cannabisnews.com: Have You Ever Smoked Marijuana? Have You Ever Smoked Marijuana? Posted by CN Staff on August 05, 2003 at 08:06:56 PT By F. Abbas Rana Source: Ottawa Hill Times MPs on the Justice Committee speak out about their smoking habits, or lack thereof; they'll be studying C-38 this fall, the government's bill to decriminalize pot. Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz Yorkton-Melville, Sask. Have you ever smoked marijuana? No. Do you support Bill C-38 The bill in my mind is a dangerous way to proceed. We have not done the research that we should have done before we brought this forward. There are warning signals coming from certain sectors of society indicating that this is not a good way to go and we need to investigate those properly before we go down this road. So, my very strong feeling is that it is premature to do this. Alliance MP Chuck Cadman Surrey North, B.C. Have you ever smoked marijuana? I am on record, yes, in [the] 60s. It's part of my past, that's fine. Probably three quarters of my generation was doing it. Do you support Bill C-38? My basic concern is the message that it sends to kids by decriminalizing marijuana. The message that's been sent to our young people is completely confusing. On one hand, we are telling them to stay away from drugs and on the other hand we decriminalize the most common drug they use. Liberal MP Pat O'Brien London-Fanshawe, Ont. Have you ever smoked marijuana? I think probably once or twice in university, I was probably handed something, it was marijuana, yeah. Yes [I have tried it] but I prefer cold beer. Do you support Bill C-38 I have very serious concerns about it. Major concern would be the amount of marijuana that a person can have in their possession. There was talk of 30 grams, now I think they are proposing to lower that to 15 grams. I want to hear more expert evidence about that. It's possible that 15 grams might be too high, I don't know that. These are the kinds of questions I want to ask at the committee when we get into these hearings. I have some very serious concerns about the potential fall out of that legislation for young people. Alliance MP Kevin Sorenson Crowfoot, Alta. Have you ever smoked marijuana? No, I have not tried it because it's illegal and a Member of Parliament should try not to get involved in an illegal activity. Do you support Bill C-38? Obviously, we are very disappointed with it. We warned through the [Special Committee on the Non-Medical use of Drugs] that any major movement to decriminalize marijuana needed to be done after a number of measures were put in place. Those measures have not been put in place. The other thing we said all along is that if we are talking decriminalization of marijuana, it needs to be five grams or less. We think that the government again missed the mark here on the amount of marijuana they are allowing before the criminal offence takes place. Bloc MP Richard Marceau Charlesbourg-Jacques-Cartier, Que. Have you ever smoked marijuana? The answer is no. Do you support Bill C-38 First of all, we [the Bloc] are favorable to the decriminalization of marijuana. We have some reservations about the bill. For example, this prohibition to grow your own plants. So, if you decriminalize having the marijuana, how can one guy who wants to smoke a joint or two is going to get his marijuana if he cannot grow a small quantity of it. That's forcing him to go to the black market. We don't think that's a good idea. Second, we wonder why the recommendation of the committee that set the limit at 30 grams was not accepted and was lowered to 15 grams. Tory MP Peter MacKay Pictou-Antigonish-Guysborough, N.S. Have you ever smoked marijuana? The answer is no. Do you support Bill C-38? I am very concerned about the implications of decriminalizing/legalization of marijuana. It is incumbent upon the federal government to implement effective policies that protect our young people from the harmful effects and irresponsible use of alcohol and drugs. I firmly believe there is a strong connection between the use of marijuana and use of harder more addictive drugs and crimes such as breaking and entering and impaired driving. Neither legalization nor decreased criminal sanctions will fully address the many complexities that society faces regarding marijuana. There is currently a great deal of flexibility in the Criminal Code on what penalties attach upon conviction. The police and courts already exercise great discretion. To send people to jail for simple possession is not happening. However, there must be the ability to send a message of deterrence and denunciation. Liberal MP Marlene Jennings Notre-Dame-de-Grāce-Lachine, Que. Have you ever smoked marijuana? I think it's public knowledge [that I have smoked marijuana in the past]. It's not a secret to my constituents because I made a lot of jokes about it, about inhaling contrary to [Bill] Clinton. The last time I smoked was probably in 1972, that was a long time ago. I used drugs from the time I was in the end of high school through [college] and into about the first year of university. Do you support Bill C-38 I honestly believe that at some point we are going to have to and we actually should think about legalization. I do not, however, think that we are at a stage where we can do it as a government or as a society because in order to move to that level, it would require that we really got in place our structures to help people who have problems, address the issue of young people under the age of 18 and I don't think we are there yet. In terms of decriminalization, I do think that it's a good idea. Liberal MP John McKay Scarborough East, Ont. Have you ever smoked marijuana? No, virgin nostrils. I thought it was a stupid idea in 70s, it hasn't improved in the 80s and it has got really stupid in 90s and now it's downright dangerous. It wasn't even a temptation. Do you support Bill C-38? You can't suffer abuse of the law, disrespect for the law by people having small amounts of marijuana in their possession and not having the law enforced. That's a recipe for eroding the rule of law and that's not a good thing and if you erode the rule of law, a whole bunch of other things will follow. On the other side of the equation, from the health standpoint, I agree with Anne McLellan that there is no study in the world that shows that marijuana has any medicinal benefits. Would you ever put any drug on the market untested readily available from dealers on street corners and say, "oh, well, this has got medicinal benefits." You'd be run out of town and rightfully so. So, I don't buy the argument that this has medicinal benefits, it may have psychological benefits. I appreciate that's not a sound bite but on the other hand this is a little more complicated. Liberal MP Hedy Fry Vancouver Centre, B.C. Have you ever smoked marijuana? No. I suppose having been a medical student, I have always been very leery of any thing that is a drug. I always think if somebody is going to get addicted, it's bound to be me. It's just a risk. You take other risks but that was one I never felt. Do you support Bill C-38? I was on the Special Committee of the Non-Medical use of Drugs so this [bill C-38] is one of our recommendations. I am for it for a number of reasons. I am for it if it is part of a comprehensive national drug strategy. I don't believe decriminalization of cannabis should be a separate sort of special little entity. What we want to do is to make sure that we do two things: We go after the traffickers, we go after huge illegal operations and we go after the international groups that are trafficking in marijuana but people who have small amounts just like we do with alcohol and we ticket them and we increase the penalties if they keep doing it. The most important thing that we think we wanted to do was to educate. Liberal MP Derek Lee Scarborough-Rouge River, Ont. Have you ever smoked marijuana? I don't answer that because it doesn't help the...put it this way, I don't smoke. I don't smoke, period. For me, it's not relevant. I have friends who, I believe, on reasonable grounds, that they occasionally smoke marijuana. Do you support Bill C-38 Keep in mind that I was a member of the Special Committee on the Non-Medical use of Drugs. I am very pleased that the government has accepted the views of the committee and is proceeding on this basis. I very much support it. To me it's a manifestation of a very clear public policy determination that we have to move drug issues from as much as we can from the criminal law envelope to a health based envelope. I am very keen to see C-38 adopted. [Although] it won't make a huge change but it will move us in the right direction and it will be a signal to other countries that we have to be rational and sophisticated in our approach to drug issues and we should stop using our criminal courts and federal prosecutors to deal with drugs that don't happen to be a serious health problem. Related Article:Parliament's view of pot over the years: * 1923 Cannabis added to the Schedule of prohibited drugs of the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act. * 1973 Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs (the Le Dain Commission). The report recommended decriminalization of personal use of marijuana. * 1996 The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act replaces the Narcotic Control Act and Parts III and IV of the Food and Drugs Act which created a summary conviction offence of possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana or one gram or less of cannabis resin. * September 2002 the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs releases its report which recommends the legalization of small amounts of cannabis. * December 2002 the House of Commons Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs releases its report which recommends the decriminalization of possession of not more than 30 grams of cannabis for personal use. * May 27, 2003 Justice Minister Martin Cauchon introduces Cannabis Reform Bill (Bill C-38) in the House of Commons. Under Bill C-38, cannabis possession would remain illegal but those convicted of possessing 15 grams or less of marijuana or one gram or less of cannabis resin would face alternative penalties of a fine instead of a criminal conviction or the possibility of a jail term. Source: Ottawa Hill Times (CN ON)Author: F. Abbas RanaPublished: August 4, 2003Contact: hilltimes achilles.netWebsite: http://www.thehilltimes.ca/CannabisNews Articles - Canadahttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=canada Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #11 posted by jose melendez on December 28, 2003 at 02:07:22 PT just get a mac I should point out that there are dangers* to using anything like spybot, as is directly manipulating the registry. Take the extra time to backup your data, and as I mentioned DO have a Windows disk so you can restore the machine to 'normal'I'm going to try the new penguin radio:http://www.penguinradio.com/penguin/- and see if we can piggy back a micro, or pirate radio transmitter setup. Then we could broadcast pot radio anywhere it's needed. I think the (far fewer) negative comments about spybot consistently point to an inherent flaw in windoze. - just my not so humble opinion*from:http://download.com.com/3302-2144_4-10194058.html?pn=1&fb=2"This application does what it says it does. It does have minor issues, but reality check IT IS SHAREWARE. Definition upgrades can be downloaded, extending the application, this is a good point. BUT, the application does tap into the registry, this is an unsafe area for those who do not know what they are doing in full. The application does gives a short description of what it found for each entry. FOR ALL THOSE WHO RESORTED TO FDISK/FROMATING, next time do not trust any application that modifys or erases registry entries. Examine each entry that S$D brings up and use your own knowledge and uncheck anyy of the needed entries and only fix that spy/ad ware. This program if used by those who know what they are looking at can be helpful. As for the reported virus I downloaded 3 copies from 3 different sites and only 1 had the embedded virus. All in all, Yes this application can slow performance, yes it can screw up your computer, No you shouldn't use it if you are a standard user, many things should not be touched by those who are not trained, this application touches some of those areas, as with all applications that enhance systems, find bugs, optimize, you need to have a base knowledge to use them, they will not effectivly work on their own. I would not recommend this application, but not for the reasons as everyone else, it is obvious that they on the most part are computer users playing with things they do not understand. As a closing, I would like to say that I am not the developer nor do I know them. I am just a system tech who fixes too many computers because people need to enhance their system with out knowing what they are doing. " broadcast truth: drug war IS crime [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by jose melendez on December 28, 2003 at 01:51:12 PT lehder . . . worse? what happened? [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by aolbites on August 09, 2003 at 12:30:05 PT be VERY careful if you try spybot be VERY careful if you try spybot it is very powerful and you Must know what you are doing, it CAN Destroy your computer. or cause problems with some programssee:http://download.com.com/3302-2144_4-10194058.html negative user reviews [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by Lehder on August 08, 2003 at 11:34:45 PT thanks a lot aol and Jose! It's been getting worse and worse! [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Jose Melendez on August 08, 2003 at 10:44:28 PT O, and Opera works well also. Reliable browser, can be set up to ignore popups cookies, block certain domains, more...http://www.opera.com/ [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Jose Melendez on August 08, 2003 at 10:42:25 PT see also... another The product I am using to keep my pc's stable are Spybot Search & Destroy by PepiMK Softwareat:http://spybot.safer-networking.de/and: Zone Labs: ZoneAlarm at:http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/zap_za_grid.jspWay worth the minimal configuration time. Hack the Drug War [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by aolbites on August 08, 2003 at 10:24:28 PT Lehder get AdAware 6.0 http://download.com.com/3000-2094-10045910.htmland check out mozzila - i have had few problems, tabbed browsing is great, esp on cnews and MAPinc. Also you can block most popups and ads, altho a few ads when blocked [intellicast.com] crash it sometimes.. small price to pay tho, and you can unblock servers if you are having problems anyway.http://www.mozilla.org/anyhow, get adaware, and take back your computer!!! Ad-aware 6 Standard Edition [free] [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Lehder on August 05, 2003 at 11:55:16 PT what, me? >>I think probably once or twice in university, It's always "once or twice" with these lying sac-of-shit big shots. Now if someone would say, "Oh, maybe fifty or sixty times," I'd believe it. But if it was just once he would remember: once. And he'd remember all the circumstances too - where, when, with whom. And if it was twice, he would remember: twice.And it's always in a university, isn't it. Never in the bar's parking lot or while taking a brake with the boys behind the pool hall, and never did a $40 whore majoring in parties pull it from her purse.>>I was probably handed somethingYeah, it's always "handed" to them; they never buy it, or look for it, always "somebody" - at a university, in their youth - "handed" it to them, once or twice. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Lehder on August 05, 2003 at 11:14:10 PT prefers cold beer >>Liberal MP Pat O'Brien London-Fanshawe, Ont. Have you ever smoked marijuana? I think probably once or twice in university, I was probably handed something, it was marijuana, yeah. Yes [I have tried it] but I prefer cold beer. O'Brien's metabolism and body chemistry are superior to yours; they havn't been monkeyed with and are as God made them. His body senses marijuana as a foreign insult. You can trust a guy like this, a normal guy, a saint! Why doesn't your body work this way?I'm not going to look for it, but a couple days ago Yahoo presented poll results on people's favorite beaches. A few in each of HI, FL and the Caribbean were listed. Below that, people's favorite activities while on the beach were listed. #1: drinking alcohol, 57%. I don't recall all the other four favorite activities, but, trust me, on that same beach I would speak to no one, and a coloring book would give me more satisfaction than any of their favorite activities, excluding #5, sex, which, being a morally superior person like O'Brien, I prefer without sand. Face it, Americans are stupid. I would not grow overly optimistic about reform in Canada. In February, Paul Martin will become PM. In March, he and George Bush will hold cordial high-level discussions and discover that they have much in common, signaling a new era of cooperation between the two friendly countries and an end to the abrasive policies of Chretien.Martin will begin immediately to dismantle and privatize ( meaning turn over to Canadian corporations that are beholden to American corporations) all the social supports that Canadians now enjoy equally but will soon have to pay for individually, if they can. The result will be more outbreaks of disease, more social polarization, a trend to pay-as-you-die medical coverage, a deterioration of infrastructue. Neither Martin nor Canadians will have any choice but to implement these policies. The U.S. will be holding out pieces of its $1 trillion ( for the moment) Star Wars program to Canadian defense firms and nothing will stop them from collecting, and the award of the contracts will of course be made only when numerous unsaid conditions are met.The star wars money goes to the Carlyle Group, holders of numerous defense companies - and always the right ones! From there the cash is carried directly to the president's desk for distribution to the neocons. The Bush dynasty will increase their wealth by billions with the war on terrorism.Where does marijuana law reform fit in with all this big money? Hey, that's small potatoes, a give away. ---------maybe somebody can tell me. why does my computer just click and click and click ( older, noisy hard disk ) when I go to some web sites? Whatever i'm doing becomes frozen. I can move the mouse cursor, but clicking on STOP or x or anywhere else does nothing. It will keep clicking for many minutes, maybe forever. The only way out is ctrl-alt-del, then "end task" (netscape). but then i lose all the netscape windows that are active and my half finished cnews comment. sometimes i suspect that subversive forces are interfering with the net, or maybe some of the dissenting sites i read can afford only a very slow computer. don't tell me the trouble is in my head; i already know they're messing with my head. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by ben on August 05, 2003 at 09:04:44 PT Keeping the tree Down I don't know if most of them are stupid or just playing stupid while they take money and advice from the Church, pharm industry doctors,or maybee the new papers (pulp & paper)or big oil from king George in the states or maybee cotton ind in the states,or Dupont chemical also made in Amerika,prisons, guards Unions,Treatment industry ect.... give your head a shake and think Tree of Life. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Petard on August 05, 2003 at 08:40:39 PT Amazing... The differences between those "educated" on Reefer Madness and those learned by science and examination of fact. Some trot out the disproved Gateway and the real Gateway through the Black Market is acclaimed. Others who have taken off their blinders, set aside their pre-concieved notions, actually promote full legalization. Some are just plain incapable of intelligent and independent thought it appears and want to control the actions of a whole society even though they're incapable of controlling themselves individually. Maybe Nike needs more ads in Canada so Parliment will "Just do it"? [ Post Comment ] Post Comment