Pot industry ranks second in GDP contribution
A B.C. magazine now places the province’s marijuana industry in second place for its contribution to the B.C. gross domestic project.

BC Business magazine said recently that it now is in second place ahead of the forest sector and behind construction.

Forest Minister Rich Coleman reacted to the announcement by saying, “There’s nothing a ministry can do to change a marketplace.”

BC Business places the provincial marijuana industry at $7.5-billion with a labour force of over 250,000.

Eric Nash of Valley-based cannabis company, Island Harvest, reacted to the news by saying, “More than 156,000 people in British Columbia use marijuana for health purposes. Thousands of unemployed B.C. forest workers could become gainfully employed in the well-established cannabis industry.”

Island Harvest has been distributing and selling medical marijuana to customers for the past six years under federal licensing from Ottawa.

Wendy Little, his partner in Island Harvest, added, “Provincially licensed operations in B.C. have been supplying marijuana to thousands of people for over 10 years now. It’s time to integrate cannabis sensibly into our economy.”

Legally-licenced growers, Little and Nash have called upon the B.C. government to implement provincial policy and declare the cannabis production sector a renewable and sustainable health based industry to create employment and economic growth.

The economics of marijuana and hemp are likely to be the deciding factors in overturning adult marijuana prohibition in North America.  With farmers needing a cash crop, drivers needing biodiesel fuels, people needing affordable medicines, the world needing sustainable food and ecologically-friendly fiber crops, and governments straining to balance budgets, the prohibition of cannabis will soon become a money-losing proposition, even compared to the profits some industries make from prohibition.

Middle class relaxing with marijuana
A variety of middle-class people are making a conscious but careful choice to use marijuana to enhance their leisure activities, a University of Alberta study shows.

A qualitative study of 41 Canadians surveyed in 2005-06 by U of A researchers showed that there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ marijuana user, but that people of all ages are selectively lighting up the drug as a way to enhance activities ranging from watching television and playing sports to having sex, painting or writing.

The study was published recently in the journal Substance Use and Misuse.

The focus was on adult users who were employed, ranging in age from 21 to 61, including 25 men and 16 women from Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland whose use of the drug ranged from daily to once or twice a year. They were predominantly middle class and worked in the retail and service industries, in communications, as white-collar employees, or as health-care and social workers. As well, 68 per cent of the users held post-secondary degrees, while another 11 survey participants had earned their high school diplomas.

The study also found that the participants considered themselves responsible users of the drug, defined by moderate use in an appropriate social setting and not allowing it to cause harm to others.

The findings should open the way for further scientific exploration into widespread use of marijuana, and government policies should move towards decriminalization and eventual legalization of the drug, the study recommends.

The cannabis community is a minority group that spans all social, economic, religious, racial, and national boundaries.  There is no “typical” marijuana user any more than there is a “typical” oxygen breather.

Canadian Majority Would Legalize Marijuana: Angus Reid Global Monitor
Adults in Canada believe the consumption of cannabis should be allowed in their country, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 53 per cent of respondents support the legalization of marijuana.

Less than 10 per cent of respondents believe other drugs—such as ecstasy, powder cocaine, heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth—should be legalized.

In July 2002, Canada became the first nation in the world to regulate the consumption of cannabis for medical reasons. In the 2004 federal election, the Marijuana party—which seeks the outright legalization of the substance—received 0.3 per cent of the popular vote.

In November 2004, the Canadian federal government—headed at the time by Liberal prime minister Paul Martin—re-introduced a controversial bill that sought “alternate penalty frameworks” for the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The bill, which would have allowed any person caught with 15 grams of the drug or less to face fines instead of criminal charges, was never put to a vote in the House of Commons.

Earlier this month, Debbie Stultz-Giffin—a member of Maritimers United for Medical Marijuana—urged the current administration to abandon its proposal to authorize a mandatory six-month prison sentence for marijuana growers, adding, “With the federal government talking about pulling exemption holders grow permits and forcing us to buy our marijuana from the government, it’s going to put a lot of medical marijuana patients in a precarious situation.”

I believe we are close to reaching the tipping point where a majority of North Americans favor the legalization, or at least decriminalization, or marijuana.  It looks like Canada is there already, and I know we’re close to that here on the West Coast.  Soon, as more stalwart drug warriors are swept out of Congress and statehouses in the upcoming election, I believe that younger, more liberal officials will take their place.  As our representatives begin to match the population that has come of age with legal medical marijuana and a more relaxed cultural attitude toward cannabis, I believe that we will see the end of adult marijuana prohibition in my lifetime.

TheStar.com | GTA | Eatery won’t fight pot smoker
A Burlington businessman brought to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal after he told a medical marijuana user not to light up in front of his family restaurant has given up fighting the complaint because he couldn’t afford the legal fees.

“The financial burden, the burden on me and on my family was too much,” Ted Kindos, owner of Gator Ted’s Tap and Grill, said yesterday after reaching a settlement.

Kindos said his lawyer told him it could cost up to $60,000 to continue fighting the complaint; it was scheduled for eight days of hearings at the Human Rights Tribunal beginning yesterday. Kindos said he has already spent $20,000.

Steve Gibson, a long-time customer, complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2005 after Kindos told him to leave the premises for smoking marijuana in the doorway of the restaurant at Burlington Heights Plaza.

“The principle I was fighting for was to be able to have quality of life and to be able to go out without being stuck at home because I need my medical marijuana,” said Gibson, adding he was pleased with the settlement.

Although the commission’s lawyers do not represent the complainants, their positions are often similar, said commission spokesperson Jeff Poirier.

“For the commission, this case is about being treated the same as the other smokers. This is a smoker with a disability who uses medicinal marijuana that’s legally prescribed to him so he’s seeking access to the designated smoking area,” said Poirier.

Kindos said he originally refused to allow Gibson to smoke marijuana in the smoking room of the restaurant. Gibson then began smoking in front of the restaurant and patrons complained of the smell, said Kindos.

These cases are gaining ground in Canada and the twelve US medical marijuana states.  If marijuana is to be treated the same as other medicines, then we have to address the question of how patients are to use their medicine outside of their home.

In many states, smoking anything in or near a public building is absolutely forbidden.  But in this case, the restaurant made an allowance for tobacco smokers to be able to smoke in a designated area.  So if patrons have a right to smoke tobacco for no medical purpose - indeed, to the detriment of their own health, and the health of others through secondhand smoke - then it is hard to understand banning a medical cannabis smoker in the same area.

The only consideration would be a moral judgment that smoking cannabis is wrong, which seemed to be the situation here.  Kindos alleged that the patrons of his restaurant didn’t want their children exposed to the smell of cannabis.  There is no health risk associated with children smelling marijuana, but there is the risk that witnessing a harmless man smoking marijuana without any negative consequences will open the minds of those children and make them harder to fool with drug war reefer madness.

The U.S. Role in a Mexico Assassination - WSJ.com

American nonchalance about drug use stands in sharp contrast to what is happening across the border in Mexico. There lawmen are taking heavy casualties in a showdown with drug-running crime syndicates. On Thursday the chief of the Mexican federal police, Edgar Millán Gómez, was assassinated by men waiting for him when he came home, becoming the latest and most prominent victim of the syndicates.

It’s no secret that the narcotics trade is like a roach infestation. If you see one shipment or dealer, you can be sure that there are many others that go undetected. The signs of an infestation are everywhere, making a joke of their 40-year claim that any day now they will wipe out American drug use.

Yet if prohibitionists should find this lack of results troubling, imagine how Mexico must view it. That country doesn’t even produce cocaine, but it became a transit route to the U.S. when enforcers had some success in curtailing supplies coming through the Caribbean in the late 1990s.

That success didn’t change the U.S. appetite for the mind-altering substances. Instead, drugs started flowing over land routes and Mexican cartels took charge. Now they are rumored to be in control of most of the traffic from the Andes northward.  A U.S.-Mexican joint assessment estimates that more than $10 billion in cash from drug sales flow from the U.S. to Mexico every year.

The upshot: Americans underwrite Mexico’s vicious organized crime syndicates. The gringos get their drugs and the Mexican mafia gets weapons, technology and the means to buy off or intimidate anyone who gets in their way. Caught in the middle is a poor country striving to develop sound institutions for law enforcement.

Most of the drug-related killings since [Mexican President Felipe] Calderón took office seem to be a result of battles between rival cartels. Still, the escalating violence is troubling. The official death toll attributable to organized crime since the Calderón crackdown began now stands at 3,995. Of that, 1,170 have died this year.

Especially alarming are the number of assassinations among military personnel and municipal, state and federal police officers. The total is 439 for the 17 months and 109 so far this year. Many of these victims have been ordinary police officers whose refusal to be bought off or back off cost them their lives.

But as the murder of police chief Millan makes clear, high rank offers no safety. Two weeks before he was gunned down, Roberto Velasco, the head of the organized crime division of the federal police, was shot in the head. Eleven federal law enforcement agents have been killed in ambushes and executions in the last four weeks alone.

If U.S. law enforcement agencies were losing their finest at such a rate, you can bet Americans would give greater thought to the violence generated by high demand and prohibition. Our friends in Mexico deserve equal consideration.

Here in America, one of the saddest consequences of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs is the erosion of support for law enforcement in the eyes of the young.  Older folks tell me of a day when they knew the beat cop who patrolled their neighborhood and young people would turn to that officer in times of trouble.  Now, people my age and younger have a distrust for police, especially in minority neighborhoods, seeing law enforcement officers as “them” against “us”.

No responsible cannabis consumer with any sense hates police.  In fact, most of us would prefer to be able to call police in times of crisis and not fear being caught with the so-called “controlled” substance that would land us prison time.  It is unknown how many burglaries or assaults go unreported because the victim is a marijuana user afraid of punishment, but anecdotally I can relate many such occurrences from my friends and family.

Also, we want police and the public to be safe as well.  We see no reason why a peace officer needs to put his or her life on the line busting marijuana growers who must protect their crops with guns, since growers can’t turn to police or courts to handle marijuana thefts.  We see no reason why the public should face the danger of serious crimes not being responded to because an officer is too busy busting a young person with a baggie of pot.

All marijuana prohibition does is takes a popular activity and adds in violence, profit, and corruption, while not decreasing the popular activity one iota.

Cannabis goes back to Class B despite drug experts’ verdict - Times Online
Cannabis will be upgraded to a Class B drug next year even though the head of the Government’s advisory body says that the change is neither warranted nor likely to achieve the desired effect.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced the reversal yesterday of the Government’s earlier decision to downgrade the drug. But under18s caught with it will not be treated any more harshly, to avoid criminalising them.

Punishment for the over18s will increase from the existing “confiscate and warning” for a first offence to a possible penalty notice for disorder on a second offence followed by arrest and prosecution for a third offence.

Although the new jail term for possession rises from two to five years, it is unlikely that anyone will be imprisoned for simple possession of cannabis for personal use.

Reclassification will not take effect until early next year because Parliament has to approve the decision.

A report from the advisory council concluded that the health dangers from cannabis did not justify its inclusion in the higher category and that it should remain a Class C drug. Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the council, said: “Changing the classification of cannabis is neither warranted nor will it achieve the desired effect.”

Ms Smith said that the Government was overruling the council because she was unwilling to “risk the future health of young people”. She told MPs: “Where there is a clear and serious problem, but doubt about the harm that will be caused, we must err on the side of caution and protect the public. I make no apology for that – I am not prepared to wait and see.”

The Home Secretary said she was concerned about the mental health effects of smoking super-strength skunk cannabis, which now accounts for 81 per cent of cannabis seized on the streets. There were also suggestions that young people were “binge smoking” to get the maximum high.

The reefer madness of Gordon Brown continues.  The public health and law enforcement experts on the prime minister’s advisory body voted 20-3 that cannabis should remain in the lowest classification of drugs - Class C - and that Britons should not be arrested for its possession.

But politicians love to look “tough on crime” and by treating cannabis use as a crime, they can score easy points in the political arena, despite the overwhelming evidence that cannabis use is not a serious social problem and what few problems it does present are best treated in a public health model, not a criminal justice one.

Jacqui Smith says we can’t afford to “wait and see”, yet since cannabis has been downgraded from Class B to Class C, we’ve found that cannabis use has gone down in the UK.  Furthermore, cannabis has been in widespread use since the 1960s - how much longer does Ms Smith need to wait and see?

This is driven in the UK by the tabloid headlines of the dreaded “skunk” cannabis, otherwise known by realists as “quality marijuana”.  They trumpet false stats like “skunk is 30 times more potent than regular cannabis”.  Since “skunk” tests out at about 12%-14% THC, then they must consider hemp rope to be “regular cannabis”.  Actually, “regular cannabis” tests out to 7%-10% THC, so maybe it is at most twice as potent.

However, as we all know, more potent cannabis does not equal more public danger.  Cannabis is non-toxic, so smoking more of the more potent varieties isn’t going to cause any more physical harm.  Cannabis is self-titrating, which means users smoke to get high, and if the cannabis is more potent, they just smoke less of it to get high.  Considering that inhaling the smoke of burning vegetable matter of any kind isn’t the nicest thing for your lungs, smoking less of it is probably a good thing.

We here at NORML call on all our friends in the United Kingdom to call your member of Parliament and tell them to vote no on the upgrade of cannabis from Class C to Class B.

Mexican Drug Cartels Making Audacious Pitch for Recruits - washingtonpost.com
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The job offer was tempting.

It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any “soldier or ex-soldier.”

“We’re offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families,” it said in block letters.

But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.

Outrageous as they seem, drug cartel messages such as the banner hung here late last month are becoming increasingly common along the violence-savaged U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the region. As soldiers wage a massive campaign against drug trafficking across Mexico, they are encountering an information war managed by criminal networks that operate with near impunity.

“The cartels are very good at this — they’ve had songs written about them, they put up these signs, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods,” Carlos Martínez, a Nuevo Laredo elementary school principal and community activist, said in an interview.

The banners also appeal to many poorer Mexicans who respect the brashness of the cartels, which provide food, clothing and toys to win civilians’ loyalty.

Marcelino, a 74-year-old pensioner who did not provide his last name for fear of retribution, said that he had been wronged plenty of times by police but that drug traffickers had given him a sturdy mountain bike.

Marcelino said police had harassed his neighbors, trumping up phony criminal violations and extracting bribes to avoid incarceration. Previous local governments tried to throw him and other squatters off government land. Drug traffickers, however, sided with the squatters, earning their enduring gratitude by paying to build cinder-block shacks and distributing clothing.

“I trust the Zetas more than the thieving police and soldiers,” Marcelino said. “The police are rats.”

Once they join drug gangs, the deserters seem “cool” to many people, according to Martínez. Children in his neighborhood see banners advertising jobs in drug gangs and connect those images with the suddenly prosperous deserters, and other cartel recruits, they meet on the streets. With few opportunities for employment in Mexico’s weak economy, the prospect of joining a gang is appealing, he said.

And of course, what is fueling the massive profits for murderous Mexican drug cartels more than anything is the prohibition of drugs in the United States and failure to provide treatment and rehabilitation rather than arrest and incarceration for drug addicts.  Without countering demand, we will never affect supply.

However, we will never eliminate demand for drugs in this country or any other; it is human nature for some to seek altered states of consciousness.  Therefore, it behooves us to take the production, marketing, merchandising and distribution of drugs out of the hands of black market criminals.  All we accomplish by prohibiting drugs is more violence, corrupt cops, and wealthy drug gangs.

Money not well spent: Fraser
Sheila Fraser, the federal Auditor-General, yesterday released her latest report on Ottawa’s management of its programs and spending. As in the past, the Auditor-General found many areas in which government spending was excessive or lacked proper oversight.

The federal government is charging too much for passports, doesn’t know what to charge for medical marijuana and may not be charging enough for some other fees it collects.

Yesterday’s report indicated Ottawa collected $1.9-billion in fees on everything from issuing passports to granting licences to manufacture drugs. The money represents a small fraction of the more than $200-billion collected every year in taxes and duties.

[T]he auditors discovered Health Canada is probably undercharging Canadians who are allowed to buy marijuana for medical purposes. Health Canada charges $5 for a gram of dried marijuana or $20 for a packet of 30 marijuana seeds. Some “compassion” clubs, which try to assist those who need marijuana to ease chronic pain, charge twice as much for similar amounts.

Health Canada plans to recalculate its charge.

There’s just one problem with this analysis: the marijuana being supplied by Health Canada is of very poor quality compared to that which is sold in the compassion clubs.  It is only worth half of what the quality marijuana is worth.

Health Canada maintains a monopoly supply on government medical marijuana.  The herb is grown 500 feet below the earth in an abandoned zinc and copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba.  I’ve spoken with Philippe Lucas from the Vancouver Island Compassion Society about this issue, and he tells me that not only is the Flin Flon weed quite schwaggy, but also there are concerns about its safety after being grown where so many harsh mining chemicals had been used.

Health Canada needs to open up the production of marijuana to the many excellent independent growers in Canada.  British Columbia itself could probably manufacture enough high-quality marijuana to supply the whole country.

But here is where the prohibition rub comes in.  Because there is a lucrative black market both in Canada and the US for high-quality marijuana, the price of marijuana is artificially inflated by prohibition risk.  BC growers want to divert their strains to the top dollar buyers, not to some government that will fix the price and create many bureaucratic headaches.

And the government must either grow poor quality weed that can remain low cost and out of competition with “BC Bud”, or raise quality and prices to match the black market.  Government can’t charge less for good medicine, else people will purchase it and resell it on the black market for the margin.

Come on now.  $5, $10, $15 for a gram for a weed?  $20 to $50 for a packet of seeds?  Can you name any other consumer agricultural product that demands such exorbitant pricing (yes: tobacco, due to high taxes and saffron, which grows in few places during a short season and must be harvested by hand by picking the individual stigma off the flower)?  What do you think marijuana would cost if it were completely legal and farmers could grow acres of it outdoors?

Global Marijuana/Cannabis March Meets Heavy-Handed Opposition
In Brazil, a spokesperson for www.marchadamaconha.org, organisers of the “Marcha da Maconha Brasil 2008″ had this to say on the situation facing the South American cannabis community.

“We are facing in Brazil too much repression against the march. From 10 cities that were confirmed for the march, the Justice prohibited 6 cities from taking part. As citizens of a democracy we are very disappointed”.

It was a similar story in Moscow, with the Military and Police blocking the way to the Friendship of Nations fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. The meeting place for the 2006 Global Marijuana March in Russia, organised once again by the Cannabis Legalize League (CLL), who were hoping not to have any injuries to treat this year.

[A spokesman for CLL said,] “We published an official statement on the CLL site, so that both authorities and activists could learn that no marches would be held in Moscow in 2008. We invited our supporters to come to the “Friendship of Nations” fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. We made it quite clear there should be no banners or other means of political propaganda: only thematic clothes, excellent mood and musical instruments.”

“As soon as the statement was published we received an aggressive reaction from the Federal Service of Drug Control (Russian DEA analog). In the interview to one of the most famous Russian news agencies the head of the informational department of the FSDC Alexander Mikhailov commented our action in the following expressions”:

“Legalization of cannabis as a drug is out of the question. This theme mustn’t be discussed at all. Such actions are the grossest breach of the peace and hooliganism. This is a spring exacerbation on which the bodies of internal affairs and psychiatrists should react”.

Full Story

New centre will fight marijuana - National - smh.com.au
Cannabis use and addiction have become such a problem, particularly among the young, that the Federal Government is funding a $12 million research centre at the University of NSW to try to turn the trend around.

Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in Australia, with 33.5 per cent of adults having used it, [The centre’s director] Professor [Jan] Copeland said.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from last year showed that 750,000 people used cannabis weekly and 300,000 used it every day.

The number of those seeking treatment had tripled since 1992, but many young people still did not understand the significant potential for harm to their health nor that there were treatment services available, Professor Copeland said.

She said about one in 10 people who tried cannabis would develop a dependence.

Those under 16 who had used it at all were three times more likely to either drop out of school or finish without attaining their Higher School Certificate, she said. Professor Copeland said those who began smoking cannabis in the 1970s were starting to develop respiratory, head and neck cancers.

A single cannabis joint has the same effect on the lungs as smoking up to five cigarettes in one sitting, according to research published in the respiratory medicine journal Thorax last year.

Nothing like starting the week out with a trifecta of drug war lies.

1. Yes, admissions for drug treatment, both in Australia and the US and elsewhere, have increased since 1992.  This is because courts are increasingly sentencing people to drug rehab when they’re caught with marijuana.  Imagine if they sent to rehab people who are ever found to be buzzed on alcohol - would there be a mass media frenzy about the incredible increase in alcoholism?  Of course not, because not all use is abuse.  If you factor out those forced into marijuana rehab, you find the number of pot smokers choosing to enter rehab is quite small.
2. People who have smoked pot in the 1970’s may indeed be getting head and neck cancers some three decades later, but you can’t attribute that to the pot.  Recent studies have concluded that smoking marijuana, even heavily, does not increase the risks of these cancers.
3. The “one joint = 5 / 10 / 20 cigarettes” myth has been debunked as well.  Marijuana does not cause emphysema and marijuana smokers show much better respiratory function than tobacco smokers.

Just catching up on some of the reports from the March this weekend:

Close to 500 protesters took to the streets [of Calgary, Alberta, Canada] Saturday in favour of marijuana’s medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain.

Amid the incense aromas and reggae beats, several hundred Austinites rallied at the Capitol on Saturday for the legalization of marijuana for personal and medical use.

Rolling out at high noon May 3, the Ninth Annual Million Marijuana March smoked through downtown Portland as part of Oregon NORML’s protest of pot prohibition and to support the use of medicinal marijuana through Oregon’s sometimes controversial Medical Marijuana Act.

“These guys are easy compared to the anarchists,” said Sgt. Voepel of the Portland Police Department, “they’re on time, and they’re orderly.”

According to the Sarge, the only rabble rousers during the march were two drunkards who were pestering people but were unconnected to the peaceful pro-pot gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.

Full Story

Brazilian court bans march for marijuana legalization _English_Xinhua
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 30 (Xinhua) — A Brazilian court has banned a controversial demonstration in favor of the legalization of marijuana, local media reported Wednesday.

The so-called “the Global Marijuana March,” scheduled for Sunday in 10 Brazilian cities, is banned in Salvador, capital city of Bahia state in northeastern Brazil.

According to the prosecutors, the demonstration is likely to fuel controversy over marijuana smoking, currently forbidden by the Brazilian law.

The global march will also be held in 19 other countries.

Protesters said the court’s decision was “absurd,” and has violated their freedom of speech in a struggle for a change in legislation.

The demonstration was aimed at promoting public debate and research on the use of marijuana, they said.

The global march has caused security concerns in Brazil.

On April 21, five people were arrested in Rio for handing out leaflets to the public, inviting local citizens to take part.

Marijuana is so dangerous that now we can’t even talk about it?  This Brazilian court thinks that a few hundred people marching for cannabis law reform is dangerous, yet they have no problem with Carnaval, which certainly must be a bigger drain on law enforcement and definitely sends a certain message to the children, where hundreds of thousands gather in the streets at night to gawk at elaborate floats and near-naked women in extravagant outfits.

Brown says message must be sent on cannabis | UK | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Gordon Brown said on Tuesday the government needs to send a message that cannabis is “unacceptable,” increasing speculation he will decide to tighten drug laws.

Brown has received a report from The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) on cannabis and will decide soon whether to upgrade it to Class B from a Class C, although a decision is not expected this week.

Newspapers have predicted that Brown will reclassify the drug even though the council has reportedly advised the government to keep cannabis in Class C.

“I don’t think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people — this is not acceptable,” Brown said.

Cannabis was downgraded to Class C — which includes substances such as anabolic steroids — in 2004. That means possession of the drug is treated largely as a non-arrestable offence.

But Brown launched a review by the advisory council, which comprises doctors, police, judges and counsellors, soon after he became prime minister.

And now he’s just about ready to completely ignore his advisory council, which is said to favor keeping cannabis decriminalized by a vote of 20-3.

But surely, when someone is quoted as calling cannabis “lethal”, you can’t expect them to accept pesky things like facts, logic, and science.  Brown wants to change the cannabis laws in the UK for purely political reasons.

FEATURE-Marijuana loses ground to silkworms in the Philippines | Reuters

KAPANGAN, Philippines, April 22 (Reuters) - Hundreds of white mulberry trees have started to cover mountain slopes deep in the northern Philippines’ Cordillera region, changing not just the landscape but also making over the image of a poor farming town.

Up until a few years ago, the upland villages of Kapangan, a town of 18,000 people in Benguet province, were known as one of the country’s largest cultivation areas for marijuana.

“We’ve started something to erase that tag,” Roberto Canuto, Kapangan’s mayor told Reuters. “We’re determined to be known as something else, perhaps the silk capital of the country.”

Many farmers became interested in the silk industry after trials produced about 25 kilos of raw silk that sold for $50 per kilogram early this year.

“This could be the perfect alternative to marijuana … This could give us extra cash without taking any risks,” said Wilbur Teofilo, a leader of a farmers’ cooperative in Kapangan that is upgrading 11 “rearing houses” and building nine more to raise raw silk production to 250 kilos every two months this year.

Most farmers will not admit to having cultivated marijuana before getting into sericulture. But growing the illegal plant was cheap and profitable and relatively easy work.

Dionisio Santiago, head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, said it was studying how Thailand had wiped out its poppy fields by offering farmers viable alternatives.

Anti-narcotics agencies have pledged to invest more in the sericulture project if silk-making succeeds in cutting marijuana supply.

Teofilo said farmers in his village were willing to give the silkworm project a try because raw silk production could also be a profitable business.

“What’s important for us was to find new ways to improve our finances through honest means,” he said.

I’ve got nothing against silk, but there are few places where it is possible to engage in sericulture.  Governments that are truly concerned about drug farming — whether it is marijuana in the Philippines, coca in Colombia, or poppies in Afghanistan — keep looking for alternative crops for these poor subsistence farmers to grow and sell to survive.  Prohibition makes these drug crops far more lucrative than food crops, at a time when most of the world is facing a food crisis.  We can at least begin by legalizing marijuana and hemp, and let the farming of cannabis also be a way to “improve our finances through honest means.”

Niagara Falls Review - Ontario, CA
Pro-pot activists say it’s high time the federal government legalizes marijuana.

And hundreds of those who believe Canadians should have the right to smoke up without fear of being charged took to the streets of Niagara Falls to draw attention to their cause.

“You need to legalize it,” said Marco Renda, one of the demonstrators who took part in what has come to be known as the annual Highway 420 Anti-Prohibition Rally.

“I have no problem with the government regulating it, just like they do alcohol.”

The rally, which was staged for the first time in Niagara Falls about five years ago, began around 3 p.m. on a grassy patch land on Victoria Avenue overlooking Highway 420.

CTV British Columbia- Thousands smoke pot in Vancouver for ‘420′ - CTV News, Shows and Sports — Canadian Television
The smell of pot was in the air as thousands assembled on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery for a collective toke.

It was a grass-roots celebration of the freedom to smoke marijuana on April 20 — known as ‘420′ among pot users as the time to get high.

Amid the tents, the music and, barely seen through the smoke — were messages on signposts by organizers about legalization of marijuana.

The Canadian Press: Health Canada looking for firm to grow its medical marijuana
OTTAWA — Health Canada is looking for someone to grow its weed.

The department served notice Monday it will soon invite firms to bid on a contract to cultivate and distribute medical marijuana, which is now being done in Flin Flon, Man., by Prairie Plant Systems Inc.

The winning firm will be expected to deliver a steady stream of government-approved dope to certified medical, users starting in the fall.

Dope? Why is the media allowed to get away with such flagrant anti-medical marijuana bias? If the story were about a government seeking a contract with an oxycodone supplier, would they talk about a “steady stream of government-approved hillbilly heroin”?

Ottawa has been a reluctant supplier of pot since a series of court rulings forced it into the medical marijuana business.

The marijuana program licenses certified medical users to grow their own pot, to have someone grow it for them or to buy it straight from Health Canada.

The department has paid Prairie Plant Systems more than $10 million to cultivate government-certified dope in a mine shaft in Flin Flon, Man.

There’s the “dope” again. And it should be noted that this mine shaft in Flin Flon is one of the most environmentally-polluted areas in all of Canada.

Ron Marzel, a Toronto lawyer who recently brought the matter before the Federal Court on behalf of a group of medical users, says he’s concerned about any monopoly on legal production and supply of the drug.

“The government’s just had such a horrible track record in terms of supplying medication to patients,” he said.

“There are many different strains of cannabis out there and the government’s position to date has been, ‘Well, we’re growing one strain and we’ve got one supplier and that’s it. Live with it.’

“The pharmacological evidence is that different ailments require, and different symptomology require, treatment with different strains. And the government hasn’t paid heed to that at all.”

Nope. To the government, a weed is a weed is a weed. They aren’t too thrilled about growing “dope”, much less worried about which particular strain of “dope” it is (and based on reports from my Canadian friends, it’s a pretty schwaggy strain). It’s as ridiculous and cruel as refusing to stock morphine, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen in the hospital, because you’ve got plenty of aspirin.

NORML.ORG Australia: Bong Ban Will Harm Cannabis Smokers, Users and Experts Say
THE Rann Government’s ban on bongs will not stop drug use and could have dangerous flow-on effects on the health of pot smokers, according to users and experts.

The State Government last night passed tough new laws so anyone selling cannabis bongs or drug implements will face fines of up to $50,000 or two years in jail.

The laws cover the sale of implements such as hookahs, bongs, cocaine kits and pipes used to smoke deadly crystal methamphetamine, otherwise known as ice.

One local drug expert, pharmacology associate professor Rodney Irvine, said users will seek other ways to inhale smoke and that could be more dangerous.

“When you close one loophole another one emerges, a different pattern of use emerges,” he said

“They’ll make them out of anything, obviously.

“I would say that there’s a possibility those alternative homemade ones will have some problems.”

Dr Irvine said smoking through a bong or water pipe was probably slightly less dangerous than using joints or pipes.

“Intuitively, I would say that smoking anything through a water pipe is a better option than smoking it in a joint or a spliff,” he said.

“If you’re smoking tobacco through a water pipe you’ve got cooler smoke. If there’s cooler smoke, there are less volatile substances, therefore less tar.”

Until now, courts had to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that the person in possession of the equipment intended to use it in connection with preparing or consuming an illegal drug.

“Your Honor, when that surfer dude came into my head shop, I had no idea he was going to take that triple-chambered, dual-carb, psychedelic… uh, glass art sculpture, and use it for smoking marijuana! I’m shocked, d’ya hear, shocked!”

I’ve always found both sides of the paraphernalia issue somewhat silly. On our side, the defense for head shops is that they somehow aren’t selling bongs so long as nobody says the word “bong”. Every head shop I’ve ever visited has the sign saying, “don’t say bong”, as if they were The Knights Who Say “Ni!” in the old Monty Python film. One old head shop owner on the Oregon/Idaho border once told me they were “functional glass novelty items”.

On the other hand, banning something because someone might do something illegal with it seems odd, especially when we sell handguns to people. Nobody seems to apply the bong standard to other items. If I went into a hardware store and got myself a baseball bat and a shovel, and said to the clerk, “How much for this head basher and corpse burier?”, would it be illegal for him to sell them to me? Unwise, certainly, and I hope he’s calling the cops, but it wouldn’t be illegal.

Besides, it’s just a stupid idea because it can’t work and solves nothing. We cannabis consumers are like McGuyver when it comes to making bongs. The only ones hurt here are the head shop owners who were contributing some of our incomes to the local economy and sales taxes, diverting it instead to apples, paper towel tubes, and tinfoil.

German dealers ‘add lead to marijuana’ - World - theage.com.au
Drug dealers looking for extra profits apparently added lead flakes to packets of marijuana, inflating their value while causing dozens of cases of serious poisoning, doctors in Germany reported today.The lead made up, on average, 10 per cent of the material in the marijuana packets, boosting profits by about $US1,500 ($A1,613) per kilogram, Franzika Busse of University Hospital Leipzig reported.

“One package contained obvious lead particles; this strongly indicated that the lead was deliberately added to the package rather than inadvertently incorporated into the marijuana plants from contaminated soil,” the researchers wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

The problem was discovered last year when the first of 29 patients, aged 16 to 33, started showing up in four Leipzig hospitals with abdominal cramps, fatigue, nausea and varying degrees of anemia. One was ill enough to be suffering from hallucinations.

It took eight weeks to uncover a common pattern: all were young, smoked, had body piercings and were either students or unemployed. All regularly used marijuana.

Three patients brought in their stashes. All samples tested positive for lead contamination, with one having lead flakes that were obvious under a microscope.

After two more weeks, an anonymous screening program for marijuana users uncovered 95 other people who needed treatment.

Busse’s colleague, Dr Michael Stumvoll, said in an email that about 200 people had now been identified. The screening was continuing, he said, although it did not appear that the practice was continuing among dealers.

“The medical community, including pediatricians, should consider adulterated marijuana as a potential source of lead intoxication,” the German team wrote.

Once again we see the sad but predictable consequences of prohibition. When your product is illegal, you don’t have to submit to any sort of government testing or licensing program. Unregulated markets will go to almost any lengths to maximize profits, whether it’s a Chinese company cutting corners by using lead-based paints on toys or a German pot dealer adding weight to the pot with lead flakes. On the other side of the coin, when a drug is legal and regulated, these things don’t happen; when’s the last time you heard of anyone going blind from drinking impure whiskey?

Farmers to get go-ahead to grow hemp - Breaking News - National - Breaking News
The NSW [New South Wales, Australia] government says hemp growers will be on a drug-free high with plans to introduce a new licensing scheme to encourage local growers.

Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said a potentially lucrative industrial hemp industry was not far off, following changes which will be introduced by the Iemma government.

“Industrial hemp fibre produced here in NSW could pave the way for the establishment of a new viable industry that creates and sells textiles, cloth and building products made from locally grown hemp,” Mr Macdonald said.

“There is growing support from the agricultural sector for the development of such a new industry. This is a direct result of the environmentally-friendly nature of industrial hemp and a perceived interest for hemp products in the market.”

Industrial hemp is a species of cannabis, but it has low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) compared to other forms of cannabis plants and cannot be used as a drug.

Mr Macdonald said the soft texture of hemp means it can be used for insulation or as an alternative to fibreglass, while hemp seed oil can be used as a base for skin care products and paints.

The scheme will be administered by the minister and will operate within a strict legal framework.

“The NSW government will amend existing criminal drug laws to ensure that existing drug law enforcement is not compromised - and this position is supported by the NSW Police,” Mr Macdonald said in a statement.

The worldwide demand for hemp and hemp products is enormous, and countries like Australia and Canada are more than happy to take up the industry.  They are especially happy about the profit they can make selling the raw material and manufactured goods back to us in the United States, where growing hemp is illegal and the prohibition tariff equals big profit margins..

How long will American farmers and American consumers stand for the absurdity of a non-drug fiber crop being prohibited by the Drug Enforcement Administration?