cannabisnews.com: U.S. Attacks Canadian Pot Laws





U.S. Attacks Canadian Pot Laws
Posted by CN Staff on March 11, 2005 at 17:39:01 PT
By Tim Harper, Washington Bureau
Source: Toronto Star 
Washington -- A surge of high-potency marijuana illegally smuggled into the United States from Canada is fuelling a rise in drug dependency among young Americans, the Bush administration's drug czar says.A frustrated John Walters, the director of the U.S. National Drug Control office, yesterday signalled Washington's ongoing irritation with what it sees as a lax attitude toward drug crimes north of the border, something that has forced it to redeploy drug patrols from the Mexican border to its northern flank.
Walters conceded yesterday American authorities are making no dent in the flow of Canadian pot and he said Canadian police and prosecutors have told him lenient Canadian courts are a root of the problem."The big new factor on the scene ... is the enormous growth of high potency marijuana from Canada," Walters said."This is a problem. It requires joint action and we will continue to work with Canadian government on this."But right now, the trend (does not show) this is getting smaller."The Bush administration has been vocal in its concern over Canadian "grow ops," ecstasy manufacturers and a move by the past Liberal government to decriminalize marijuana possession, but Walters' message takes on a special urgency now.The problem U.S. President George W. Bush has with drug smugglers on both his southern and northern borders is expected to be raised when he meets with Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox at a trilateral summit in Waco, Texas, on March 23.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — who has still not set a date for a Canadian visit — also raised drug-related violence on the Mexican border when she met yesterday with Fox in Mexico City.Walters also mentioned the slaying of the four Alberta RCMP officers last week, offering condolences to their families and community members of Mayerthorpe, Alta., on behalf of the White House.But he said the proliferation of grow ops is cause for concern not only in Western Canada, but also Toronto.He was careful not to criticize the Canadian judicial system, but he repeated complaints he has heard from prosecutors and police officials in British Columbia and Toronto."I've talked to prosecutors in Canada over the past several years and they have stressed to me they don't believe they have sufficient sanctions against those involved in trafficking," Walters said."The law in some provinces is that unless you actually commit a violent crime against another individual, the tendency is for you not to get serious jail time."He said the same trafficking crimes bring serious consequences in the United States and traffickers are often prosecuted under conspiracy and money-laundering laws because they often do not get their hands dirty in the actual transit of drugs where the violence occurs.U.S. courts often impose mandatory minimum sentences — a practice Walters acknowledged is controversial — but a measure he said was needed to hold accountable "those who cause pain."Without the ability to use more extensive enforcement pressure, they (Canadian authorities) are concerned about how this will continue to grow," he said.Last weekend, The New York Times published an extensive article chronicling the flow of so-called "B.C. Bud," a high-potency Canadian-grown marijuana now much in demand in the U.S. and Europe, across the British Columbia-Washington border.The newspaper pegged the value of the Canadian cultivation and smuggling operation at $7 billion per year and Walters called the B.C. pot "dangerous and addictive."Walters said the THC content in typical marijuana found in the United States over the past five years has gone from one to two per cent to a THC content of eight to nine per cent.THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the active ingredient in marijuana that creates the "buzz" users seek.Some varieties go up to 14 to 15 per cent THC level and some specially cultivated pot grown in Canada can offer THC levels of 25 to 30 per cent, Walters said.Walters stressed that marijuana cannot be classed as a "soft drug" as it was in decades past."Of the 7 million people we have to treat in the United States, from the age of 12 and up, for dependence or abuse, over 60 per cent have marijuana as their primary dependence," he said.Of the 5 million Americans aged 12-17 who use marijuana, he said, already 1 million are at the point where they need intervention or treatment."That is not the way marijuana use was a decade ago, a few decades ago. That's why the ignorance of people who think this is not a drug you have to be concerned about is a problem."Walters said the main repercussion for both countries is the health and well-being of its youth, but he said the Canadian drug traffic has forced the U.S. to institute heavier border surveillance at a time when the two countries should be working toward freeing restraints at the border to try to speed commerce between the two nations, he said.Note: Canada's `lax attitude' criticized. -- High potency of pot adds to crisis.Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)Author: Tim Harper, Washington BureauPublished: March 11, 2005Copyright: 2005 The Toronto Star Contact: lettertoed thestar.com Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmCanada Could Be World Leader in Drug Strategieshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20345.shtmlMarijuana Industry Booming in Canadahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20343.shtmlFor Years, Everyone Saw This Coming http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20325.shtmlViolent Front in Drug War Opens on Borderhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20323.shtml 
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Comment #17 posted by b4daylight on March 12, 2005 at 15:38:15 PT
...l
"Walters said the THC content in typical marijuana found in the United States over the past five years has gone from one to two per cent to a THC content of eight to nine per cent.Some varieties go up to 14 to 15 per cent THC level and some specially cultivated pot grown in Canada can offer THC levels of 25 to 30 per cent, Walters said."1 percentWell lets look at the Netherlands there's average 16 percent. No freaking out numbers there.Worth mentioning the propaganda."Of the 7 million people we have to treat in the United States, from the age of 12 and up, for dependence or abuse, over 60 per cent have marijuana as their primary dependence," he said."What he fails to tell you is that he forces people into treatment, and that is how he gets those numbers. I liked comment #8and #5
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Comment #16 posted by Truth on March 12, 2005 at 07:37:03 PT
He said it....
"It requires joint action"
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Comment #15 posted by siege on March 12, 2005 at 05:59:34 PT
bad service 
Of the 5 million Americans aged 12-17 who use marijuana, he said, already 1 million are at the point where they need intervention or treatment.What is the intervention Walters wants??
to cut there testicles off, or better yet just out right kill them, and say they where a threat to home land security.
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Comment #14 posted by mayan on March 12, 2005 at 05:54:37 PT
Sorry
To find the "Tougher laws not the answer" article linked in my previous comment scroll to the very bottom of the page. 
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Comment #13 posted by mayan on March 12, 2005 at 05:46:35 PT
relative...
Sorry if these have been posted...Tougher laws not the answer:
http://www.medicinehatnews.com/IT WASN’T MARIJUANA’S FAULT:
http://www.viewmag.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2765Stratacon Inc. - Submetering Apartment Buildings: A 
Solution to Grow-Ops in High Rises:
http://w5d2.ccnmatthews.com/scripts/ccn-release.pl?/current/0311066n.html
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Comment #12 posted by goneposthole on March 12, 2005 at 05:34:25 PT
home grown tomatoes
are better than the tomatoes available from the A & P or Winn Dixie grocery stores. Home grown cannabis is better than cannabis grown in beautiful British Columbia. Well, maybe. If you want less BC bud, grow your own home grown.If you don't want any commercial cannabis, grow your own.If you don't want cannabis sold on the streets, grow your own.If you don't want John Walters running up to Canada, hat in hand, grow your own.If you want your cannabis and want to smoke it, too, grow your own.All of that American cash in the hands of Canadian cannabis producers is making the US government nervous. That is the problem, not the cannabis. If it weren't for the money, Warshington wouldn't be so upset about it all. Warshington is broke, they have no money, looks like they've got all the money in the world, but they don't have any and it makes them mad. Canabis growers have it all.It's the money. It's always the money. More power to the Canadian cannabis grower and more money in their pockets, too. I'll toke to that. 
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Comment #11 posted by mayan on March 12, 2005 at 05:15:54 PT
I Agree, Kap'n!
The horrible deaths of the four Mounties has brought the cannabis issue back to the front burner in Canada...thanks only to the prohibitionists. The prohibitionists knew they were taking a big gamble by linking that tradgedy with cannabis but they are becoming increasingly desperate and are aware that public opinion continues to sway further in our favor every single day. They really had no choice but to somehow try to stop our momentum. Unfortunatly for them their pathetic desperation tactic is already beginning to backfire as the real facts of that incident become known.Prohibition is on it's death-bed in Canada.
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on March 12, 2005 at 04:52:20 PT:
Wolfgang, please don't sell the Canux short
One thing I've learned about them in all the time I've been crossing the border for the last 30 years. They do know their own minds. For example, they saw the threat of US corporatism long before many of our own intellectuals caught their first whiff of it. (I recall a reading a book titled "The New Romans" while staying in my hosts home in 1976; I doubt he'd thought I'd check out his bookshelf, but being a voracious reader, I can't resist the printed word in any form. That book practically laid out decades before all this happened where the US might be heading. I privately bristled at the implications then; I am sadly aware of the truths contained in that book now.)True, some of them have a kind of sad 'inferiority complex' about their own nation, and look upon the US as being some sort of shining alternative...but I would submit that many more are able to view US policies with considerably less self-delusion, especially now.They are beginning to have the debate our own government is terrified of. And in that debate, all the points we have raised here will be raised there...and be heard by the levelheaded. It's sad that it has taken the deaths of 4 good men and the cynical use of those deaths by some members of the Canadian government to further their own twisted agenda to bring this issue front-and-center. But it has, nonetheless, and it's Decision Time.
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Comment #9 posted by WolfgangWylde on March 12, 2005 at 04:28:48 PT
The killing of the Mounties...
...equates to the Perfect Storm for Canadian Prohibitionists. Look for a U.S-Style crackdown the likes of which they've never seen before. Its a shame, because Canada was so close to upsetting the apple cart known as the Drug War. Now they'll just toe the line drawn by the U.S.  They won't get this close to real reform again for another 50 years, if ever.
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Comment #8 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on March 12, 2005 at 03:13:20 PT
LTE
Sirs,  Canadians, please pay no attention to the US drug czar John Walters. He's not worried that your lax attitudes about marijuana are destroying our youth; he's worried that if Canada adopts a rational marijuana policy, then the US would soon follow, and he'd be out of a job.  That's how it happened with alcohol prohibition - Canada ended it first, and Americans wouldn't stand for having less freedom than their neighbor. And, seventy-plus years later, alcohol is still big business... only now it's a legitimate business run by tax-paying corporations, instead of gun-toting criminals.  John Walters would like to ensure that the marijuana business is kept in the hands of criminals. That hasn't worked out so well for either country, but the USA is steadfastly refusing to consider any other option. Canadians once again have the opportunity to lead by example, to show the "land of the free" what it's missing. 
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Comment #7 posted by rchandar on March 11, 2005 at 23:27:06 PT:
i admit...
Canada's realignment re cannabis poses problems for Drug Warriors, true. With MMJ at the Supreme Court and Vicente Fox a person openly admitting he sees no point to the costly Drug War, where's a Drug Warrior to go? Chances are that they'll concoct, in this second term, another comprehensive strategy, and it won't work. Then they'll try it again, it won't work...
...because there's just no shortage, I'm afraid, of moralistic Americans who can't accept grass. Makes me sad.--rchandar
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Comment #6 posted by afterburner on March 11, 2005 at 21:20:31 PT
Trickle and Treacle
"A surge of high-potency marijuana illegally smuggled into the United States from Canada "
More like a trickle: 2% compared to US self-supply of over 50%. For every shipment of kind bud that gets highjacked in Canada and re-directed to the US, US sends 10 times the guns and truly poisonous drugs into Canada.Now, Walters is mocking the Mounties by voicing conspiracy theories about grow-ops instead of showing compassion for the grieving families. We gave the 9-11 survivors a full year to grieve they and their nation's loss.
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Comment #5 posted by Sam Adams on March 11, 2005 at 20:09:00 PT
two percent
Don't forget, John Pee is making this fuss over 2% of the total amount of MJ in the US.. Two percent is from Canada. His own reports show that.He knows that if Prohibition ends in Canada, it will spread over the border like a virus. Freedom is contagious. We woudn't even need to import more cannabis, the idea of freedom would be the toxic contraband.
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Comment #4 posted by potpal on March 11, 2005 at 20:04:13 PT
Johnny be bad
What's that Gandhi quote again?First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.Again, not one word from the other side. Sickening really. Come on Canada, tell Uncle Sam where to go.
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Comment #3 posted by ekim on March 11, 2005 at 19:23:55 PT
dam Kapt no tear in the paper good shuten
anyone see Lou Dobbs tonight. if not see it at 11 if you want to see Lou chew the hell out of a Dem who dropped his right and allowed a shot like ive never see Lou thro. something about the amount we are sending out of the country in trade debt, has now overtaken the amount that we are in doubt with our own budget deficit. 
Lou said he had tried to get the Dems to debate the trade issue and loss of jobs but he got no takers.Norml is right on with the stats. on arrests. i hope Norml will also post a running count of which lawmaker from which party votes or does not vote for regulation of Cannabis. Like the loss in IL. i hope a index can be kept so as when people are asked to vote for someone they can go to the site and get to the state and see how someone voted. What is it now 10 states for Med Cannabis Use. with say 5 or 6 more and some others calling for out right regulation. It is getting to be a lot of people affected. Produce products here and keep the money here also.Which brings me back to my thought --that Lou has been sayen about how we need good jobs here in the US.
 Well hello-- Lou how about getting the head of Hemp Industries Association to come on and hear what he or she has to say about creating new jobs. Along with HIA how about someone from the Farm and implement Industry organic too. And to round out the trio some one from the Cellulose Ethanol research community and Bio Diesel. gal of gas 2.20 tax 46 cents which leaves 1.74 so the station gets a few cents but where does the rest go. The new Ethanol plants are built local and if owned by local the money stays local. Here in MI a second Ethanol plant of 50 million gals a year is being built with 160 thousand tons of high protien feed and 160 thousand tons of carbon dioxide for fizzing being the high value byproduct,If O'riliey has Leap with Jack Cole{www.leap.cc} on-- j pee can not defend his budget. Allow regulation and the plant is no longer worth its weight in gold. Result --smuggling no longer as profitable.
http://www.hashbash.com
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on March 11, 2005 at 18:28:35 PT:
(tiredly) Johnny, Johnny, Johnny
Lets see now; Ol' Johnny Pee is concerned about the THC amounts in cannabis. Well, let's consider something: the amount of alcohol found in most common hard liquors.The "proof" of any alcoholic beverage is exactly twice the percentage of alcohol in the solution. That means that 100 proof vodka is 50% alcohol. 151 proof rum is 75.5% alcohol.And Johnny Pee is worried about a comparatively paltry 12% of total mass? Of a substance with no LD-50? That hasn't killed a single human in recorded history, while scores of thousands in this country alone die each year from simple alcohol toxicity? (I am not including derivatives such as alcohol caused diseases like cirrhosis; just some damnfool drinking him- or herself to death in one night of booze-bingeing.) By Johnny Pee's rationalizations, some of the most bestselling alcoholic beverages rank as 'hard drugs'. Worse than that; compared to the 8-12% THC he wags his jowls about, these openly sold beverages are the equivalent of industrial strength rat poison or nuclear waste or nerve gasses compared to Mountain Dew.Come OFF it, Johnnie. Your hypocrisy is showing...*again*. This is getting old, and you're becoming a public embarassment. One of these days you'll be forced to debate on a level playing field...and your face will be rubbed in facts like these.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on March 11, 2005 at 18:18:26 PT
Oh Canada!
I really am sorry that the one's in charge of our country feel they have a right to tell you how to live. 
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