Cannabis Law and Politics

The ideological, illogical war against cannabis By Sandra Kanck - posted Friday, 1 August 2008 ON LINE Opinion <http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7706&page=0> I’ve introduced a bill which would allow fines to be waived for the personal cultivation and use of marijuana for people suffering designated medical conditions. This would be on the proviso that a medical practitioner has signed a palliative cannabis certificate, saying that the person is suffering from a specified illness or disease, the symptoms of which might be palliated by the smoking or consumption of cannabis or cannabis resin. Given that in South Australia cannabis is a contr…

hello, just read one hell of an article about cannabis in australia.. Might interest the less experienced like myself with time on their hands, some interesting figures anyway. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/drugstra...ile/mono-57.pdf

I am hoping someone has answers to my hell I am living in at the moment. My family is involved in what the fucking pigs called operation paneling that happened on the mid north coast if anyone sore the news. This happened in April their is about 20 people involved they say. It is commercial cultivation and supply, quantity around 130kg that is what the pigs say anyway, plus they raided houses, sheds and what ever they wanted to do. The crimes commission are involved so you can understand the shits they are in, even though the pigs are lying and making this look like this large organised criminal syndicate of cultivation and supply. We are in the middle of getting how ever…

Cannabis Users Anger at Seed Ban Bill A Bill in Parliament calling for a ban on cannabis seeds has angered cananbis and environmental campaigners PR.CannaZine.co.uk 14 July 2008 <http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/content/view/451/27/> Legalise Cannabis Alliance Press Release Contact: environmental spokesperson Ingo Wagenknecht, tel. 01508538197 Press Dept: Don Barnard tel. 07882414638 Cannabis Campaigners urge MP’s to reject prohibition of cannabis seeds bill In a political U-turn, the Liberal Democrats not-so-liberal drugs legalisation policies on cannabis was thrown into question last week by Tom Brake MP, who split his party in the middle by introducing Bill 1…

Feature: Vested Interests of Prohibition I: The Police Drug War Chronicle - world’s leading drug policy newsletter Issue #542 11 July 2008 StoptheDrugWar.com Website at <http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/542/vested_interests_drug_prohibition_law_enforcement> Drug prohibition has been a fact of life in the United States for roughly a century now. While it was ostensibly designed to protect American citizens from the dangers of drug use, it now has a momentum of its own, independent of that original goal, at which it has failed spectacularly. As the prohibitionist response to drug use and sales deepened over the decades, then intensified even more with the bipart…

Two more milestones in the failed war on drugs Sandra Kanck MP 2 July 2008 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7576 For those interested in drug laws based on health rather than criminality, June 2008 saw the passing of two anniversaries of note, one at the South Australian level, and the other internationally. In June 2002, the South Australian Drug Summit was held, and the final communiqué recommended a heroin prescription trial and further consideration of the use of cannabis for medical and therapeutic purposes, recommendations which were strongly supported. Six years on, neither of these has happened and, as memories of the Summit recede, the likel…

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7642 July 3, 2008 - Washington, DC, USA Washington, DC: The United State’s top federal anti-drug agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), turned 35-years-old this week, according to US Department of Justice press release. “The Drug Enforcement Administration was created 35 years ago on [July 1] by President Richard Nixon, who through an Executive Order established a single unified command to combat ‘an all-out global war on the drug menace,’” the DOJ release states. “At its outset, the DEA had 1,470 Special Agents, a budget of less than $75 million, and a presence in 31 countries. Today, the DEA has 5,235 Special Agents…

Harm minimisation: just say no Miranda Devine June 19, 2008 http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/harm-mi...3770730340.html Three weeks ago, on May 27, Tony and Angela Wood went to a Chinese restaurant to mark what would have been their daughter Anna's 28th birthday, had she lived. As they do each year, they ordered her favourite meal, Peking duck, and remembered the 15-year-old girl who died in 1995 after taking ecstasy for the first time. But while her parents have been touring schools and spreading the message that illegal drug use is never safe, Anna Wood was being co-opted without their permission as a poster girl of the drug harm-minimisation lobby, which has shape…