Cannabis Hemp News

Four arrests in raids on cannabis cafés By Chris Gray 19 December 2002 Police have arrested four people in a crackdown on Amsterdam-style cannabis cafés. Scotland Yard made the arrests at two cafés in Camden, north London, after keeping them under surveillance for nearly two months. Police said the cafés, Amsterdam of London and Ian's Hemp Bar, sold legal paraphernalia associated with cannabis but officers suspected drug dealers were operating at both. About 25 officers raided the cafés and seized 14 wraps of marijuana, two marijuana grinders and a small amount of cannabis resin from Amsterdam of London. Two men, aged 29 and 38, and a 21- year-old woman were arr…

Murdering activists, smuggling drugs, unseating governments and impregnating hippie girls is all in a day's work for members of America's elite intelligence organizations. These agents of America's secret government use drug war as an excuse to sabotage democracy in foreign countries and assassinate political opponents, using tactics perfected in their own nation. FBI . political police With the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) accusing the world's marijuana cultures of collusion with terrorists, it's instructive to look at times in the past when the US was faced with foreign threats, and the role of its intelligence organizations during times of cris…

Police from the United Nations Mission in Kosovo recently detained and questioned the prioress of a Serbian Orthodox Church monastery, for suspicion of growing marijuana. In early August, UN police officers noticed pot-like plants in a field where they had been landing their helicopters. Since the field belongs to the monastery, UN police took the monastery's 70-year-old prioress Mother Efrosinia to police headquarters, for several hours of questioning. The plants in question were indeed cannabis, but hemp, not marijuana. Father Sava Janjic, speaking for the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, explained that cannabis hemp grows wild in Serbia. "Hemp is a plant here in …

Source: Austin Chronicle On Dec. 4 the Marijuana Policy Project -- the advocates behind a number of November's failed drug-reform ballot initiatives -- filed a formal complaint with the federal Office of Special Counsel, calling for the ouster of drug czar John Walters, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In the three-page complaint, the MPP alleges that Walters was in "gross violation" of both federal and Nevada state law when he traveled to the Silver State in October to campaign against Question 9 -- a sweeping drug-reform initiative that would have both decriminalized marijuana possession and provided for the drug's legal sale. The MP…

Pot in Canada may soon be a click away with the launch of a home-delivery service for medical marijuana over the Internet. Marijuana activists in Montreal announced the start-up of -- http:// www.marijuanahomedelivery.ca -- shortly after a Quebec judge threw out possession and trafficking charges Thursday against two volunteers at a medical marijuana club. Quebec Court Judge Gilles Cadieux said authorizing those who are ill to use marijuana in Canada while depriving them of a legal source violates the right to life and liberty under the Charter. Judge Cadieux stopped short of invalidating Canada's pot laws, saying such a decision is up to higher courts. But he orde…

Internet sales not seen as panacea Muscular dystrophy patient says many who need drug are on welfare, fixed incomes to enrich dope peddlers, not help sufferers. Claude Messier applauded the new Web site launched by the Marijuana Party of Canada yesterday to sell pot over the Internet. But, he admitted, it will do little to answer the problem of accessibility for those in need of medicinal marijuana. Messier, 36, is a muscular dystrophy patient who lives in constant pain. He smokes on average about 3 grams of pot a day - roughly $800 worth a month. While Messier, who was a defence witness at the drug-trafficking trial of Marc St-Maurice and Alexandre Néron, was happy…

Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 07:44:09 -0800 From: "D. Paul Stanford" <stanford@crrh.org> Subject: 006 CA: Marijuana As Mitzvah Newshawk: Jane Marcus Pubdate: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 Source: Los Altos Town Crier (CA) Copyright: 2002 The Town Crier Company Inc. Contact: bruceb@latc.com Website: http://www.losaltosonline.com/latc.html Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/245 Author: Cynthia Marshall Schuman / Special to the Town Crier Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) MARIJUANA AS MITZVAH Local Temple Supports Drug's Therapeutic Use Susan Gaskill had many of the things that her fri…

Montreal — A judge has halted the drug-trafficking trial of two marijuana activists who were involved in a club that dispensed the drug for medical use. A lawyer who represented the federal government at the trial said Thursday's decision amounts to an acquittal for the accused. "When the judge orders a stay of proceedings, that is tantamount to an acquittal," Robert Marchi said in an interview. Marc-Boris Saint-Maurice, director of the Compassion Club, and Alexandre Neron, who worked at the club, were accused of possession of marijuana and trafficking the drug. The case was watched closely by pro-cannabis and law-enforcement groups because of its implications for …

Montreal - Canadian activists for the medicinal use of marijuana celebrated a court victory on Thursday by launching an Internet site offering home delivery of cannabis for seriously ill people. Saying it would even offer tax deductions for orders, the Marijuana Party Foundation took the unprecedented step after Quebec Superior Court Judge Gilles Cadieux stopped the drug- trafficking trial of two volunteers from Compassion Club of Montreal, a group that provides marijuana for medicinal purposes. In his long-awaited decision, Judge Cadieux agreed that the pair, Marc-Boris St-Maurice, 33, and Alexandre Neron, 22, had planned to sell marijuana when they were arrested al…

Source: Associated Press Police raided the home of a medical marijuana activist and seized about 13 pounds of the drug, more than 100 plants and more than $11,000. However, no arrests were made. On Tuesday, police searched the home of Dion Markgraaff, a 33-year-old marijuana user who once ran a cannabis club in Ocean Beach. Markgraaff and his roommate, who was not identified, were both considered by police to be qualified medical marijuana patients. Both men were allowed to keep one plant each and an ounce of marijuana between them. The amount of marijuana found at Markgraaff's home appears to be permissible under the city plan developed in response to Proposition…

They began walking out of the Fayette County Jail here this afternoon, the first of 567 Kentucky state prison inmates that Gov. Paul E. Patton abruptly ordered released this week in a step to reduce a $500 million budget deficit. Governor Patton said only nonviolent offenders were being given the early mass commutation. But those let out today included men convicted of burglary, theft, arson and drug possession, some of them chronic criminals. "A percentage of them are going to recommit a crime, and some of them are going to be worse than the crimes they are in for," Mr. Patton acknowledged in announcing the emergency releases. But, he added, "I have to do what I hav…

Source: Hamilton Spectator The last session of Parliament ended on a high note for Paddy Torsney. In the closing days of Parliament, the Burlington Liberal MP found herself talking almost constantly about marijuana. As chair of a parliamentary committee examining the non-medical use of drugs, Torsney's job has been to explain why members are recommending the decriminalization of marijuana. The 13- member, all-party committee recommended people who possess less than 30 grams of pot should get a fine rather than a criminal record. A first offence would bring a $200 fine, second offence $500, third conviction $1,000. Marijuana would remain an illegal drug, as Torsne…

The Globe and Mail It's been a great week for Big Weed. I thought Kyoto and its ratification were going to be the last big news out of Ottawa before our diligent parliamentarians retired for Christmas. Putting the planet on the path to repair, arresting the whiplash of drought and flood and the melting of the icecaps -- these are big-ticket items. And I can't wait for the windmills. I see a lot of Holland in our future. But there was enough energy left over even after Kyoto, even after the "terrific achievement" (as Allan Rock would have it) of the gun registry program, to take up the cause of deep inhaling, and consider "relaxing" the nation's pot-possession prohi…

"Source: National Post Two real estate agents were the ringleaders of a $35- million cannabis-growing operation using the homes of innocent people, police revealed yesterday. The two agents arranged for 56 homes to be used for harvesting more than 35,000 marijuana plants in the greater Toronto, London and Ottawa regions, said Constable Steve Morrell of the York Regional Police. Homeowners would approach the two agents to lease their homes, but instead they turned them into drug dens, he said. "The ringleaders would make out false names and information, like references; after all, they were the ones responsible for checking these things out. "Then they leased th…