cannabisnews.com: Grow Your Own? It's a Bummer










  Grow Your Own? It's a Bummer

Posted by CN Staff on January 18, 2004 at 08:34:44 PT
By David Bruser, Staff Reporter 
Source: Toronto Star  

Put together a few thousand dollars to rent a house in an unsuspecting subdivision, another $10,000 for lights and fans, order cannabis seeds from the Internet, hire some trustworthy friends, and there you have it: the skeleton of a small marijuana grow-op. Sounds simple enough.But you'd better make friends with a horticulturist, and maybe an electrician, and read up on plant nutrients. If you get past the first few months without half your crop dying, consider yourself lucky.
If you're successful, think twice before expanding. The money is good, but so is the risk of someone squealing to the cops or thieves crawling into your greenhouse.All of this makes the discovery of the massive marijuana grow-op in Barrie last week even more surprising.Police found a football field-size crop growing in beer vats inside an erstwhile Molson brewery, a scenario fit for a writer of hard-boiled TV scripts. Many say the operation's size was also its downfall."The growing's not that easy," said Bruce Ryan, who has grown marijuana in Toronto for medicinal purposes."You have to be a little bit of a carpenter. You have to be a little bit of an electrician. You have to know climate control. You have to be able to understand quite a bit about gardening. It's like playing Mother Nature indoors."Ryan, who has epilepsy, said he once operated a grow house with nine others on Carlaw Ave. in Toronto that produced 600 plants at a time until it shut down in 2000.Police say the Barrie growers were caught with 30,000 plants, a vast hydroponics operation that Ryan and others say required more than a mischievous mind and green thumb.The bust is being called the biggest ever in North America. Police video footage shows a tropical jungle of marijuana plants grown in a computer-controlled environment. Giant beer vats were hothouses for germinating seeds. Estimates peg the total value of the marijuana — which took up about half the space in the 121,000-square-foot building — at $100 million a year. Nine people were arrested. "That is the biggest place that I've heard of," said Michael Straumietis, CEO of Advanced Nutrients, a hydroponics nutrients distributor based in Abbotsford, B.C. Straumietis, whose company operates 12 legal, medicinal grow-labs in 400-square-foot garages, said the cost and effort involved with setting up a commercial grow parallel a medicinal weed operation.His cost equation is simple: $1,500-$2,000 for every high-pressure sodium light, including the required grow-space accessories — assuming the operator taps into the power grid — but closer to $3,000 if the operator uses a generator.The average grow-op will typically gross between $10,000 and $12,000 per 1,000-watt light per year, he added."They probably spent at least $2 million," Straumietis said of the Barrie operation's start-up cost."You're going to need lots of trimmers. They would have people that all they do all day long is take cuttings to propagate the plant... A building like that, you'd have 24-hour security." In addition, a large operation would need several rooms so plants can be rotated out of the lights' glare and into darkness, air conditioning, fans and carbon dioxide, among other things."The guy who did this, he knew certified electricians, certified plumbers and certified air conditioning guys, and they're very easy to hire because they get paid in cash." Only an organized crime outfit could bring the money and knowledge to bear on providing the umbrella for an operation on the scale of the Barrie grow factory, according to RCMP Chief Superintendent Ben Soave, who's in charge of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. "You don't have a bunch of amateurs getting involved in a major operation like that," he said. "They have the financial resources to set up the operation."In addition to the manpower, expertise and audacity, the organizers behind a grow operation would need to trust everyone in the network."It's always based on trust," said Thomas Naylor, economics professor at McGill University, who teaches a course called The Underground Economy. The unlikelihood of stiff sentences is also luring the commercial pot grower to larger operations, said Toronto defence lawyer Ken Smith, who has worked on several marijuana-cultivation cases.Fifteen years ago in Stratford, Ont., Smith worked a case that involved "thousands and thousands of plants. Those people did not go to jail. ... I was able to `Aw shucks' it out of court, even though it was worth millions. ... The commercial side of it was downplayed. The penalties have always been minimal."Couple low risk with North American demand and the allure is obvious, said Steve Easton, economics professor at Simon Fraser University."There is a lot of money in this business," said Easton, who's preparing a report on marijuana growing in B.C. for the Fraser Institute. "I was at a sentencing hearing for a guy who got convicted about a few months ago. . .. (The judge) said, `Okay, your fine is $1,800,' and the guy went, `Okay, you want that in cash?'"The analogy I see is Prohibition. I mean, good grief. Haven't people watched The Untouchables enough on TV? Turn on the TV station, watch Eliot Ness as he smashes Al Capone's stills and sit back and sip your martini."Here are Easton's specs on an operation that produces 100 plants every four months:At 100 grams per plant, the harvest would generate $57,000 worth of pot. That's $171,000 per year. For expenses, factor $18,000 to rent a house for a year, another $5,000-10,000 for equipment, such as lights, trays, fans, and $70,000 per year to hire round-the clock maintenance and security staff. That's a maximum of $100,000 in expenses, Easton said.But the pitfalls of tending a marijuana crop can foil a grow operation just as fast."Everything from pests off your house plants to neighbourhood pests who will break and enter and steal your garden if they catch wind of it ," Bruce Ryan says. Ask Steve Kubby. Suffering from adrenal cancer, Kubby left Lake Tahoe, Calif., and won a medical exemption from the Canadian government to grow marijuana in his new home northwest of Vancouver. "Growing indoors invites a whole host of problems, the most horrendous of which is spider mites," he says. "They can take down a garden in a couple of weeks and leave just one giant mess of cobwebs."Kubby's wife Michele helps him tend to the crop, an experience that has left her marvelling at the Barrie operation."I am stunned and amazed that they could keep it under control," she said. "They had, what, a thousand lights and thousands of plants? So many problems can happen. Those guys must have been pretty good."But illegal operations, by their very nature, are the enemy of expansion and vertical organization, Naylor said."(With a legal business), what you try to do is absorb the business of the competitors. You want to absorb all of that profit into your own company," he said. "With an illegal business, it's just the opposite. ``You want as many mediators as possible. All factors point toward downsizing. They point toward loose associations rather than integrated management."If, as Naylor says, size and organization are both lethal to an illegal business, then the Barrie pot house's chances for survival were slim."The profit rates are higher, but profits are useless if you're arrested and they're being stripped from you," Naylor said. The Barrie operation "is a great Cheech and Chong story — these characters thinking they can take over a gigantic building and employ nine or 10 flunkies to tend it and think no one's going to hear about it," lawyer Smith said. "It got too big. ... This really shows the cheek of these guys. A very risky operation."Note: Pot charges are just one problem. 'Like playing Mother Nature'Newshawk: afterburnerSource: Toronto Star (CN ON)Author: David Bruser, Staff ReporterPublished: January 18, 2004Copyright: 2004 The Toronto Star Contact: lettertoed thestar.com Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:The Drug War Refugeeshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/smk.htmLighten Up on Pot Growers, Canada's on a Roll http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18161.shtmlA 'Growing Like Weeds', Indeed!http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18152.shtmlPot Bust Worth $30 Million, Police Sayhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18130.shtml

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Comment #49 posted by afterburner on January 19, 2004 at 13:22:31 PT:
Different Strokes of Health
Birds foraging for food in industrial areas of China along the coast where the markets are also located are not often fed nutritious and well-balanced diets of clean safe food. They must scavenge in industrially-polluted areas and eat things that domesticated pets would walk away from. Why do they not leave and find fresh food and water in the interior farmland of China? Instinct for their historic territory, like the birds of the oil refinery. Since the health of the immune system is dependent on balanced nutrition and inorganic chemicals unbalance it, DNA replication of cells is interrupted leaving the health system open to attack by life-threatening viruses and other venomous vultures of nature. The plague was such a natural clean-up action to the filth of pre-industrial and pre-sanitary Europe through the agency of rat fleas.Is disease and death part of nature's plan? Of course, life grows and decays. But the life-sustaining power of the immune system keeps life strong and healthy with optimum nutrient balance. Due to human-made stressors in industrial and rapidly-industrialized societies and natural stressors in pre-industrial society, the immume system is often overcome and decay begins.The nutritious and medicinal effects of cannabis are a counter-weight to this decay, by promoting a mind-body balance which encourages growth of healthy tissue.
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Comment #48 posted by E_Johnson on January 19, 2004 at 10:31:00 PT
SARS is a natural part of Nature
"This begs the question: what were those wild birds eating in the vast industrially contaminated spaces of their territory??"First off, China bypassed the Industrial Revolution and didn't start catching up until Nixon arrived. Most of China is agricultural. The industry is mainly on the coast, near the shipping. Industrial contamination is mainly in the coastlands, not in the interior. There's plenty of stuff for wild birds to eat in rural China.Also, the development of viruses is a completely natural thing. Industry doesn't need to play any role whatsoever in order for birds to catch viruses or for humans to catch bird viruses via animal mediators. Remember, the Plague killed off one quarter of Europe and there was no industry yet, their economy was mainly agricultural back then.Viruses are a part of Nature, just as natural as cannabis, or even more so because they haven't been intensively deliberately hybridized by humans over several thousand years the way cannabis has been.This natural problem becomes magnified when humans live in crowded conditions like in a city, where viruses spread more easily than in the countryside, where you can sneeze and not have your sneeze land on ten other people standing next to you. That's why we saw the SARS epidemic take hold in cities on the cost while it barely touched the rural countryside in the interior.I always try to remember that Nature is not kind and passive. Nature makes viruses. Nature makes predators that have to kill another organism in order to survive. Nature does that naturally and we shouldn't forget it.
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Comment #47 posted by afterburner on January 19, 2004 at 09:33:43 PT:
RE Comment #33 
Consider this: Chinese health authorities theorize that SARS was the result of contamination of food animals in open cages by wild birds flying overhead and excreting into the cages. This begs the question: what were those wild birds eating in the vast industrially contaminated spaces of their territory? I have seen wild birds within an oil refinery, which for them was part of their home territory. Through our high concentration of water, we share pollutants with groundwater, the oceans, and all organic life in the food chain. Health and industry are not separate issues or realms. Medical Freedom Amendment in 2004.
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Comment #46 posted by Virgil on January 18, 2004 at 18:57:19 PT
Kucinich on Faux network at 10PM
He will be on Geraldo- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=133044
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Comment #45 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 18:43:06 PT
A Study Of Cannabis That Should Have Happened
Woodstock in 69 was so much more then society gives it credit for. ( I wasn't there though) It was a city of people. The situation wasn't ideal as far as comfort was concerned and yet that big city of people for 3 days worked. The major substance that was used was Cannabis. If people who really care about the effects of cannabis would look how well Woodstock worked that is a study and the results are easy to see.
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Comment #44 posted by ekim on January 18, 2004 at 18:31:03 PT
a Judge allowed a Mother to give her son some
Thanks FoM.
 Ann Arbor MI had a Med Cannabis study back in the 70s and 80s it was working and helping many. In fact the Sen and House both passed bills saying so. and a Resolution 473 saying that the Fed Govt should stop standing in the way of giving MI its access to the plant.http://www.prayes.com scroll down to Engler. So what has happen to all those studies of those that were helped. Many were young people that ate brownies and cookies. If it happen in Ann Arbor MI back in the day you know it is still happning now. How bout it Doc Russo. You would think that someone would rite up those studies and get some of that 2 mill. How about it E you got any storys on how the youth have been helped, 2 million would get a nice club going.
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Comment #43 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 18:16:34 PT
Good Idea
EJ, I can only imagine how hard it must be. 
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Comment #42 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 18:12:37 PT
I have a suggestion for research
Look into use of marijuana by young people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress from being exposed to Drug War violence as children being raised (razed) (crazed) on the urban battlefield.Seriously.About one third of young black men suffer from serious chonic PTSD, according to some study I read about a few years ago.
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Comment #41 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 17:53:52 PT
ekim
Here you go!***NIDA Research on Pot and the Brain January 15, 2004 Researchers looking at the impact of youth marijuana use on the developing brain may apply for funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA will award $2 million in the form of 4 to 6 grants under the Consequences of Marijuana Use on the Developing Brain grant program. For-profit and nonprofit groups, governments, and schools may apply.Deadline is April 16.http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DA-04-016.html http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18151.shtml#14
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Comment #40 posted by Virgil on January 18, 2004 at 17:46:03 PT
USG, sugar,money, and the hell with health
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=2053 This article is about the sugar industry's opposition to the World Health Organization's effort to reduce obesity and its related harms to health. They say that a person should not get more than 10% of there calories from sugar. The US, home of Pepsi and Coca-Cola have a 25% guideline.The US is saying they do not know what they are talking about. The most basic fact is that sugar does not provide nutrition and is only empty calories. If you are fat, why do you need empty calories? This is a clear example that the USG is not concerned about health or they would start with the premise of eating for nutrition and not eating/drinking to get fat.The government has no credibility. None. Sugar has no nutritional value and should be a Schedule 1 compound on the Schedule of food. 
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Comment #39 posted by ekim on January 18, 2004 at 17:41:29 PT
FoM nice nature--could you post the NID 4mil grant
about finding the damage done to minors from Cannabis. NOt one penny for the goodness humans receive. Dennis please speak for us on Tues.Kucinich to Deliver "State of the Nation"Available Live via Satellite from New HampshireFor Immediate Release: Jan. 18, 2004 Dennis J. Kucinich, Like Seabiscuit, Moving Ahead in the RaceKucinich to Deliver Bold, Live via Satellite "State of the Nation" Address to NH Supporters TODAY- SUNDAY, January 18, 2004 -- The Kucinich for President campaign announced a bold live via satellite "State of the Nation" address to be delivered in New Hampshire on, Tuesday, January 20th, at 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Newspaper advertisements invite the public and supporters of Dennis J. Kucinich to attend the live via satellite broadcast at the, Wayfarer Inn, Terrace Room, 121 South River Road, Bedford, New Hampshire.  The first 120 supporters who arrive will be a part of the historic live telecast. Media is invited and should rsvp to Richard Hendrick 603-208-8585 or David Swanson, 301-772-0210.
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Comment #38 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 16:41:20 PT
This is a Different Thread Today
Virgil, About health issues I was at a Naval Base a few years back and my husband was delivering meat to them. I saw many things the short time I was on the road with my husband but this one bothered me. Next to my husbands reefer was a truck that was unloading kangaroo meat into the naval base. I know that kanagroos have a few strange diseases and one is blindness and wondered why kangaroo meat was being unloaded too.http://www.awpc.org.au/Submissions/submission6.htm
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Comment #37 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 16:31:21 PT
A snippet from the LA Times article
This is how corrupt and powerful these people are:" How much sway does the union have with management in the Department of Corrections?"They dictate basically every move any warden that I've been associated with makes," a high-ranking Department of Corrections official said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "There's not a policy at the local or headquarters level that isn't reviewed by CCPOA."Their influence is "certainly good for the rank and file." But it hampers managers' ability to run prisons efficiently, the official said, citing one seemingly minor provision in the latest labor contract, negotiated in late 2001 by the Davis administration and ratified in 2002 by the state Legislature ? with only a single no vote. The contract stripped managers of one of the few tools they had to limit the use of sick leave. The labor pact permits officers to call in sick without a doctor's note confirming the illness. With the new policy in place, officers called in sick 500,000 more hours in 2002 than in 2001, a 27% increase.The heavy use of sick leave by some officers forced prison managers to require officers to work additional overtime to cover all the posts. At least 110 prison officers used overtime pay to make more than $100,000 in 2002. One made more than $145,000 in 2002, records provided by the state controller's office last year show. Altogether, the state's correctional officers punched in $200 million worth of overtime in 2002 ? 25% more than in 2000."
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Comment #36 posted by Virgil on January 18, 2004 at 16:27:41 PT
I have done it with the Canadian Senate Report
I just did not want to make the effort.I used to use the medium under the text size of the view function. When I saw momaville was really mamawillie, I switched to the largest text size. It let's you read the articles and see your comment in the preview screen in an easy read size.
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Comment #35 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 16:26:42 PT
LA Times is going after the prison guards union
Juicy article. Arnold won't take their donations, but the California GOP accepted $250,000. An expert in campaign finance calls them "untouchable" and a federal report accuses them of inmate abuse and whistleblower retaliation.http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-guards18jan18,1,4804834.story?coll=la-home-local
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Comment #34 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 16:07:18 PT
Virgil
I tried and I couldn't copy it either but I then saved the file and was able to copy it. Here's the first page. Try it and see if it works for you too.National Institutes of Health FY 2004 President’s BudgetNIH Budget at a Glance% ChangeFY 2002 Actual $23,558.9 mFY 2003 Amended President’s Budget $27,343.4 m 16.1%FY 2004 President’s Budget $27,892.8 m 1.8%Number of Competing RPGs 10,509Total Number of RPGs w/o SBIR/STTR 37,467The mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is to expand fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to improve and develop new strategies for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease and communicate the results of research with the goal of improving health. The 27 Institutes and Centers, which comprise the NIH, support research and researchers working in universities, medical centers, hospitals, and research institutions in every State and territory in the Nation and in many countries around the world. The NIH also conducts research in its own laboratories. In order to help ensure that there is a continuing cadre of outstanding scientists for the future and that there are facilities in which to conduct this research, the Agency supports research training, career development, and some buildings and facilities programs.In fulfilling its mission, the NIH leadership manages a diverse portfolio of research founded on both public health need and scientific opportunity. It does so with the advice of, and in collaboration with, our partners: scientists, patients, physicians, health care payers and providers, the public, the Congress, and the Administration. The two-tiered NIH peer review system is critical to ensuring that only the best proposals are funded from approximately 44,000 research and training applications received each year.After five years of outstanding growth that effectively doubled the NIH budget, the FY 2004 Budget provides a significant investment to ensure that the momentum gained over the last five years is sustained.The FY 2004 program level for the NIH, based on current law, is $27,893 million, an increase of $549 million or 2 percent over the FY 2003 Amended President’s Budget. Included in this request is $79 million to be requested from the Veteran’s Administration/Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee for the Superfund research program and $150 million for the Type I Diabetes Initiative appropriated through P.L. 107-360. When adjusted for one-time facilities costs in FY 2003, the total available for NIH non-biodefense research programs increases by 4.3 percent. The NIH President’s Budget request to the Labor/Health and Human Services/Education Appropriations Subcommittee is $27,664 million.
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Comment #33 posted by Virgil on January 18, 2004 at 15:55:25 PT
The Institutes of Illness
Things just do not add up all the way around and not just with the USG's attitude toward cannabis.The area of thought I am interested in is the profitizing of illness. Chlorine is a common agent used to sanitize in food processing. There are all kinds of pesticides in the food we eat. One of the things that is hard to find is the prevalence of heavy metals in the bodies of Americans. We are given expensive pills as a solution to the illnesses that may well be caused by an invasion of chemicals on the body. These challenge the immune system.My saying always was that if you put a seed in the ground, the only thing it knows to do is to grow and produce seed. The immune system only knows to protect the body. Why are there all these diseases that are attacking something inside the body? Well, there are all kinds of compounds in the environment that find there way into the body that are harmful. There is a big area that I am exploring about cleansing the body of heavy metals and other pollutants. Our food also contains mold and various spores and eggs and growth hormones and immunizations from meat. We are lead completely away from testing on these compounds to the point nobody can produce any meaningful information on the subject, while the USG wants more drug testing. It is a misallocation of a government and system that now is profitizing illness.They can create illness. It could be that these pollutants can cause lifetime conditions on newborns only to create a flow of profits.It is hard to get the answer, but consider the huge budget of the National Institute of Health. It was over $27 in 2003 and got an increase of 2.8% in 2004. What does the taxpayer get for an annual budget that exceeds the budget of both Carolina governments? Why can we not see an hour special every month on what the billions brought us this month.I want to explore the benefit that NIH has to industry and why there is so much silence on their entire being, much less what the critics say. Why would an agency have there mission statement in a PDF file where it cannot be copied. Works of the federal government do not enjoy copyright status. I cannot even copy and paste the mission statement that seems like a huge lie to me, that appears, here- http://www.nih.gov/news/budgetfy2004/fy2004presidentsbudget.pdfIt looks to me like illness is desirable as it creates profits. I believe that the NIH is much more concerned about the medical community than it is the health of the average American.$27 billion should have explored all the cannabinoids and lots of other things. It should produce meaningful testing on environmental pollutants in the body with a summary of what is going on. We all know there is something bad wrong with all of our Institutions of government and that is their first thoughts go toward industry. 
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Comment #32 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 15:29:22 PT
afterburner
Maybe before it's all said and done people will need to grow their own herbs. I hope the day never comes when we can't have a vegetable and herb garden. 
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Comment #31 posted by afterburner on January 18, 2004 at 15:23:36 PT:
Cannabis is Food and Medicine.
The Codex would eventually prohibit herbs if the prohibition of vitamins and minerals is approved in North America. After demineralizing the food with chemical fertilizers and shelf-life chemicals the food/drug industry would attempt to suppress efforts to restore nutrient balance to the national diet of industrialized nations. Appalling! You're safe to grow under grandfathered bill of rights. We have strong business interests in favor of herbs and natural organic foods of which of course cannabis is one.
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Comment #30 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 14:30:04 PT
About Political Articles and Different Partys
They don't sink in for me very well. I seem to have a mental block when politics are concerned. 
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Comment #29 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 14:27:50 PT
afterburner
You mean that people won't be able to grow herbs in their gardens? I bought a few flats of assorted herbs a few years ago when I bought spring flowers. Herbs like Valarian Root, SJW, Echinacea and a few others. 
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Comment #28 posted by afterburner on January 18, 2004 at 14:21:28 PT:
Good or Bad?
Effect of media changes on editorial policy of affected newspapers is currently unknown. Effect of European Parliament preventing over-the-counter sale of vitamins and minerals is an eventual threat to Freedom of Medical Choice in Europe, and maybe in North America if we allow the same regulations here. Guess who is the guiding force behind these restrictions. Could it be the European pharmaceutical industry? I think so!"With the litigation strategy handed a 6–3 loss at the [Canadian] Supreme Court the only way Mary Jane is going to be as legal as alcohol is by electing the NDP. [Marc] Emery says, 'We went to the courts and they’re pretty much done. So now we’re re–doubling our efforts in the political realm. In the long–term it might prove to be more fruitful to have political allies. Now that we’ve been told by the courts that politics is our only avenue, then politics it is.' --excerpt from Cover Story VIEW magazine Jan. 15-21, 2004: NEW GROWTH FOR THE NDP http://www.viewmag.com/coverstory.php 
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Comment #27 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 14:20:01 PT
Can You Hear Me Now?
I'm slowly losing my hearing. So all you young folks take heed. Don't blast your music if you want to hear well on down the road. We didn't listen. There are advantages though. You always have the excuse sorry I didn't hear what you said. LOL! That's good EJ!
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Comment #26 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 14:11:16 PT
That reminds me
Todd-TV hhhm that reminds me.Last week my husband took me out to eat in an Indian restaurant. I asked them what they had to drink besides beer. I thought I heard the waiter say, "Coke, diet coke, seven up and bhang lhassi."I was pretty shocked to say the least!But he actually said "mango lhassi" not "bhang lhassi".He was amused by my mistake.
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Comment #25 posted by BGreen on January 18, 2004 at 14:02:52 PT
Todd-TV
Sorry, Jose. It's another "reality" show they've been advertising.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #24 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 14:01:04 PT
afterburner
I really can't comment because it doesn't ring a bell with me. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? 
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Comment #23 posted by afterburner on January 18, 2004 at 13:40:31 PT:
Media Changes: More Brit-Speak in N. America?
HOLLINGER INC. SOLD  
 British brothers buy Black out  
 Jan. 18, 2004. 03:34 PM  
 Press Holdings Intl., a private British newspaper, hotel and retail company, is paying more than $600 million to buy Conrad Black's embattled Hollinger publishing group in a blockbuster deal announced today. The news comes only a day after Hollinger announced it had fired Black as the media empire's chairman and filed a $200 million lawsuit against him. [Full Story] 
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074427263544&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154With the reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C in UK, more British ownership of the media could have a positive effect on US cannabis media-blockade.Medical Freedom Amendment in 2004: it's an idea whose time has come, especially in light of the recent approval by the European Parliament to adopt the Codex against natural vitamins and minerals. "Drug interests have officially declared WAR ON VITAMINS. Imagine a world where safe nutritional supplements are locked away like narcotics. Where it's even illegal to buy vitamin pills without begging for a doctor's prescription. This isn't paranoia... It's already happening all across Europe. On 13 March 2002, the European Parliament passed a 'Directive on Dietary Supplements.' Under this diective, which becomes law in 2005, all vitamins and minerals are classified as drugs. Except for multivitamins of trivial potency, all other supplements will be banned from over-the-counter sale." --Dr. Jonathan V. Wright's Nutrition & Healing, Special Report, January 2004, page 11
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Comment #22 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 13:14:28 PT
jose
I just looked and we do get a channel called FX but I've never watched it. I have no idea about your question but maybe if you ask on CC's forum you would find out faster. That's just my idea.
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Comment #21 posted by jose melendez on January 18, 2004 at 12:55:51 PT
can anyone confirm?
A local (Orlando/Daytona) radio station I rarely listen to just announced they will be giving away free pot-tv t-shirts and to watch the FX channel for more details. I checked, and it's not April first. Is the promo I just heard (I swear!) for real?
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Comment #20 posted by afterburner on January 18, 2004 at 12:48:07 PT:
Jack Layton: Cultivating Support from the Stoners
Cover Story VIEW magazine Jan. 15-21, 2004:
NEW GROWTH FOR THE NDP http://www.viewmag.com/coverstory.php 
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Comment #19 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 12:18:08 PT
I Love The Earth
I guess that's why we live in the country. There is nothing quite like nature. Nature is tolerant of our abuses. Nature gives us pretty flowers in the spring. We have grass to mow and trees to trim. We have robins come and tell us it's springtime and sing too. Then you see nature and it's cute things. We have had kildeer (sp) I would walk in a field and see this bird flapping around like it had a broken wing and walk towards it. The more flapping it did the closer I was to her nest. I wish that people in DC would take a little time to commune with nature and they might see prohibition of a certain plant as wrong. Maybe not.
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Comment #18 posted by Virgil on January 18, 2004 at 12:05:09 PT
The largest common denominator
This article makes statements of facts. Now let us say that you have fed an inquisitive mind. What is the next level of knowledge. What question is a person to ask.So an article gives us answers on a small subject. They very seldom ask the relevant question the information begs. The umrella question is what we always say when the prohibitionist start demonizing cannabis instead of the prohibition behind it all. Do we see prohibition even mentioned in the article.This is your country on prohibition. The largest common question is "How will it be different when Miracle Plant is regulated?"The investigation into the drug money used to fuel the Liberal Party in BC and its role in elevating him to his high office is the top cannabis story in Canada. The situation creates a firestorm that will be aggravated when a the bill comes to ease penalties on consumers while making sure the penalty of high prices continues while the growers are locked up and feared out of production. That story also says, "This is your country on prohibition. And again, the it begs the question, "How will it be different when Miracle Plant is regulated?"Let the prohibitionists say what they will, then ask how would things be different when we reach the Logical Conclusion.
A neat little game
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Comment #17 posted by goneposthole on January 18, 2004 at 11:45:34 PT
No, it's not a bummer
When you grow your own, you don't have to buy schwag. You have, in your hands, the freshest bud in the world.Also, have instructions, read and follow all directions. You won't regret it.Not that tough to do. The spider mite problem is overexaggerated. I'd worry more about my neighbor, who is now a grandpa. He's retired and doesn't mind sittin' in his workshop tokin' on bud. Oh, ok, he can have some, too. Doesn't hurt to give some away. It's all for a good cause. 
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Comment #16 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 11:06:31 PT

I'll Tell You What Really Scared Me Once
I thought we had a bird in our basement. I saw something on the floor and asked my husband if we have a bird in the basement? He said that isn't from a bird but from a snake! We found 3 huge snakes in our basement ceiling. They were really hard to get and dispose of. We had a little hole we found at the side of the house and they must have come in thru that hole. Terribly scary to me. I thought I'd share it since we are talking about scary things.
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Comment #15 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:43:54 PT

PS: I'm Only Kidding
Sometimes I think that the problems with bugs and diseases like the chicken flu are caused by too many chickens being raised in one area. Same thing with farms where cattle are raised. Small farms and many of them could help diseases to stop spreading. That's my opinion.
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:37:57 PT

Stop It Now
You're freaking me out! LOL!
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Comment #13 posted by BGreen on January 18, 2004 at 10:36:33 PT

E_Johnson
I'm clean. I have special coveralls I wear when I go near my computer. :-)The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:35:48 PT

Do You Like The DEA?
Is that a good question? LOL! I'm only kidding.
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Comment #11 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 10:33:52 PT

This is too scary!
I'd rather talk about the DEA than those nasty things. No federal judge can protect you from them.
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Comment #10 posted by BGreen on January 18, 2004 at 10:33:25 PT

Spider Mites
They're usually a worse problem with indoor gardens. It could be that they have too many natural enemies outdoors to overtake entire crops.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:31:42 PT

Thanks EJ
They do sound nasty.
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Comment #8 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 10:28:51 PT

Be careful FoM
I have a phobia that those things can be transmitted over the Internet.I have Internetomitophobia.They can be transmitted on peoples clothing and on clones.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:28:08 PT

BGreen
Thanks. I've never heard of them around these parts. I thought maybe it was a particular climate.
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Comment #6 posted by BGreen on January 18, 2004 at 10:25:02 PT

The Little Buggers Are Universal Threats
Growers I've talked to in the US, Canada and The Netherlands have had to deal with them. They're evil little pests (the spider mites as well as the DEAth agents.)The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 10:22:38 PT

There's a problem in their problem
The police want to play up the sophistication of marijuana grow ops to help them promote increasing the penalties for cultivation. Oh these sophisticated marijuana growers. Please help us put them down.But while they're doing that, they're annihilating in the public mind the picture of the wacky moronic stoner who won't change a lightbulb because the lightbulb doesn't want to change. Huhuhuhuh.No, they're not wacky morons. They're carpenters, electricians, people who know how to calculate the flow through an air pump.People who can make the desert bloom.They had to work in the Cheech and Chong reference in the end to try to anchor their ship back in Moronic Stoner Land but it's not going to work.
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on January 18, 2004 at 10:15:37 PT

A Question
That's good EJ! I have heard about spider mites and wondered if they were unique to just certain areas? 
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on January 18, 2004 at 10:13:00 PT

If only there were DEA mites
Just kidding hahaha. That would be biological warfare.
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Comment #2 posted by goneposthole on January 18, 2004 at 10:05:10 PT

A hot, desert sun has emerged
The dinosaur is weakening. The parched, dry ground, once mud flats, once marsh, once water, is cracking. The dinosaur is dehydrating and the erstwhile power of its slashing tail has died down to weak flailing.The heat is so intense, it's the sun on crack.spider mites can be controlled with soapy solutions.
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on January 18, 2004 at 09:49:17 PT

Government subsidized cannabis prohibitionists 
exposed.CN BC: OPED: Let's End White's Insanityhttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n115/a03.html?397"... The time is ripe for drug reform. Public consensus is at a critical mass and many people - doctors, counsellors, citizens, lawyers, judges - are questioning the wisdom of keeping marijuana criminal..." The whole oped, is one big bulls-eye.

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