cannabisnews.com: Pot Law Back To Martin





Pot Law Back To Martin
Posted by CN Staff on December 28, 2003 at 08:58:22 PT
Editorial
Source: Toronto Star 
With last week's Supreme Court of Canada ruling, the marijuana debate is once again in full flower. In a 6-3 decision, the high court upheld current federal pot laws, concluding Ottawa has a right to declare marijuana possession is a crime. And if the government, in its wisdom, decides in future to declare possessing small amounts of marijuana is not a crime? That's fine, too.
"Equally, it is open to Parliament to decriminalize or otherwise modify any aspect of the marijuana laws that it no longer considers to be good public policy," says the judgment. It's not a simple answer but it's a sensible one. The court ruled on the law's constitutionality, not whether the punishment fits the crime. It left that issue for Ottawa to determine.Our marijuana laws, which have been on the books since the 1920s, are unevenly applied and due for an overhaul. Only about 5 per cent of the 20,000 or so Canadians charged each year with possessing a small amount of marijuana go to jail.The judicial system's resources would be better used in cracking down on large-scale growers and traffickers, and on preventing the use of more dangerous drugs.Prime Minister Paul Martin has said he supports decriminalization in "very, very, very small amounts." He plans to reintroduce a bill that would maintain or increase already stiff penalties for traffickers. It would also wipe out criminal penalties for those caught with small amounts of pot, instead making possession a minor offence punishable by fines.How much is a small amount? That will be a topic for heated debate. But until further notice, possessing pot is still against the law.Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)Published: December 28, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Toronto Star Contact: lettertoed thestar.com Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmMartin To Roll His Own Pot Billhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17999.shtmlTo Toke or Not To Toke?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17973.shtmlPot Flashback On Tap - Edmonton Sun http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17949.shtml 
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on December 29, 2003 at 12:32:18 PT
News Article from The Canadian Press
B.C. Legislature Raid Tied To Drug ProbeMon, December 29, 2003 VANCOUVER (CP) - Police raided the B.C. legislature offices of two senior cabinet ministers Sunday after an organized-crime probe turned up information of more potential wrongdoing, RCMP said Monday. "Sometimes in the course of a complex and lengthy police investigation, other related and unrelated information surfaces suggesting possible criminal activity," Sgt. John Ward told a news conference. 
 Complete Article: http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2003/12/29/299631-cp.html
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on December 28, 2003 at 14:24:36 PT
DeVoHawk 
No I don't think it was lack of protein but how to fatten up the cattle so they bring in more money. It's like giving an animal hormones. It's for bigger sizes. Pasture only cattle just don't get near as big.
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Comment #11 posted by DeVoHawk on December 28, 2003 at 13:34:53 PT
HEMP Prohibition a factor?
Were cows feed hemp seed in the past? Was this sudden drop in protein the reason dead animals are now added to cow food?
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on December 28, 2003 at 12:15:07 PT
Thanks goneposthole
I guess I have a sore spot when it comes to animals and their treatment and our food supply. My dogs enjoyed most of the turkey I made for Christmas. I couldn't eat it. It made me feel sick just thinking about it. They use rendered meat in gelatin capsules too and I think jelly beans but maybe they don't do that anymore. I've had a few exotic diseases on the farm over the years and one disease that no one knows where it came from. It required rushing my horse to Ohio State Veterinary Hospital and many IVs to save him. It was called Potomac Horse Fever and I had the plague here too. That was the most difficult to mentally handle but we did. Maybe this is just too emotional of an issue for me to be objective.http://www.grinningplanet.com/2003/wild-cows/environmental-issue-23.htm
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Comment #9 posted by goneposthole on December 28, 2003 at 12:02:51 PT
FoM, I found this and it is interesting 
http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/17/bovine_spongiform_disease.htmthere is a huge coverup, of course.Pharmaceutical companies are at it again.Medical cannabis to the rescue.
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Comment #8 posted by Virgil on December 28, 2003 at 11:50:45 PT
Arnold recognizes the obvious- release prisoners
Davis was supported by the prison industry in California even when the budget spent more on prisoners than school teachers. When things got tight Davis cut about 30,000 teachers jobs instead of what should have been done. This is a big article on an obvious wrong on priorities and justice saying Arnold wants to let people have their freedom back- http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/8013619p-8949908c.htmlEJ- The United States is still a big exporter of soybeans with Argentina and Brazil being strong competitors- http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/SoybeansOilcrops/pdf/SBProdExpCompOCS2001.pdf
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Comment #7 posted by E_Johnson on December 28, 2003 at 11:31:21 PT
The irony of American impact on the environment
There used to be a compelling environmental reason to be vegetarian, because cattle ranching was destroying the rain forest in Brazil.But now it's soybean farming that is destroying rain forst, because of the huge and growing market opened up for soy protein products by American vegetarians.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on December 28, 2003 at 11:08:31 PT
goneposthole 
This MCD has me very upset. I know what causes this disease and trying to pass the buck to blame Canada really upsets me. I want to know when this practice started up? We had a friend have one of their horses go down and the vet didn't know what was wrong but acted like it was MCD not Equine Encephalitis (sp). It was destroyed and buried.
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Comment #5 posted by goneposthole on December 28, 2003 at 10:44:37 PT
Canada kowtows to US
The US gov is a happycamper. Alberta cattle ranchers were selling ground beef for 99 cents per pound Canadian.Madcowboy goes vegan:Jul 26, 2000 / vol 6 iss 50
From cattle rancher to vegan
Activist speaks on organic farming, animal practicesby Tracy RoseFormer cattle rancher Howard Lyman doesn't hesitate to speak his mind.Now a vegan, Lyman was one of more than 60 speakers at Vegetarian Summerfest 2000, the North American Vegetarian Society conference held earlier this month on the UNCA campus. While he focused on the agricultural industry, others spoke on topics ranging from intentional communities to nutrition.Many folks may remember Lyman's 1996 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. On the popular talk show, he warned that the country's cow industry could suffer a mad-cow-disease outbreak due to its practice of rendering – or grinding up – cows and feeding them to other cows, according to a 1998 Time magazine article.He also told 20 million viewers that the industry was grinding up cats and dogs to feed to cattle, he recounted to the conference audience."I went on [Oprah's] show and told the American people the truth," Lyman declared after his UNCA talk.Lyman's appearance resulted in the beef industry filing a libel suit against both Winfrey and Lyman. After their 1998 court victory, Winfrey proclaimed that free speech "rocks," but appeals of the case have continued to drag on. Earlier this year, however, a federal appeals court in New Orleans said the show had "melodramatized" mad-cow disease – but hadn't given false information about it or defamed cattle producers – according to the Associated Press.The same suit, however, has been filed in state court, Lyman said."We've been paying lawyers for four years, and we've won every issue," he stated. "Everything I said was the truth, and the truth is not actionable."In August 1997, the FDA issued new regulations that ban feeding "ruminant protein," or protein from cud-chewing animals, to other ruminants, according to Lyman's Web site (madcowboy.com). That action came in response to growing concern about the spread of mad-cow disease.At the UNCA lecture, Lyman told an audience of about 40 people about his experiences growing up on a small organic dairy farm in Montana during World War II. While his parents milked cows, one of his first farm chores was to count the number of ladybugs in the garden, which helped indicate the health of the crops."When we go out and use chemicals, they kill indiscriminately," Lyman said, earnestly pitching his message to a sympathetic audience.Lyman called 1945 the watershed for the "destruction of our civilization." That's when the fledgling chemical and pharmaceutical industries began to take flight."They basically had one customer: the United States government," Lyman said in a robust speech punctuated with emphatic gestures.Agricultural extension services were supposed to help farmers emerge from the "dark ages" of farming and persuade them to use pesticides, he pointed out."They educated us on the fantastic future of using chemicals," Lyman recalled. "I ended up being a chemical junkie."He bought the pitch "hook, line and sinker," and armed with an agriculture degree from Montana State University, he began using chemicals on his farm, as he notes in his book Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat (with Glen Merzer, Scribner's, 1998.)At one time, Lyman had 1,000 range cows, 5,000 cattle in a factory feed lot, thousands of acres of crops, and as many as 30 employees, his Web site reveals.After the lecture, Lyman said he'd changed his ways after he was paralyzed by a spinal-cord tumor."It was the first time I got really honest with myself about what I was doing," he remembered.He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1982. The following year, Lyman sold most of his farm and started working for farmers in financial trouble, according to his Web site. This led him to work for the Montana Farmers Union and later took him to Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union. His goal is to see a producer/consumer alliance controlling public-policy decisions in North America. To that end, he's been traveling about 100,000 miles a year for the past nine years, lecturing about organic sustainable agriculture and the dangers of current methods of food production.Addressing the audience, he talked about how cattle-herd size is increasing and how the average life span of a cow is decreasing. Forty percent of all hamburger in the United States comes from spent dairy cows, and 40 to 60 percent of hamburger is "good ol' greasy fat," he said. By law, he noted, hamburger has to be made from beef and beef fat.In the slaughtering process, Lyman said, it's important to get as much flesh from the bone as possible. By putting it under pressure, "They blow the flesh off of the bone," he said.Without mentioning any specifics, he alleged that lab analysis had shown that nerve endings were being found in the mix."They didn't change the process," Lyman explained. "They changed the result of the analysis."He also pointed to problems with meat inspection. Meat inspectors no longer have the authority to stop a line even if they see a tumor), but instead must get a plant employee to do it. Lyman said inspectors call the new system HCCP: "Have a cup of coffee and pray."Most poultry inspectors, he noted, won't eat the product they're inspecting.Lyman also is concerned about family farms."We are seeing agriculture shrinking at a phenomenal rate," he declared. "Family farmers today are an endangered species. ... We're going there right now, and it's not accidental."Without subsidies, Lyman claimed, a burger at McDonald's would cost $12.While cattle production in the United States is yielding some of the lowest economic returns in history, agricultural giants such as IBP are seeing the highest profits in recorded history, he reported.That disparity is compounded by a federal law requiring that $1 from every cow and calf sold be put into a beef-industry marketing fund, which yields $100 million annually, Lyman said.In response to a question from the audience, he advised the crowd to pay attention to who's paying for studies. Lyman also told the group that every dollar they spend is a vote for the future."Go buy organic, even if it costs more," he urged.When asked how his relatives feel about his beliefs, Lyman noted that each year, following a family reunion at which only vegan food is served, another relative becomes a vegetarian."It's not what you say, it's the way you act," he observed.Audience member Glen Boisseau Becker of Brentwood, N.Y., called Lyman's speech inspiring – and the entire conference rejuvenating."Many of us would say it's a way of recharging our batteries," Becker said.http://www.mountainx.com/news/2000/0726lyman.php
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Comment #4 posted by jose melendez on December 28, 2003 at 10:08:23 PT
good lte
from: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1993/a02.html?397"Editor, The News: The Supreme Court of Canada has spoken, or as the federal prosecutor said, there is "no free-standing right to get stoned." I think his comments were captured on the way to the pub to celebrate his victory over the evil herb marijuana. While our legislators commonly get drunk and endanger lives, like our own Hawaiian Punched Premier Gordo or Alberta's Happy Hour Klein, whose idea of fighting poverty is to throw rocks at it, it is illegal to sit back and enjoy a non-violent, calming joint in the privacy of your own home. "
posess stones, don't throw them
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Comment #3 posted by yippierevolutionary on December 28, 2003 at 10:00:34 PT
Mad Cow is very scary, I eat buffalo
That one cow is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course we can count on the media to assure us our food supply is safe. One funny thing I noticed when they talk about mad cow on TV they always show herds of cattle running around OUTDOORS. They don't show the "downed" cattle that can't walk being pushed with bulldozers into the slaughter house.The USDA must have seen the South Park movie because right away they started singing "Blame Canada"
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on December 28, 2003 at 09:53:36 PT
WolfgangWylde 
I have been reading up on Mad Cow Disease and I fear our relationship with Canada is not going to be good no matter how much Martin wishes it would be. We want to blame Canada. That's the way things are done down here and I'm saying that with sadness. I don't know where our issue will go anymore.
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Comment #1 posted by WolfgangWylde on December 28, 2003 at 09:44:05 PT
Canadian tokers...
...are being led down the primrose path. When its all said and done, Canada will be living under the same kind of no knock raid/asset seizure type police state the U.S.A. is today (that's what Martin's version of decrim will bring to Canada). I have to admit, I'm impressed at how the Prohibitionist powers that be have lulled us into thinking real change was coming, all the while planning the big knockout punch they are about to deliver.
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