cannabisnews.com: Mayor Wants Pot Decriminalized
Mayor Wants Pot Decriminalized
Posted by FoM on March 28, 2002 at 18:45:22 PT
By Allen Garr
Source: Vancouver Courier
The mayor of Vancouver and chairman of the police board says marijuana should be decriminalized. If Philip Owen had his way, pot would be available for sale the same way other drugs, like alcohol and tobacco, are. He figures we'd all be better off for it. Among major Canadian mayors, premiers and prime ministers, Owen is the first to take this stand. But it's completely consistent with his drug policy, which is based on harm reduction and recognizes drug addiction as a medical problem, not a criminal activity.
Most politicians continue to duck the issue. Just over 30 years ago, another Vancouver mayor, Tom Campbell, was so determined to stamp out pot smoking and the hippies who promoted it that he whipped the city cops into a riot against peaceful participants in a Gastown smoke-in. Now about half of all Canadians think pot should be legalized, and a whole range of baby boomer politicians are admitting they've lit up. In the recent run for the Tory leadership of Ontario, no fewer than three candidates, including the winner and new premier Ernie Eves, admitted to turning on. One said he had "never exhaled." Owen, by the way, says he has never smoked pot. "It just wasn't around" when the now 69-year-old was in high school. His drug of choice was beer. He says: "I never even heard about marijuana until I was married." He didn't choose to explain the relationship between the two events. Now he believes the public is ready for a debate over hard and soft drugs and thinks the laws should be changed. Drug cases have the court system as jammed up as an over-used bong. The war on drugs has been an expensive failure. Owen estimates Vancouver police are spending "in excess" of $1 million a year making pot busts with no apparent impact on pot use. The federal government was pressed by an Ontario Supreme Court ruling a year ago to come up with regulations on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. As a result of the ruling, a number of "compassion clubs" have popped up across the country where people with doctors' certificates can purchase pot and puff away. But the feds are still fiddling around with proposed changes and cops are continuing to bust club operators. Last week, Ted Smith, the fellow who runs a club in Victoria, was hauled away by police. While he awaits a court date and an inevitably light sentence, someone else has stepped in to deal dope for him. For those of you who are about to set your hair on fire at the prospect of a tsunami of stoned school kids in the wake of more liberal drug laws, Owen makes the point that in jurisdictions where pot is legal for sale, use of the weed by kids is lower than where it's illegal. He compares Amsterdam, where pot is legal, with San Francisco, where it's not, and says twice as many high school students have smoked the weed in the town where little cable cars go halfway to the stars as in the Dutch city. Owen adds that marijuana possession was just made legal in Switzerland and while the U.S. continues to wage war on the weed, possession is legal in several states, including New York, California and Ohio (the state that's round at both ends and high in the middle.) One of Owen's main points to support his position on pot is that it will get the crooks out of the business. That presumably will put an end to the dangerous situation created by indoor grow-ops, which are too often little more than fire traps run by biker thugs. He makes the same argument to support safe injection sites and the limited distribution of heroin. While there may be public support for Owen on this, political support is less certain. His drug policy helped get him tossed out of the NPA. You could say he's got nowhere to go but up.Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)Author: Allen Garr Published: March 27, 2002Copyright: 2002 Vancouver CourierContact: editor vancourier.comWebsite: http://www.vancourier.com/Related Articles:New Politics of Pot Emerginghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12286.shtmlU.S. Pot War Comes North http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11937.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Canadahttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=canada
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Comment #15 posted by dddd on March 29, 2002 at 09:39:06 PT
...I'm hep Boppy
.....Pleasant Valley Sunday....looks like you're old like me,,,and it was probably quite wise of you to wait till the twins were 21 to let them know.,,,dont make them mad though,or you might find yourself on the last train to Clarksville....the anti-drug ads nowdays make the kids sing 'I'm a Believer',,as the DARE officer convinces them that turning in their parents is good,and nice,,,then the song will change to "Born Under A Bad Sign"...I'm glad you joined in commenting here Boppy....Let's hope that all these closetsful of people will realize that the thousands of closets hold a majority of people...If there was a real poll,,of everyone in America,,,Marijuana prohibition would end .......dddd
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Comment #14 posted by kaptinemo on March 29, 2002 at 09:34:24 PT:
Good news...and better news
Thank you, "Perfessor" Dan :)I've been wondering when the Bushies would turn their unofficial "FTW" (F- The World) 'go-it-alone' tendency into actual offical action. And here it is.Rather convenient for the Bushies, no? Until you realize something:By doing what they've done with this treaty, they have in effect called all other treaties into question.When the antis are cornered with all the positive evidence of cannabis medical efficacy and the need to make it legal once again, the Democrat ones smugly point to the UN Single Convention Treaty and state that we cannot change the laws 'because there's a treaty, and we are signatories to it.' (The Goldwater Republicans would rather chew neutronium than make that statement; the Internationalist [Rockefeller] ones make the reference, but grudgingly.)But now, the US has formally backed out of a treaty it doesn't like. The precedent has now been set. The antis can no longer hold that a treaty that doesn't serve national interests can be claimed as an excuse not to change an odious law. They have, with this action, just told all the nations of the world that they may now pursue their own national agendas concerning illicit drugs.What has been done quietly and informally by the other "Developed" and "Developing" nations (with Uncle's silent fuming) with regards to drugs policy will now become more brazen with each month. More and more nations will cite Uncle's withdrawal from this Treaty as the signal to thumb their nose at Uncle and the UN single Convention Treaty. They will be able to state that since Uncle can break a treaty at will, so can they. And they will.Exciting times, these!
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Comment #13 posted by Dan B on March 29, 2002 at 07:18:58 PT:
War Crimes Tribunal Unlikely
Given the following story, it seems that the U. S. government is already anticipating that its citizens will someday want to hold them accountable and is taking measures to ensure that they cannot.http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0329-01.htmDan B
Bush to "Unsign" Treaty
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Comment #12 posted by TroutMask on March 29, 2002 at 07:03:34 PT
All I want...
All I want to do is sit outside on my porch in my fenced back yard and enjoy some marijuana without being afraid I'll go to jail for it. Where does my house have to be for this to happen?Anyway, things are really falling apart for the poor ole drug warriors. It's great to see a second "Berlin Wall" falling in my lifetime. I'm hoping there is some type of War Crimes Tribunal once it's all over. As if.-TM
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Comment #11 posted by boppy on March 29, 2002 at 06:54:52 PT
your on it dddd....
Last year my wife & I told our 21 year old twin daughters that we were "indulgers". They laughed in disbelief until I pulled out some Silver Pearl that I had recently harvested. It is much easier now since we don't have to sneak outside or wait until they leave. But coming out altogether is VERY risky. This kind of information can be used as a very potent weapon against you. This is especially true since we live in the typical suburban setting, a "Pleasant Valley Sunday" if you will (one of my favorite Monkees songs). It's ironic that I'm the assistant crime watch captain in our neighborhood (to watch out for REAL crime). But hey, there are hundreds of thousands of people like me and you and others here who go about their lives as normally as any abstainer.
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Comment #10 posted by qqqq on March 29, 2002 at 06:53:28 PT
...the worst bummer about closets....
...is that alot of the people who think they are safely behind the door,,,hidden from the prying critical eyes of those who would not approve of their secret activities,,well,,,nowdays,they must face the breathtaking CHAGRIN of realizing that there was a surveilance camera that recorded every visit they made to the closet!..It dont matter if the camera wasnt in the closet to see what was going on in there,,nope,,the poor son of a b will still have a tuff time coming up with an explanation as to why he visited the closet!...
...it's rather sad to imagine what sort of excuses the poor closet bust victim would give to try and explain the numerous visits that are on the jerky surveilance videos like some gas station robbery tape!...."I was looking for my coat"....."I was trying to learn how to develop film,and was merely using the closet for a darkroom"...."I was hiding from my wife"...."I was hiding from my Mom,,and she never would have known if Lehder hadn't spilled the beans!"
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Comment #9 posted by el_toonces on March 29, 2002 at 06:33:47 PT:
dddd......
....I don't think I can convey how good it feels to read your posts now that you are apparently feeling better enough to be back here "full-time." Incidentally, I am very torn on this issue.........our culture is so sick that one must even protect oneself from one's "loved ones" who may have been brainwashed by the WoSD propaganda or DARE-think. Paternalism has combined with Puritanism like oxygen combines with a spark to start the really disgusting but raging fire that is our current "public health"-substance control policy. Of course, the feds claim to be able to regulate these substances under the "general health and welfare clause" of the Constitution plus the jurisdictional reach of the Interstate Commerce Clause. If one reads a lot of Court opinions, one almost gets the sense a perverted twist on the Fourteenth Amendment permeates judicial thinking these days as well. It is as if they have added a new federal powers section to the document when they combine all three of these "sources of power" into the proposition that the feds have the "right" to "fight drugs".Where do the feds get the right to fight their own peaceful citizens and states that comprise the federal union? I have no idea but the explanations proffered here are as good as any. The speech by Prof. Whitebread to a group of judges (cited elsewhere here) is a fantastic analysis of the culture and psychology behind these themes in the history of our country and how they pertain to the substance (or is it people?) control policies we have had over time. Link = http://www.pipes.org/Articles/history.html. I rarely recommend reading but I have read this speech a few times. The first time, I got very angry about what we have done and are doing. By the third time I read it, though, I was reading it from the viewpoint of trying to understand the prohibition mentality sufficiently well to stomp it out or at least blunt its harmful effects on our society and culture.I don't think any form of forced "outing" will help us though as it will only give the LEO's a new tool to persecute us and persecution of us only helps our cause when the public can see that we are the peaceful, (otherwise) law abiding, kind folks who have good intentions the Prohibs are like the Romans throwing Christians to the lions. This "martyrdom" strategy, for lack of a better term, only works well if those people who are persecuted go to their "persecutions" willingly. I think the public reaction to the Rosenthal case -- to the extent the ONDCP bought and paid for media lets the word out -- will be very telling as to the likely success of the martyrdom strategy. This is true of any type of civil disobedience. For a more complete discussion of this tactic in general, I have found "Civil Disobedience", a book by U-Mich Philosophy Professor Carl Cohen to be of great value.Really, though it would not hurt if we stopped using the term WoD or even WoSD and used "Prohibition" to remind us of the failures we encountered with this policy in the past, failures we persist in denying in the present.Have a good holiday weekend all:)El
Understanding Puritanism to Beat It
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Comment #8 posted by Lehder on March 29, 2002 at 06:30:39 PT
it's 9 Am - where are the gd drinks already?
well, i knwe that would get a response from you, dddd. as for myfamily, everyone knows i smoke weed when it's offered and consider it beneficial. but this is a bit of a delicate subject considering we live in world full of narcs and pigs, so let me tell you my technique for shoving people out of thecloset. if a 'closet smoker' offers me weed then i'll accept and i'll light it in front of the entire family. theworst that can happen is that i'll be told to leave - although one time a 'closet smoker' became overloaded with testosterone and moved up to me chest to chest like a high school kid trying to start a fight. if somebody smokes dope and offers me some then i'm gonna light it up in front of everybody and i'm gonna pass it on to their mother. if that's news to the family then somebody can either explain that he has a brain disorder and seek treatment or he can defend his predilections himself. but don't share secrets with an in-your-face kind of guy like me and expect me to make them my secrets too, as if smoking marijuana were something to be ashamed of. that's not ratting to cops or employers - that's breaking taboos and fighting ignorance. if somebody smokes dope and his wife is a drug-warring cop, well, they both had problems long before i showed up.also, i've had roommates who invited groups of very straight people over for dinner. i lit one in front of everyone after dinner. it actually took about five minutes for anyone to catch on that this was not the type of cigarette that causes cancer. my rommates were pissed off and the guests told me how deeply disappointed they were in me personally. maybe they even considere me an 'asshole'. well, okay.wrt employers, although i've had some jobs that supposedly required the 'right stuff,' i've always been upfront with my bosses and let them know my opinions and that my time off was MY time, not theirs. drug warriors alone cannot make a drug war. people in far greater numbers must be influenced and even intimidated by the propaganda. we have a drug war because many many people allow a few drug warriors to turn friend against friend, man against wife, child against parent. i say throw it in their faces.According to
Gestapo records, it
only took a couple
dozen agents to
control a city of fifty
thousand, and these
agents spent very
little of their time
actually engaged in
the sort of activities
popularly associated
with the secret
police. It turns out
that they had little
need to engage in
direct spying on the
citizens since the
citizens themselves
were more than
willing to do their
spying for them.
Gestapo agents
spent most of their
time sorting through
the volumes of
informant reports that
filled their offices.http://prorev.com/nationofspies.htm
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Comment #7 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on March 29, 2002 at 06:23:26 PT
Educate the closeted!
Next time you overhear a situation like that, why not pass along a NORML Leaflet or some such educational material? I've also thought about mailing NORML literature to the people I see in the "Police Blotter" section of the paper who've been busted for cannabis. Our paper does, thankfully, make the distinction - other drugs are "controlled substances", but they call cannabis cannabis.
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Comment #6 posted by dddd on March 29, 2002 at 05:29:49 PT
I dont know Lehder...
.....although I kinda like the idea of bringing the closet dwellers out by tellin' their wives and Moms,,It would not be very well accepted by the ones who lurk behind closet doors.,,,besides,,it might make you look rather strange,,when you broke the news to the spouse,or parent,,you might have an akward time explaining the purpose of your mission in revealing the secrets of you friend....ya know,,Mom and the son,,or wife and the husband might start talkin',,and be sayin' things like;.."That Lehder guy is an asshole for meddling in our lives!.. I always knew you smoked weed,,,but when this Lehder guy came over and thought he was doing us a favor by revealing your closet weed smoking...?"?.....I think that trying to call "drug abuse" on the guy who didnt want his wife to know,,wont work when you compare it to whatever we would call the abuse of reporting the poor son of a bitch to his wife or Mom....You would not take too kindly if Kaptinemo called your Mom or Dad or wife or sibling to report that you might be a possible weed enjoyer! ....there's nothing wrong with pretending you dont smoke weed to protect yourself and those you love....Ideally,,you can cut the crap,and be honest to everyone you know,and say,,"yea,,I smoke Marijuana,,I like it,,and I believe it's harmless!",,,but!...it's not harmless,in fact,it can be quite harmful when one gets BUSTED!...thats the worst harm !!!...nope Lehder,,I think that your opening the closet idea is not good.I respectfully suggest that there are better ways to help hypocritical aquaintances open doors.
.....You are extra cool Lehder...luckily my Dad knows I like weed..so dont try to call him....dddd
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on March 29, 2002 at 04:54:27 PT:
"Oh, the times, they are a-changin'"
The pols smell the wind changing.Take a look at Mr. Owen's past record regarding cannabis:BCCLA condemns mayor Owen’s crusade against Hemp B.C.
http://www.bccla.org/pressreleases/98hemp.htmlfrom the article:In March of this year (1998), Shelley Francis (a.k.a. Sister Icee) bought the store from well-known pot promoter Marc Emery, and applied for a business licence. In April, Vancouver police enlisted U.S. naval intelligence operatives to go undercover and buy marijuana in the stores. They tried and failed. So they went out on the street, bought some dope, and went into the Café where they smoked it. With information gleaned from this clandestine operation, police obtained a search warrant and raided the stores, carrying off various pipes and bongs, Sister Icee’s new computer, and stacks of business records. Shortly thereafter, the store’s owner was charged with three counts of selling instruments for illicit drug use, which is still an offence under Canada's Criminal Code. A trial date has been set for July, 1999, at which time Sister Icee will defend herself and challenge the constitutionality of the law. In July, citing evidence of the alleged crime supplied by the police, the City sent Sister Icee a letter denying her a business licence, and announced a September "show cause" hearing. In August, Mayor Philip Owen (who had for months railed at the national and international publicity Hemp B.C. was receiving) was quoted in the New York Times as saying that "[T]he stores will be toast by September." After criticism from the BCCLA and the store's lawyer Brent Lokash, Mayor Owen has apparently agreed not to participate in the show cause hearing. In early September, it was learned that the City has hired an accountant to determine whether the stores had been dutifully paying their PST and GST and fulfilling other Revenue Canada obligations. Later that month, the store’s lawyer filed a petition in court asking that the "show cause" hearing be put off until the criminal charges have been dealt with. The hearing was adjourned pending the court’s ruling on the petition. Then, on September 30, the Vancouver Police raided the store again, confiscating more pipes and bongs, and cash. No charges have yet been laid.Yep, when you smack on the snout, they will come about. And the rest of them will see that it's singularly profitless to be urinating into the wind. Or to try to lash the waves for the temerity of ignoring your demand that the tide not come in. Move over King Canute...
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Comment #4 posted by Lehder on March 29, 2002 at 04:33:31 PT
uh-huh
not even mmj is legal in ohio or ny, only paxil, cigarettes and booze. glad you're feeling better, dddd. hope you educated the medics.i'm starting to develop a problem with "closet smokers." i think I might start telling their mothers and their wives so they'll have an opportunity to defend their beliefs and their practices. i overheard a dope deal going on in a burger king a few years ago. the buyer wanted more dope than was delivered and suggested that they meet next at a wendy's or mcds. the supplier offered to "just bring it over to the house," but the buyer said no, he didn't want his wife to know about this! i didn't think it was going to be a surprise gift for her, but how can somebody hide a dope habit from his wife? these sorts are a detriment to our cause. i might even dare to call this 'drug abuse.'
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on March 29, 2002 at 04:08:52 PT
..I missed that day too Lehder..
Possession legal??????I hope that this guy doesnt wait until a California cop busts him to find out that possession is not 'legal......"legal",is like aspirin,or tylenol......Paxil or Ritalin is "legal",if you can prove some doctor said it was what you needed to live normal..in this sense,pot could be called "legal"...If you got a note from the proper doctor,,,,dddd
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Comment #2 posted by Lehder on March 29, 2002 at 03:32:41 PT
did I miss a day?
...possession is legal in several states, including New York, California and Ohio (the state that's round at both ends and high in the middle.This is news to me.
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on March 28, 2002 at 19:15:24 PT
Winning
I'm glad to see how the Canadians are reforming. Reform is winning all around the world; the only holdout seems to be the US conservatives. I wonder if other countries are laughing the US DEA attempts to ban hemp potato chips.
Reform in Canada may happen sooner than some people predict. Bush has started trade wars with Canada and Europe, it's likely the drug war cooperation will wane.
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