Now there's another group of Americans seeking sanctuary here, though they're dodging a different kind of war: the war on drugs.

Watch the Story: http://www.cbc.ca/disclosure/media/020326_drugs.ram

If the choice is a cell in a cushy federal prison or dropping everything and fleeing to Canada, I guess the choice is fairly easy.

With the DEA setting offices up in Vancouver, that may not be far enough.

It sure was timed very suspiciously, much as the Daddy brought on the Gulf War at a time when his greatest notoriety was being called the "flag-burning" president. Although that "war" did succeed in increasing his popularity at home for a limited time, it apparently wasn't enough to get him reelected.

Now, at a time when the shrub was looking mighty peaked in the face of intensifying scrutiny over his blatant disregard of the mandate of the people, what should conveniently come to pass? National crisis, of course. War! Terror! We must all come together, wave the flag, and burn the heretics and unbelievers.

For months now, I have been drawing the same parallels between the Bush administration and the Third Reich. Sometimes I even scare myself with the comparison.

Incidentally, I was reading just the other day about the company in Florida which manufactures the ID chip which is implanted under the skin. They have had to spend considerable time convincing the Bible-thumpers that their product isn't the Mark of the Beast. I, myself, am not so sure anymore.

I, too, am a software professional. I can easily support myself and my family in climes less antagonistic to my safety and personal well-being. I doubt this country would truly miss me, but the song might change if several thousand of my most-intelligent cohorts left and took their tax money with them.

I love what this country represents, but I detest what it has become. How soon we forget the fact that this country was founded on the idea that men could be free to choose and to do as they wished. Nary 225 years later, what do we have but the same oppression that we fought to escape. Only now, there's no uncharted frontier, no unsettled wilderness into which we can set out to seek our fortunes. Nope, I'm afraid it's all mapped, charted, and, of course, owned. It's getting might expensive, too, and the price just keeps going up (in more ways than one).

The people that live in this country have forgotten why our country was founded to being with. I havent. In fact, I"m starting to realize more and more each day what those REAL patriots felt back in the 1770's. Everytime I hear someone saying that we need to bomb those 'terrorists' I want to scream, i want to argue, but most of all, i want to cry. I want to cry for all the people that our government has hurt, killed, or detained. We're one nation under God, but we have the audacity to break all of the VERY simple rules that God wants us to live by. I cant watch the mainstream news anymore. It's getting harder and harder to check this website as well, because for every positive story, I see another story about how crazy our current administration is and I cant help but think how they're leading us down the path to Armageddon. We imprison people, kill people, and 'convert' them to our religion, and then we wonder why they hate the U$A. But what bothers me most of all...the sheeple think everything is fine and dandy.

I wish i could move now, but it's just not possible. I want to help change the face of the world, and i think the best way for me to do that is to become a medical provider in Canada, so I can help spread the love and the harmony and peace that cannabis provides. I've read up on it a little bit, and while it may be difficult, most things that are REALLY worth doing dont come easy. If i can help just one person ease their pain, then I will do whatever it takes to do that. For all of you in Canada already, I wish you all the best of luck, and maybe one day soon we can all get together and have a REAL celebration for what freedom really means. It saddens me that I am going to be leaving my country for the same reason it was founded. I never thought I would want to live outside of the United States, but every day, i feel more and more unwelcome here.

O Canada...dum dee dumm dee dee......or however it goes...

Harsh U.S. drug laws drive Americans over the border to Sechelt

Source: The Province
Author: Keith Fraser
Published: Monday, March 25, 2002

The sleepy Sunshine Coast is becoming a refuge for American citizens fleeing marijuana-related charges in the United States.

Steve Tuck, a disabled veteran from California who takes pot for medicinal purposes, moved to Sechelt last summer with his wife and son after being charged with trafficking -- an accusation he denies.

He believes there's probably 100 other Americans "and more coming" who are similarly fleeing what they consider to be harsher drug laws in the U.S. and the prospect that they would land in jail if they stayed put.

Tuck was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1987 after suffering a spine injury which continues to plague him.

"We're a community here where we take care of each other, we help each other out," said Tuck, 36, who says he's donated 40,000 marijuana seeds to the Canadian government's medicinal marijuana program.

"It's like a support system. It's not for any other reasons than that. And also it's affordable."

A perception that the Sunshine Coast was a haven for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam War and therefore has a more laid back attitude has attracted some.

And some Americans moved to the Sunshine Coast after contacting Renee Boje, a native of Santa Monica, Calif., who has been living in Gibsons and fighting extradition on drug charges for several years. She's awaiting a justice minister's appeal of a B.C. Supreme Court court ruling ordering her out of the country.

"It was really good for me to come here and get away from it all after what I'd been though in America," Boje, 32, said yesterday. "It's peaceful here, it's beautiful. There's trees everywhere and a really supportive community here."

The Sunshine Coast Compassion Club, started up by local resident Lisa Kirkland in October, estimates 15 of its 40 members are American citizens.

Steve Kubby, who played a key role in a winning California referendum supporting pot for medicinal purposes, says he packed his bags and travelled to Sechelt even after the main charges against him were dismissed.

"We felt that my life was very much at risk by these rogue law-enforcement people," he said. "At least here in Canada, there's a federal recognition that patients who happen to require medical cannabis to stay alive have real protection and human rights afforded to them by the federal government of Canada. And that's why I'm here."

Kubby has adrenal cancer and uses marijuana to control the pain.

Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne said he spoke to a staff sergeant in the local RCMP detachment, who was unaware of the influx of Americans.

Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk said it was also "news to me" that so many Americans were moving in but added the town has been looking into the Compassion Club and its legality.

"I don't even know the status of it in the town of Gibsons right now. But if it's simply a front for people that are seeking some sort of sanctuary in the country, I'd have concerns about it. That would be the same for any organization using a false front to find safe haven in this country. That's not the way you do things."

RCMP could not be reached.

An expert on marijuana policies in Canada and the United States says the two countries are on a collision course.

"It will be a sticking point between the two countries," said Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, in Maryland.

Although marijuana is illegal in both countries, enforcement is a lower priority in Canada and criminal penalties less severe.

Snipped

Our government is playing both sides of the street.

The other side: the SANE side, legalization, seems to be a path that becomes more remote every day.

The shrub is pushing for war everywhere.

We are now in roughly the same position as the Jews were in just after Adolph Hitler was elected to power. And like many of the Jews back then, we stand genteely incredulous at the unbelievably crass attempts to categorize us as 'terrorists'. Many of us honestly cannot believe that we are being targeted on every level, now. (In a very ominous move, the NDIC is now tracking groups and individuals working towards drug law reform, and monitoring websites engaged in that work. You can bet that some poor low-level functionary has been tasked with reading these words.)

In an event eerily familiar to historians of fascist movements and governments, like the Reichstag Fire, I suspect that certain forces within the US government have engineered events to bring about such mass hysteria in the population that they could ramrod their PATRIOT legislation through Congress with not a single committee hearing.

Since the awful day of 9/11/01, the brazenness of Uncle has grown considerably worse. The use of taxpayer dollars to mould public opinion in an attempt to equate pot-puffing little Johnnie and Suzy with Osama's murderers is just the latest gross example of the power grab underway. All that was missing was a Nazi-esque hook-nosed charicature of a European Jew and the "Horst Wessel Leidt" playing in the background. Of course, the advertising wonks who dreamed this up know better than to be so overt; they've couched their approach in much more muted terms...but the approach is the same: alienate a specific group from society and destroy it.

So, the question becomes "How long will you stay?" How long before you realize the steamroller heading towards you will not stop? How long before you understand that the driver of it couldn't care less about your concerns about rights and dignity and all the other matters most truly patiotic Americans believe in. He could care less that those rights paid for in blood by our servicemen and women are being quietly, ever so softly, slowly and gently being stripped from you? How long before you realize the courts, just as in Nazi Germany, serve the hallowed State...not you?

The 'smart Jews' of Nazi Germany saw the poorly spelled, ignorant, bloody-minded ravings written on the wall and split. The ones who weren't smart enough to believe that the system had finally switched over to the killing machine it had become wound up as lampshades.

When they come to you with a demand that you accept a national ID Card, or a datachip under your skin like your cat or dog, or a piss-test to rent an car, it may be already too late. By then, most of the escape hatches will be dogged shut. So, I repeat; how long will you stay?

I once thought that the Beast could be stopped; I mentioned many times before that the only way to derail drug law reform in the US would be the imposition of martial law. Well, it's here in everything but name; all that's missing now are checkpoints on highways and "Your papers, please, Citizen!" You can bet there are some antis just itching for those days so bad they need Preparation H by the case. These idiots have no idea of the precipice they are hurtling towards...and dragging us all along with them. In their righteous zeal, they think themselves untouched by the awful mechanics of despotism. They think they can 'dance with the Devil' and not get singed. Fools!

Our roots run deep here in California. I'd rather stand and fight.

The DEA may make things so difficult in the near future, that staying becomes impossible.

It's no irony Deadheads played such an important role in developing the net..........

The US Federal government, in typical narrow-minded fashion, is becoming ever more intrusive upon the rights of cannabis users...while the rest of the world is quietly dismantling their American-designed, locally-run DrugWar for something more sensible.

That is, the rest of the Developed World. At the risk of seeming self-promoting, many readers here will remember that I had predicted that Thirld-World countries heavily addicted to US aid would fall in line with Uncle's increasingly maniacal DrugWar schemes, and ratchet up their own penalties for use...as The Phillapines have with E. But I doubt that there are many people clamboring to emigrate.

I can't speak for other industries, so I will address my questions to those most familiar with mine chosen field. So, what's a bright code writer or tech to do, when your favorite anodyne for what ails you can land you in jail alongside murderers and rapists and child molestors?

In a word: move. And take your talents with you. Talents that have built the economies of whole geographic regions. Talents that maintain major industries. And talents which, when missing, will cause those industries dependent on the continued presence of the people possessing those talents to crash and burn.

Stop and think about it, friends: if you are an IT worker, what would happen in your community if you left? What would happen to your job? What would happen to your company? Congress, in a fit of xenophobia, has sent many H-1B visa workers packing for home. That means less competition for more jobs. The cachet of IT workers has just risen enormously in a very quiet way. In the DC area where I work, many companies are now pushing for their people to get security clearences...because the US Guv'mint wants the people working on their contracts to be squeaky clean. And, as you can guess, that particular job requirement is going to cause massive problems...as many, many IT workers smoke.

(And yes, I have already been approached for such a process...and flatly turned them down. As did everyone else in our group. This does not bode well for Uncle's paranoiac wish-list.)

Push is coming to shove in Americas' work force...and the wrong people are being pushed. Push too hard, and they leave. And the American economy suffers. I've said it before; I would happily learn to sing "O, Canada!" if it meant being left alone.