cannabisnews.com: Canada's Pot Revolution










  Canada's Pot Revolution

Posted by CN Staff on August 23, 2003 at 08:06:49 PT
By Stephen Glass 
Source: Rolling Stone  

In November 2001, when Alain Berthiaume - Montreal's most prominent marijuana activist - was arrested on drug charges, the best advice might have been to plead guilty. Berthiaume, who owns a head shop, a grow shop, a seed band and a pot-culture magazine, was caught organizing his third annual Cannabis Cup - a public competition for marijuana growers.Several months later, the police raided his home and found 1,200 cannabis plants - what Berthiaume calls his "small plantation."
But Berthiaume thought he shouldn't have to go to prison. "I've been smoking all my life," he says. "I no longer want to be treated as a failure, a drug addict, a fucking thief."So when the prosecutor offered him a plea deal with only one year of jail time, he refused it.And Berthiaume might just win.In the past few months, a storm of legal reforms in Canada has made it likely that marijuana will be decriminalized before the year is out. By then, Parliament is expected to have passed a bill that will make the possession of small amounts of marijuana merely a ticketable offense, much like speeding. Meanwhile, this past spring, an Ontario court voided the country's possession law on technical grounds, meaning that in the province at least, there is currently no law against possessing small amounts of marijuana. And this fall, the Canadian Supreme Court will determine whether the country's laws prohibiting marijuana possession are unconstitutional and therefore must be struck down altogether.Predictably, these reforms have the Bush administration steaming. Asa Hutchinson, a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, warned Canadian journalists that their country would face "consequences" it passed decriminalization.The U.S. "would have to respond" to a change in Canada's drug laws, David Murray, a top member of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told reporters in Vancouver. "This isn't Woodstock."And John Walters, the drug czar himself, hinted in an interview with the Boston Globe that the northern border of the U.S. may have to be restricted, maybe even semimilitarized, like the border with Mexico. That's a significant threat to the Canadian economy, which relies heavily on fluid trade with the U.S.But for all its bravado, the Bush administration has Canada's marijuana laws all wrong. The Canadians don't see the proposed new law as a step towards legalization; officials there see it as a soft and sensible way to crack down on drug use. Adults caught with fifteen grams or less (about half an ounce) would be fined $150 (U.S. $107); minors would own $100 (U.S. $71) and a letter would be sent to their parents. That would be the extent of it. No handcuffs, no mug shot, no overnight in lockup, no court appearance. Moreover, as with parking violations there would no cumulative punishments - as long as you paid your tickets, you could rack up an infinite number of infractions without fear of additional or harsher penalties.In larger cases, when an individual is caught with between fifteen and thirty grams, police would have the discretion to issue a ticket (with double the fines) or file criminal charges, carrying the old penalties - up to six months in jail.Unlike in the U.S., where pot prosecutions have skyrocketed during the past few years - more than 640,000 people were arrested for possession in 2001, nearly double the number arrested for all marijuana offenses in 1992 - Canada's judicial system only rarely enforces its own pot laws.In 1999, Canadian police charged only about 21,000 people with cannabis possession. And that's only about half the number of times law enforcement reported an "incident" of cannabis possession. In other words, police looked the other way just as often as they arrested people.Richmond, British Columbia - a city whose prosecutions were examined by a government commission - is a good example. In 2001, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found individuals in possession of marijuana 605 times. But they charged only thirty people.In short, Dudley Do-Right isn't doing much. And the country's leaders are realistic about it. "We don't believe that charging [and] prosecuting some 25,000 people a year really sends a message about the harmful effects of marijuana," says Richard Mosley, a senior official in Canada's Department of Justice. A Canadian Senate committee came to the same conclusion last year, noting that "any deterrent effect [the current law] may have [is] seriously in doubt."Instead, the Department of Justice expects that when the penalty is reduced to a mere fine, nabbing offenders will be more efficient, and in turn a far greater number of Canadians will be pinched for pot. Criminologists call this phenomenon the "net-widening effect.""[This reform] is not in any way an endorsement of a relaxed approach to the possession and use of cannabis," Mosley says. "The level of enforcement will go up."Moreover, the bill, if anything, ought to lessen the flow of pot from Canada to the U.S., not increase it - making the Bush administration's concerns even more off the mark.The proposed law will double the penalties - from seven to fourteen years - for large-scale growers: those with fifty plants or more, who presumably cultivate much of the pot that is shipped south. At the same time, it leaves untouched the current draconian penalties for trafficking or exporting drugs - offenses that still allow life imprisonment.In sharp counterpoint to the U.S., Canada simply lacks any strong voice in favor of strict enforcement of criminal penalties for marijuana use. Last September, Canada's Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs issued an exhaustive 600-page-plus report that examined every aspect of the country's marijuana laws and concluded that legalization was the necessary reform.Instead, some lawmakers even seem to find the whole subject amusing, treating it with a casual offhandedness unthinkable for their U.S. counterparts. When asked by reporters whether he had ever smoked marijuana, Minister of Justice Martin Cauchon said, "I'm thirty-nine years old.... Yes, of course I tried it before, obviously." And when the bill got delayed at one point, Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien told reporters, "It's coming, it's coming. Relax. You don't have to smoke it to relax."Even Dan McTeague, one of the bill's leading, and most thoughtful, opponents, was careful to say, "I don't believe you throw people in jail because they smoked marijuana. That's absurd." Instead, McTeague says he will oppose the bill because he's concerned about the health consequences for marijuana users and the public-safety risks of widespread pot use.Ironically, it's the pot activists who seem most upset about the upcoming changes in the law, seeing them as a rear-guard attempt to recriminalize pot possession after it had already been decriminalized in practice (though not in law). All across the country, smokers and growers have been ignoring pot laws during the past few years, banking on the fact that even if they got arrested, nothing would happen. Pot is openly smoked in coffee shops in Vancouver and even in smaller, provincial cities such as Saint John, New Brunswick."It's all cosmetic," says Marc-Boris St.-Maurice, the leader of the federal Marijuana Party, who has been arrested several times on pot charges. "The day the government realizes there's money to be made writing tickets for potheads, we're going to increase the amount of potheads being targeted."At Crosstown Traffic, an Ottawa head shop, many of the clients said they, too, were worried about the ticketing scheme. One customer, Oliver Greer, a smart, confident, and at times very funny nineteen-year-old, is particularly concerned about how much the new law sill cost him. Greer says he smokes between fifteen and twenty joints a day."If you get caught smoking a joint by a cop, he's just going to take it and throw it away," Greer says. But when the ticketing system kicks in, he predicts, "For people who smoke lots and lots of weed, the fucking tickets are going to add up, you know what I mean?"Pot has reached so deeply into Canadian daily life that Canada could very well become the most stoned country on earth. According to Alain Berthiaume, even small towns - some with as few as 15,000 people - have grow shops.In Saint John, a small costal city ninety minutes from the Maine border, Jim Wood recently added a pot-friendly coffee bar to Hemp N.B., the head shop that he and his wife, Lynn, own. But later this month, the couple says they will become the very first to take the final, most controversial step for Canada's marijuana movement: They will begin openly selling pot to the public over the counter. Even Berthiaume - despite his many marijuana ventures - never actually deals, but the Woods intend to do some, and to do it unabashedly."What we want," says Jim Wood, "is Americans coming up here, spending their U.S. dollars on our pot."Wood believes he has the right to sell pot thanks to a loophole in Canada's medical-marijuana laws: The cafe at Hemp N.B. will sell pot to anyone who presents a photocopy of any doctor's diagnosis. While Hemp N.B. will check to ensure the diagnosis comes from a legitimate doctor, a customer's doctor's note can say anything. It need not prescribe marijuana, Wood stresses. It doesn't even need to be evidence of an illness that's normally thought to be treatable with marijuana. "Dandruff would work," says Wood. "If you felt that eating or smoking pot - or maybe even rubbing it in your hair - would help, you're more than free to do so, as far as I'm concerned."Wood says that he and his wife designed the coffee shop at Hemp N.B. to resemble a well-worn 1970s living room, with an overabundance of houseplants, checkers and cribbage sets, and comfortable seats. Adults over nineteen, he says, may never smoke their own pot as long as they buy a cup of coffee. Tobacco smokers, thought, must take their cigarettes outside. In May, a few weeks after the cafe opened, police officers hauled off five pot smokers. But when they appeared in court, an officer told them to go home. Charges still haven't been filed, presumably because of the current flux in the law. (In Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, to other eastern Canadian provinces, the courts have suspended all marijuana prosecutions.)Now, business is booming. Wood says he's getting about seventy-five customers a day; and, increasingly, Americans making port calls on North Atlantic cruse ships are stopping by - just as he'd hoped.Wood seems to be anticipating a future free of marijuana laws, or at least of their enforcement - and so, in his own way, is Berthiaume. Ten years from now, Berthiaume says, he's "positive, positive, positive" that there won't be trials like his anymore in Canada.For now, though, he is awaiting sentencing. Based on the judge's reactions from the bench, Berthiaume expects to receive six months to a year in prison, or maybe house arrest. But he vows that the legal hassles won't cause him to cancel his Cannabis Cup for the second straight year. "We're going to do it again, man," he assured me. "We cannot let that go, man." Note: North of the Border, Marijuana Policy Is Changing Radically and The White House Is Not Happy.Source: Rolling Stone (US)Author: Stephen GlassPublished: September 4, 2003Copyright: 2003 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.Contact: letters rollingstone.comWebsite: http://www.rollingstone.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htm New Marijuana Law Will Worsen US Problemshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17135.shtmlChrétien Blasts MPs for Meddling with Pot Billhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17121.shtmlSmoked Out - Hour Magazine http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16645.shtmlCanadian Senate Panel Calls For Legalization http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13998.shtml

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Comment #25 posted by afterburner on August 24, 2003 at 15:54:28 PT:
re Comment #18
Actually, it was then US President Richard Milhous Nixon himself who called Timothy Leary "the most dangerous man alive."
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Comment #24 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 15:46:27 PT
Jose
I removed it. I wanted to wait until you saw my comment before I did. I don't know why that happens sometimes. Thanks.
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Comment #23 posted by Jose Melendez on August 24, 2003 at 15:42:19 PT

oh well
It's not like someone from CNN or NIDA was going to read it, suddenly realize cannabis was unjustly criminalized and move to publicize that fact...here's the abbreviated version:I just heard on BBC online that polyphenols have been shown to "significantly" extend life, for yeast cells, at least. Here's a (perhaps biased) link. http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Daily/News/0,1145,2077,00.htmlNote that polyphenols are found in red wine and, you guessed it: plants. See a patent application for utilizing polyphenols and cannabinoids in chocolates for pharmaceutical use:http://appft1.uspto.gov/Do a search for United States Patent Application 20020192316, or Altaffer, Paulo ;   et al. All that means is that Biz Ivol was right: Drug laws are "as clear as mud"Whether or not you believe the story, the reasoning supposedly given by God for expelling Adam and Eve was that otherwise, they would eat of the tree of life, and live forever . . . To date no one has been able to satisfactorily explain to me why:a. this is a reasonable punishmentb. the supposed "crime" of consuming food that would extend one's life would be wrong in the first placec. who is God complaining to, anyway?See what I mean:http://www.biblegateway.com/There, do a search for ALL versions of Genesis 3:22-3:23
 
better?
On Biz Ivol:
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Comment #22 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 14:48:10 PT

Jose
I tried to fix the comment but I can't. I'll remove it and if you want you can try again please do. It should work if you use a shorter url.
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Comment #21 posted by Jose Melendez on August 24, 2003 at 14:30:00 PT

BBC: Polyphenols Extend Life
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3175081.stm
BBC: Polyphenols Extend Life
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Comment #19 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 11:38:23 PT

Jose
Thanks for the information. I thought you had to use Macs flat screen which is nice. They're so expensive that I'll keep my big, heavy one.Good idea about renting the pasture for horses to others. The only problem is that horses like to fight. It's very uncommon when horses are compatible. I've seen terrible injuries just from them fighting during the night. 
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Comment #18 posted by afterburner on August 24, 2003 at 09:47:29 PT:

The History of Raves
I'm watching a program on the history channel that combines computers, music, Timothy Leary who attended some early raves after getting a computer ans seing the ability to create alternative futures, Genesis and Industrial metal music, the roots of Techno and House music, Ecstasy, entheogenic drugs, and questioning the mainstream culture, smart drinks, R. U. Sirius, founder of Mondo 2000, culture jamming and the use of the Internet to counter corporate media conglomerates. It's no wonder Senator Joe Biden snuck the RAVE act into the Amber Alert bill. After all a high official in the Nixon administration once described Timothy Leary as "the most dangerous man on the planet." [SHOW TITLE: Rebels: A Journey Underground 
EPISODE: Welcome to Cyberia. 
CATEGORY: Doc. 
SYNOPSIS: Cyberspace. 
LENGTH: 60 Minutes. I started taping about 11 minutes into the show.] Watch for it. "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
- Julius Caesar - ego transcendence follows ego destruction, to destroy it is to destroy our whole culture, the future is in chains, liberate your mind!
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Comment #17 posted by Jose Melendez on August 24, 2003 at 09:34:29 PT

sometimes I use a pc
Don't get me wrong, I use a couple of Windows boxes for specific tasks. One thing I am fond of is copying the text from news articles into Wordpad and boosting the text HUGE so I can read from further away with a wireless keybord. It also helps keep my troubleshooting skills sharp, but large portions of my time are taken up doing work that is unbillable, so I regard Windows as broken by default.BTW, Safari (Apple's browser) supports text resizing on the fly, and blocks popups.To get back to the article above, in my opinion, what Alain Berthiaume is doing is similar: he's saying, why should I comply with the accepted system, if it bogs everyone down and increases harm, not least of all to me? 
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Comment #16 posted by Jose Melendez on August 24, 2003 at 09:23:11 PT

"get a horse!"
Ironic, is it not, that you need to mow now that you got rid of the horses.You can get a $15 (or less) adapter to run the VGA.And you could have other horse owners pay a fee to pasture them on your land...I also must express a bit of surprise that there is not more new info in the mainstream media.
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Comment #15 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 07:32:22 PT

Nicholas & Jose
I knew he was hired by Rolling Stone. To me a good article these days is one that tells us something new and gives us news we can use. I didn't see that with this article. Have a great time swimming today. I soon will be off mowing. At least the weather is cool and breezy. I got a couple acres mowed yesterday and will finish up today. We get kidded about how much grass we mow. People say it looks like a golf course. I don't even like golf! When we had horses it didn't require this much mowing but now I put my head phones on and enjoy! Jose I looked at the link but the monitors don't seem very big. I have a 19 inch monitor and it seems small to my poor eyes sometimes. I haven't had any problems with the worms. As long as this computer works well I'll be happy. Buying a computer is something I sure don't want to do because of cost but when the time comes I'll give a Mac a shot.
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Comment #14 posted by Jose Melendez on August 24, 2003 at 06:09:09 PT

Virgil, FoM, all . . .
Get a Mac. You can get a used iMac 400MhZ, capture video, burn about an hour to CDR for under $400. CD's cost pennies, are watchable (VHS quality) in DVD players. Macs have less security flaws, less crashes, more reliable software. The total cost of ownership has more to to with operating costs than initial outlay. Put it this way, four of my Macs are used as PUBLIC INTERNET KIOSKS, that way when I'm not using them, they are not idle.Meanwhile, they stayed alive during the recent worm fiasco, while I was kept busy fixing PC's for friends that are reluctant to switch. It's like they drink beer and puke every day, while I feel great stoned . . .Not that there's anything wrong with spending endless hours pulling your hair out because of .dll, IRQ, .pif related problems and more. Or puking after consuming too many Heinekens, after all, it is LEGAL.
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Comment #13 posted by Nicholas Thimmesch on August 24, 2003 at 06:04:17 PT:

Top of the morning to you Martha....
...no, not an impressive article (Rolling Stone tends to be pretty mundane with their drug policy stories), and an even less impressive author: my concern would be that this is his first major article since his being "outed" as a phony writer & that he -- not the issue -- will be the focus of media critics, therefore deluting the issue the story portends to cover. Check him out:http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cover/2001/glass0309.htmlhttp://www.ndsn.org/mayjun98/netnews5.htmlhttp://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/05/17/glass/index_np.htmlHave a wonderful, restfull Sunday: we're off to swim at the pool!
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on August 23, 2003 at 21:51:06 PT

Nicholas
I didn't think the article was impressive. It's news we already know. 
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Comment #11 posted by Nicholas Thimmesch on August 23, 2003 at 21:06:06 PT:

Regardless of the Rolling Stone story....
.....on Canada's supposed "pot revolution" (oh, please), does anyone care about the article's author's history?
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on August 23, 2003 at 17:48:23 PT

Virgil
Very interesting post. I don't understand much about computers I just understand my computer. I've had this computer for 2 and a half years. I really like it but it doesn't have a DVD Player. I can make my own CDs real easy from my own CDs or MP3s I find on web sites and I download them. I remember a recent poll on the Globe and Mail right after the power outage. It asked what would you miss more if you lost your electricity. The computer was second by a few points to cooking appliances I think it was. What was funny is TV only got 7% of the vote. The Internet and it's future is the only way we will be able to make a difference. I'm so happy it was created even with the bugs, viruses, worms and problems.
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Comment #9 posted by Virgil on August 23, 2003 at 17:12:11 PT

Stuff
On the subject of technology as previously mentioned, there is one big deal coming out pronto. That would be a 64 bit processor which means that computing speeds will double overnight. If you are looking to buy a computer that is not obsolete when you take it out of the box, then you should get a 64 bit processor.The last big thing that is a sign of a bargain in used computers is something with a USB 1.1 instead of the new USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is 40 times faster and it means about anything can plug into your computer for processing, including video.This is all a big deal because we have now arrived at convergence, meaning your television and your monitor can come from one screen. The up and coming function of a computer now that convergence has come will be for recording television. Most people will be introduced to a Linux system to record television to a hard drive. Now after the 64 bit processor, video creation has cleared one big hurdle, because no application taxes a system like refreshing a million or so pixels 60 times a second. If a system refreshes 60 times a second it is marked by a p for progressive. If every other line is refreshed 30 times a second it is marked by an i for interlaced. Since interlaced is refreshed at half the speed of progressive it was marked by a flicker on slower processors or larger images.http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv3.htm can tell you the basic deal on DTV. There are 18 digital formats. 6 of these are HDTV with the largest screen being in a 9 to 16 ratio of 1080 x 1920. The 64 bit processor is the key to the new things to come along with the USB 2.0 and for that matter wireless technology.Now in the trading post here there is a guy selling a 40 gig USB 2.0 hard drive for $50. Now I think a DVD burner writes to a 4.7 gig disk and should hold two hours of video or about 7 times the amount of information that a CD burner now holds. So a 40 gig hard drive might hold 17 hours of video. Now when we meet at the coffeeshop, I might walk in with my USB harddrive and say, did you see Ekim on his public access show with the LEAP officer and plug in my USB hard drive to your laptop. You may burn it into a DVD or transfer it to your USB hard drive using a computer at the Internet cafe.Technology has made some big break throughs that will make us the media. Now there are at least two community colleges teaching a video technology program with Gaston Community College being one of them. That howstuffworks link says HDTV uses 19.39 Mbps. Now I have DSL at 1.5Mbps so I could download a one hour program in HDTV during the night as DSL is always on. Anyway, we have a big breakthrough in technology that will lead us into the HDTV burners and HDTV players and recorders. DVD burners were the rage last Christmas and will be much more common on this years computers now that a $300 barrier has been broken. All camcorders now are digital and the software like Microsoft MovieMaker2.0 is part of the operating system. My current computer is not a year old so I will try to buy a new system for video next August when the tax holiday comes. Technology and software and know-how are all on our side and we are going to win this War Against Prohibition. I must say that CP was clearly a terrible-at-its-best policy. It is just my conviction after reading on the subject, that all criminal prohibition must end. Now if it took me several years to reach a point of complete indignation on something I read a lot about, there is no way to expect someone that has not studied it to see why all prohibition must end. There are still tax laws that are punishment enough for anyone making money in a black market and even alcohol prohibition did not go after individual consumers.The War Against Prohibition is on. The supply line to the Drug Warriors is under attack. We have all learned to swim through bullshit, so that is not going to help the bastards no matter how much they spread or how deep they get it. No one has been able to touch bottom anyway since Tom and Rollie were executed two years ago.
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on August 23, 2003 at 14:51:53 PT

This Web Sites Was Just On MSNBC
http://www.bushrecall.org/
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Comment #7 posted by Petard on August 23, 2003 at 11:32:09 PT

Do as they say not as they do
The USSA govt. is so full of crap. They tell Israel not to build a wall then threaten Canada with essentially the same thing. But as Joe C. stated, it ain't gonna be for keeping Canadians out. Just like the Berlin Wall wasn't to keep the people out of communist controlled Germany the miltarized wall seperating the USSA from Canada will be to keep the oppressed peoples in. Again I say the USA didn't win the Cold War, they simply became the enemy themselves and changed to the USSA, Czars, walls, gulags, re-education camps, a ruling priveledged elite and a peasant population, kids turning parents in for not toeing the party line, et al.
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Comment #6 posted by RasAric on August 23, 2003 at 11:15:21 PT:

U.S. Favors Proposed Canadian Decriminalization 
Joe Citizen writes: "And you can bet that this armed fence won't be to keep people from getting in like the one with Mexico, which BTW doesn't work all that well anyway. It will be a fence to keep American citizens in…"Responding to Joe Citizen,
This is something I would unfortunately have to agree with; regarding your statement about a semi-militarized border to keep citizens in.Welcome to Nazi America. Perhaps it is time to get out while you still can... Either that or we are going to continue fighting the forces of True Evil in perhaps another civil war... Although martyrs are always a part of winning freedoms, I have been there already and I believe I have done my share of incarceration for marijuana freedoms. Kind of hard to fight behind bars. I may be considering moving to a free country....
America, land of the free? Yeah Right, at one time the courts were sending black people back to "their owners". The ONLY reason this changed was because people were willing to do the right thing and commit the "crime" of assisting escaped slaves in getting to the northern states (and YES this included Canada). Back then it was the North against the south, now it's freedom vs. prohibition.America has become a corporate run dictatorship fueled by lies and propaganda.I and Many other Americans are Thankful that Canadians and their government have set a proper example, So Far, in exercising their rights in democracy. We hope that Canada does Not cave into the so-called "Decriminalization" legislation, as this is how Thieves in Government and Law Enforcement are Made. Even though the U.S. denies it, they are in Favor of decriminalization for Canada's Marijuana laws. 
In parts Of The U.S. there is decriminalization of small amounts of Herb. I have learned through experience while living in Eugene, Oregon, USA, that this creates a loophole where if the Individual refuses to pay law enforcement's "Extortion" fee, The courts will issue a bench warrant for the arrest of the person accused. This is a felony charge for contempt of court. "Decriminalization Is The Tip Of The Eagle's Talon Piercing Your Constitutional Rights"

Vote to impeach Nazi Bush and his administration here
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Comment #5 posted by Lehder on August 23, 2003 at 10:37:15 PT

Who's gonna do it?
"Just as we see articles calling for an end to the insane attack of laughing grass, there will
   soon be a growing awareness of how to burb DVD's and upload them to a sight for
   public viewing or reburning for distribution. Where you now see words calling for an end
   to this miserable prohibition, you will soon see faces."Thank you, V, for giving us something positive here to inspire and maybe try out if we know how. I've had this feeling just the last few days that somehow we're going to find some kind of new tools of empowerment, that our 'Tet Offensive' against the war is in the offing and it's going to turn some heads.I'm not ready to sign on with Kucinich, but what if he were nominated and then debated Bush?? I don't expect he would follow the script like dollee-the-sheep-Gore did. No, he's a guy who was booted out and kept out for years because he kept his campaign promise and his integrity, and he's got a lot to get off his chest - and he's going to say it given the chance. He going to speak out of turn and fearlessly raise the taboo issues that, as usual, will be far outside the highly controlled and narrow political focus that's orchestrated every four years.And the neocons blundering, inchorent responses invoking jesus and country just won't work in the face of someone who can speak intelligently and with conviction on TV. I remember the puny tea party of a debate in 2000. The questions, like Gore, were so predictable and so tame that by memorizing and rehearsing a just a few generic mini-speeches Bush was able to make what passed for a surprisingly good showing. I noted then how the "answers" didn't quite fit the questions, and how the same "answers" were used repeatedly for different questions. I got sick of hearing Bush talk about the "fuzzy math" of his opponents in reply to anything remotely connected to the economy - without talking about the economy. No, if, miraculously, Kucinich were to show, he'd mop up when midway the neocons had to wind Bush up again to repeat all the same crap in the second half. Kucinich should also use a vocabulary that challenges Bush's comprehension; certainly, he'll raise topics that are unexpected by Bush and reduce him, pathetically, to his own resourses, to the wisdom he acquired in barroms and texas whorehouses.So much for miracles. Now where are those DVD pictures? A year or so ago a local hair dresser near here, with a nice shop and a good business, was busted for having - and this is all that people knew - "a whole bunch of marijuana in her basement." We all know what a "whole bunch" actually really amounts to, but even worse there were only a few people who knew about the arrest - her customers and her retail neighbors. And the few who knew all made about the same statement: "Gee, she didn't seem like that type of person."Well, you see, she was good people, not the kind that the warriors produce to characterize us all. She wasn't in the news, she didn't make TV. The TV around that time did show, though, a black man - of course - who was a junkie and a drunk, arrested for drugs while dancing naked in the street. The contradiction between propaganda and reality, when reality visited, mystified people.So lots of locally oriented websites that show pictures of the drug war's victims and tell their true very ordinary stories about these very ordinary people would be a great disruption to the propaganda because, as it is, we only see the fire breathers who kick children with wooden legs. Maybe that's the sort of thing you were getting at with the DVD's. glad to hear abut it.
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Comment #4 posted by Virgil on August 23, 2003 at 09:31:15 PT

What about treason?
For those that have an intellectual curiosity about the Big Picture, the puzzle should easily be seen for what it is. We are ruled by treason. CP is not alive and well because of its value to society, but because its harms are relentlessly suppressed in discussion and analysis. CP is here because of the ones that have taken over the government to raid the treasury with their tenacles on full suck.I advocate the bumpersticker "Cannabis Prohibtion is WRONG" as a direct assault on the treason that plagues us. It is still just a battle in the overall revolution, altough it be an attack of voters, to take back our country so that it is for the people and by the people also. The bumpersticker for our time has to be "We are ruled by treason."What the fuck is all this crap about insisting on insanity as policy when there is treason behind it all. I recognize it as treason and I call treason at every chance and when I get off on these bastards the ring of truth does not escape who I am talking to.The times are explosive. There is treason to deal with and bullshit and slogans and an ignored media is not going to stand in anyones way that calls for the removal of this treason. If Kuch would introduce Articles of Impeachment and light into these bastards, we would have spark. Kuch is going to be bashed from every direction once the ignoring falls to hold his message for change.Just as we see articles calling for an end to the insane attack of laughing grass, there will soon be a growing awareness of how to burb DVD's and upload them to a sight for public viewing or reburning for distribution. Where you now see words calling for an end to this miserable prohibition, you will soon see faces.Screw their beloved prohibition and the gas guzzler they drove in on. The War Against Prohibion is coming. It will be armed with USB hard drives and $300 DVD burners. Doughnutman, the war is now on you and your treasonous bosses. If you think laughing grass is so bad, what do you think we think of treason?

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Comment #3 posted by 13th step on August 23, 2003 at 09:21:53 PT

Hmmm...
'It doesn't even need to be evidence of an illness that's normally thought to be treatable with marijuana. "Dandruff would work," says Wood. "If you felt that eating or smoking pot - or maybe even rubbing it in your hair - would help, you're more than free to do so, as far as I'm concerned." 'Ooh! Now I can stop using my dandruff shampoo.; P
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 23, 2003 at 08:44:03 PT

What about Tunnels?
I know this sounds really dumb but if they try to secure the northern border better someone will do the same thing that they do at the Mexico border dig tunnels.
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Comment #1 posted by Joe Citizen on August 23, 2003 at 08:27:23 PT

A U.S. response…
The U.S. "would have to respond" to a change in Canada's drug laws, David Murray, a top member of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told reporters in Vancouver.What kind of responsethe northern border of the U.S. may have to be restricted, maybe even semimilitarized, like the border with Mexico.And you can bet that this armed fence won't be to keep people from getting in like the one with Mexico, which BTW doesn't work all that well anyway. It will be a fence to keep American citizens in…"What we want," says Jim Wood, "is Americans coming up here, spending their U.S. dollars on our pot."

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