cannabisnews.com: Magic Bus Halifax-Bound










  Magic Bus Halifax-Bound

Posted by FoM on January 29, 2002 at 07:57:46 PT
By David Swick  
Source: Halifax Daily News  

The organizers of the country’s only marijuana teahouse are coming east, and plan to open a marijuana teahouse in Halifax before the end of the year.“We have completed fixing up our cannibus, and will soon head to Toronto to open a teahouse there,” Michael Maniotis said yesterday, on the phone from Vancouver. The cannibus is a 1969 school bus refurbished as a mobile office, information centre and teahouse.
After Toronto, the cannibus will roll on to Montreal to open a teahouse. Then, it’s our turn. “We will probably be in Halifax in September,” Maniotis said. “Coming to Halifax is symbolic of our intention to be coast-to-coast.”Part of the aim of each teahouse is to educate people about their rights within Health Canada’s new law governing medicinal marijuana. Maniotis points to category 3 of Health Canada’s policy on medicinal marijuana as something many Canadians could benefit from reading.Category 3 states that free marijuana will be supplied to all “applicants who suffer from symptoms associated with a medical condition or its treatment ... and all conventional treatments have failed or are otherwise medically inappropriate.”The Vancouver teahouse was opened with great fanfare two months ago. It was billed as a place where people with medicinal marijuana status certified by Health Canada — more than 700 people now have the photo ID cards — could take the drug, listen to music, and socialize. They could also meet people who would grow the drug for them, as authorized under Health Canada regulations.Vancouver police raided the teahouse on Thursday, shutting it down. Police said two undercover police officers bought marijuana there before the raid. Maniotis said the charges will be thrown out; he said the raid stemmed from a landlord-tenant dispute, and the teahouse will soon reopen in a larger location.Vancouver has a more liberal culture than Halifax, but Maniotis says he knows what he’s in for coming here. “I left Canada at 21 and lived in Greece for 13 years,” he said. “There, you get two years in jail for having one joint. So, I’ve been in more restrictive places ... as well, we have quite a few people in Vancouver who are from Halifax (and they are advising us).”If a marijuana teahouse is set up in Halifax, will we accept it as a positive change in our community? I will, for two reasons. First, because it would be good therapy for medical marijuana users, many of whom are terminally ill. And also because it will be one more step along the seemingly endless path toward a sane marijuana policy in this country.The prohibition of marijuana is foolish, wasteful and doomed to be repealed. In the past few years, even conservative commentators like Ann Landers and The Economist magazine have come out for change.The Canadian Medical Association favours decriminalization. It concluded that the health effects of moderate marijuana use is “minimal.”The Canadian Association of Police Chiefs supports decriminalization, too. The police know that policing marijuana is costing our criminal justice system an estimated $150 million a year. Imagine that money going to fight real crimes, or drugs that are actually dangerous and unhealthy.Michael Maniotis sums up the insanity of the current law with irony.“Health Canada tells us that (almost) 50,000 Canadians a year die from tobacco-related diseases,” he said. “Yet it is still being sold.”Note: Organizers of Canada's only marijuana teahouse are rolling east.Source: Halifax Daily News (CN NS)Author: David SwickPublished: January 29, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Daily News Website: http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/Contact: http://www.canada.com/halifax/info/contactus.htmlRelated Articles & Web Site:FTE's Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmMedicinal Marijuana Teahouse Shuttered http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11835.shtmlMarijuana `Teahouse' Opens Today in Vancouver http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11228.shtml 

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Comment #1 posted by goneposthole on January 29, 2002 at 08:58:30 PT

Cannabus
You will notice that it is not Leaving LA for New York.This is a free country, free of freedom.
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