the laws, it had become increasingly apparent that "repeal" was not the right word. Read more »