Cannabis
Hemp-based body panels among Eve's green plans
By Michael Goetz, Metro NewsThe consortium, Project Eve, was recently formed with the mission to get electric car production in this country to the next level.
It includes firms, universities, infrastructure entities, etc., who all know a thing or two about how to design and build a state-of-the-art electric car. Basically, it’s like all the smart kids in class getting together to collaborate on a science project.
In fact, two of the member firms, Toronto Electric and Motive Industries (Calgary), have already built working prototypes, and they will be the first two products the consortium will build and sell to fleet customers on a per-order basis (a full line-up is in the works).
HealthWatch: Does marijuana really relieve pain?
By EVRA EDDY, TAYLOR LEVY LANG, The GazetteMONTREAL - The use of marijuana for a few carefully selected medical conditions has generated heated discussion, pitting those who favour legalization against those who warn about the undesired consequences of wider availability. Absent from much of the debate so far, however, is scientific evidence to establish whether marijuana really works to relieve chronic pain; and if it does, whether it does so in a manner that is distinct from simply providing the well-known high that has made it a popular recreational but illicit drug. This edition of HealthWatch takes a closer look at the burden of chronic pain and a recent study that has received a great deal of attention.
What is neuropathic pain?
The United Nations on Drugs: Alice in Wonderland Revisited
By Neil Boyd, Vancouver SunThe most recent edition of The Guardian Weekly, a typically “progressive" news outlet, devoted a full page to the wildly speculative musings of Antonio Maria Costa, the outgoing director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mr. Costa made three key claims, none of which have any compelling empirical support. First, he argued that making illegal drugs more freely available will lead to more “public health damage”.
Hypocrisy weeds out Prince of Pot
By Sandra Thomas, Vancouver CourierCosmetic pesticide use was banned in Vancouver Jan. 1, 2007.
But the sale of pesticides wasn't banned. So as long as you promise the sales-clerk at your local garden shop or big box store that you're intending to use that bottle or box of chemicals anywhere but in the soon-to-be greenest city in the world, you can make your purchase and leave.
That sales-clerk has no way of knowing if you plan to use those pesticides in Vancouver or in a municipality where the toxic chemicals are also banned. It makes me wonder if there would be any repercussions should the purchaser of those chemicals be busted using them illegally and the package was traced back to a Vancouver store.
City plans to regulate headshops
They are stores that cater to drug culture, but sell products are perfectly legal. Head shops have caused a store in some neighbourhoods with marijuana paraphernalia on display.
Now City Hall is now trying to regulate stores that sell bongs and pipes.
A city committee has agreed to force so-called head shops to get a license to operate. Existing stores and new ones will have to apply for the license before a community committee where area residents can have their say too.
“They seem to drag down the local…scenario, the neighbours don’t like them, the local businesses don’t like them, it’s a problem,” said City Councillor Gord Steeves.
Couple ‘devastated’ after kids removed following [marijuana] bust
By Dianne Wood, Record staffKITCHENER — Three children were removed from a Kitchener home in April after police discovered their parents were growing marijuana plants in the basement.
The 33-year-old man and his 24-year-old common-law wife have a four-year-old child, and the man has two sons, one who is 13, Kitchener’s Ontario Court heard.
Although the marijuana grow operation was extremely small at only four plants, Family and Children’s Services took the children after a police search of the rented Weber Street East home on April 30. (To prevent the identification of the children, who had been in care of FCS, their parents are not being named in this story.)
Prince of pot’s jailer opposes drug laws
By: Kelly McParland, National PostFrom the Department of the Mind-Bogglingly Bizarre, But True, we bring you this: John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Seattle who prosecuted Canada’s self-styled prince of pot, Marc Emery, says the marijuana law he went to such trouble to enforce is utterly stupid.
Emery’s career has been amply documented. He was deported to the U.S. in May and is being held in Seattle, where he faces up to five years in jail after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. McKay, now a law professor, indicted Emery in 2005 for sending out marijuana seeds through the mail.
So what does he think of the law? Read it all here. Below are some excerpts.
B.C. Court of Appeal rules against use of a drug-detecting dog at an RCMP road-safety check
By Charlie Smith, Georgia StraightB.C.'s highest court has ruled that the RCMP violated a man's charter right when it used a drug-detecting dog at a road-safety checkpoint.
As a result, Sebastien Payette's conviction for marijuana trafficking was set aside on September 3 by three B.C. Court of Appeal justices.
Payette was busted on March 30, 2006 near Midway, B.C., and was convicted in Provincial Court in June 2009.
According to the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling, the RCMP believed there was "reasonable suspicion" because Payette was driving a newer-model Volvo owned by a third party.
Marijuana gateway risk overblown: study
CBC NewsLong-held fears that the use of marijuana will lead to harder drugs are overblown, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.
The research, in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that other factors, such as whether or not a person has a job, or is facing severe stress, are far more predictive of future hard drug use than whether they smoked pot as a teenager.
"Employment in young adulthood can protect people by closing the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities," said co-author Karen Van Gundy.
Big pot busts make great show and tell
By BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary SunIt doesn’t happen by design, it’s just how things shake out in the war on drugs, says the senior cop.
Drug bust statistics compiled by a new Alberta police force created largely to battle organized crime — the drug trade, in other words — reveal a strikingly lopsided picture.
In 2009-10, the entity comprising city and RCMP officers known as ALERT states it seized illicit drugs of various kinds worth $104 million.
Of that total, nearly $101 million was marijuana — the drug that, unlike legal pharmaceuticals and alcohol, has never led to a fatal overdose and which most Canadians believe should be decriminalized. Read more »
