Cannabis Hemp News

The Columbia City Council on Monday will hear a proposal that aims to retool the city's law- enforcement stance toward small amounts of marijuana. The proposal would make the possession of less than 35 grams of marijuana a ticketable offense only, not punishable by imprisonment. Such cases would only be referred to the municipal prosecuting attorney and would not be prosecuted by a state prosecutor. The proposed ordinance would also ensure that patients for whom marijuana has been recommended by a physician suffer no punishment for obtaining, possessing or using marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia. The ordinance would be voted on at the council's Jan. 20 meeting, …

Source: Edmonton Sun Pot shops where smokers could buy and toke marijuana might be set up in major Canadian cities within six months, says a cannabis advocate in Vancouver. "We're trying to open a marijuana-selling operation in the city, and the reason for that is that there's so many people from out of town who come to Vancouver and there isn't a respectable retail outlet to send an out-of-towner to," said Marc Emery, president of the Marijuana Party of B.C. "We end up having to send them to the sleazy part of the downtown east side to buy from all the crack, heroin and pot dealers, and people who sell anything illegal. It's always a discouraging experience to se…

UK: Let Them Smoke Dope URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02.n1154.a11.html Newshawk: JimmyG Webpage: http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/page.cfm?...ll&siteid=86024 Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 Source: Sunday Mail (UK) Contact: mailbox@sundaymail.co.uk Copyright: 2002 Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd. Website: http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2260 Author: Derek Alexander LET THEM SMOKE DOPE Scots Police Forces Stop Arresting Cannabis Users POLICE officers have been told not to arrest anyone caught with cannabis for personal use, the Sunday Mail can reveal. All eight Scottish forces adopted the secret policy because they were…

Sault Ste. Marie’s senior drug prosecutor is awaiting word on what happens now with marijuana possession charges after a potential landmark decision Thursday in a southern Ontario courtroom. Wayne Chorney said he is expecting instructions from the federal department of justice within a day or two. “I suspect they will tell us to stay charges in the interim or adjourn them for the next month or so,’’ the federal Crown said. An Ontario Court judge in Windsor threw out a marijuana charge against a teenaged boy Thursday after his lawyer argued there is effectively no law in Canada prohibiting possession of 30 grams of pot or less. Chorney estimates there are probably 7…

San Luis Obispo - Donovan No Runner walked out of the San Luis Obispo Police station all smiles Friday, holding the bag of marijuana authorities had returned to him. A local Superior Court judge had ordered the city to return the marijuana it confiscated from No Runner last summer, ruling the 23-year-old Grover Beach man had a valid doctor's recommendation. But police were concerned that handing the pot over to No Runner would violate a federal law prohibiting the distribution of controlled substances. As a result, the City Council considered appealing the court's ruling during a last-minute meeting Friday, but instead it decided to give up the fight. "The city i…

PRESS RELEASE - 30th December 2002 TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PROPAGANDA STILL HAS SHADES OF REEFER MADNESS The Nimbin HEMP Embassy thinks that the NSW government new anti-cannabis propaganda campaign may well work to achieve the opposite. "Young people are so cynical about government drug advice they're just as likely to do the opposite to what they're told", said Michael Balderstone, spokesperson for the Embassy. "Already we think prohibition creates a forbidden fruit syndrome in the case of cannabis which encourages young people to experiment early." "Decades of reefer madness nonsense have so damaged the credibility of official drug advice, the government has got it…

Ottawa is appealing a ruling that found Canada's marijuana-possession laws are no longer valid. In a notice filed Friday, the Crown says it will try to show an Ontario judge erred when he concluded that a 16-year-old broke no laws when he was caught carrying five grams of marijuana this spring. "Because the decision created so much public interest, we thought it best to quickly deal with the issue and clarify the law as quickly as we can," said Jim Leising, director of the Justice Department's prosecution service in Ontario. He announced the decision to appeal yesterday, one day after Judge Douglas Phillips in Windsor dismissed possession charges against the teen. …

A prominent Territory lawyer has called for the introduction of a monitoring body to oversee the Territory's new Drug House laws. Colin McDonald, QC, said last night he had serious concerns about the legislation. He said the owners and tenants of drug houses had no rights under the laws to test the evidence before a Drug House sign was posted at a premises. The legislation states that homeowners and tenants are to be given no warning that the property is about to be declared a drug house. The hearing depends on the police commissioner presenting both sides of the particular case in question to the court. But Mr McDonald last night argued that the Police Comm…

Vancouver, B.C. -- The door-kicking has stopped, as have the asset forfeitures and harassment. Chris Bennett hasn't been arrested in weeks, nor have any of his friends. Yet, the 40-year-old Bennett isn't inclined to say the battle is won. He's seen the police relax before. He's seen pot achieve a tenuous level of respectability when a more liberal-minded mayor or police chief takes over. And he's seen the subsequent backlash. "Every time we talk to the press, something happens," he said, sitting in the store he manages, The Marijuana Party Headquarters. The store is three blocks from one of Vancouver's toniest shopping districts. While Bennett talks, he selects a h…

Toronto - The federal government is moving quickly to quell uncertainty over Canada's drug laws by appealing an Ontario Court ruling that threw out a marijuana charge on a technicality. "We were aware of the uncertainty the decision created so we thought we'd move as quickly as possible," federal Justice Department spokesman Jim Leising said Friday. Leising said the appeal was "expedited" following the decision Thursday by Justice Douglas Phillips to side with the teen's lawyer, Brian McAllister, who argued that the law that makes possession of marijuana a criminal offence is effectively invalid in Ontario. Notwithstanding the ruling, the Controlled Drugs and Subst…

REGULAR use of cannabis by children as young as 14 is increasing, prompting a push to highlight the negative effects of the drug. The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) yesterday warned of the dangers to young users as the NSW government launched a statewide ad campaign to combat the problem. NDARC information manager Paul Dillon said the number of young people using the drug was growing and many wrongly perceived it as harmless. He also warned more young people were using bongs, or water pipes, instead of joints to smoke cannabis. Using bongs forced more smoke into their lungs, possibly increasing the risk of cancer. Young people were largely una…

Darwin's first drug house has been named _ flat 28, Tomaris Ct in Smith St, Darwin. Drug squad officer-in-charge Les Martin attached the green notice declaring the unit to be a drug house to the door of the housing commission unit yesterday. Margot Laughton, 54, who occupies the unit, had been served the required three notices after police raided the unit on September 21, November 13 and December 5, seizing 453.5g of cannabis. An application was made to the courts on December 17 to have the unit declared a drug house. Ms Laughton had until close of business on New Year's Eve to appeal. She did not. Ms Laughton, who has lived in the flat for seven years, was…

Jerusalem -- A driver speeding past two dozen cyclists from the pro-marijuana Green Leaf Party shouts, "Hey, you giving out free samples?" A bus driver gives a wave and a honk. The cyclists, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a marijuana leaf, pedaled through the city to draw attention to one of their many tenets, ditching cars for bicycles. It was part election campaign, part environmental activism and part lark. A month before parliamentary elections, Green Leaf is among several fringe parties competing for the protest vote from Israelis unwilling to choose hardliners but frustrated by dovish parties after more than two years of fighting with the Palestinians. They…

In Pakistan, cannabis use has reached alarming proportions among young people, particularly in the urban population. In large cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, smoking a "joint" for relaxation is considered "fashionable and the in thing." Parents from the upper social classes, if not encouraging its use, do not care if their children smoke hash off and on, during weekends or at parties. About 80 to 90 per cent adolescents and young college students in most of the elite schools have tried hash. Although most young people use cannabis in adolescence without apparent harm, clinical research studies over the last decade clearly indicate that a number of vulnera…