“The annual protest of marijuana prohibition took place around the world on April 20, 2010 as is tradition. 420 is a cannabis culture term for essentially lets get stoned, and why not do it at 4:20 PM in the afternoon?
Vancouver’s version of the event is likely the largest in the world, due to the common sense approach of Vancouver city council, which has made it clear to the Vancouver Police Department that marijuana offences are the lowest priority for them in the city of Vancouver. The rally yesterday attracted over 10,000 people (in the rain) to enjoy vast amounts of cannabis publicly and to protest the continued waste of tax dollars that go into the enforcement of marijuana laws that over 60% of BC residents want repealed!
Anyway, I am in a rush but just wanted to post a video that is pretty funny from the rally yesterday. Enjoy the antics of Spandy Andy…
For all the do-gooders out there that think taking control of the drug trade away from criminals through legalization and harm reduction will make it easier for kids to get access to drugs, think again.
Today a 3rd grader was caught giving away free heroin to classmates. He had over 60 flaps of H on him! This is what we get when we pretend to be in control of the drug trade through prohibitionist laws when in reality we’ve given control of selling drugs to scum bag drug dealers. Who get stinking rich to boot.
Prohibition makes it far easier for kids to get drugs than if we handled them like alcohol and prescription medicines because 99% of the people selling drugs today are willing to sell to kids in a heart beat. The criminals who control the illegal drug trade don’t care who they sell to, or who they enlist to sell their poison. This is no different than the days of alcohol prohibition when it became obvious that prohibition was making things worse than just letting people drink.
Hopefully we’re close to the same revelation. Our children deserve better than the status quo of outright prohibition.”
Holy shit. I just read this and couldn’t believe my eye’s. Read the article to get all the horrific and tragic details but basically a Canadian marijuana activist has had her child taken away from her by child protective services in Oregon. They won’t give him back to her because she is “”unfit”" but they won’t explain what makes her unfit. Could it be because she has a criminal record for growing medical marijuana?
Please – if you are reading my blog contact the following people and let them know this is unconscionable and must end. The poor child is being put through tremendous stress at a young age and will no doubt be changed from this experience in negative ways. And the Mother must be going fucking insane.
Pick up a pen, grab a phone, do something about this!
Jason Kenney – (Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)
minister@cic.gc.ca
Stephen Harper (Canadian Prime Minister)
pm@pm.gc.ca
Barack Obama (As if you don’t know)
president@whitehouse.gov
Janet Napolitano – (Secretary)
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
Adoption inquiries
NBC.Hague@dhs.gov
Canadian Help
USCIS.Canada@dhs.gov
The Mayor in Oregon:
Don Hampton
City Hall, 48319 E. 541-782-2258
In November California will be voting for the outright legalization of marijuana use by adults. I can’t wait to see how this unfolds. Even if it doesn’t pass this is just step #1. It will be on the ballot every year until it passes. And the legalization will spread – this is just the first nail in the coffin.
The University of British Columbia has produced a report which has found that the prohibition of recreational drug use by adults has failed at it’s primary goal. And in case you’ve forgotten what that goal was, we’re supposed to be trying to reduce the availability of drugs on our streets.
Well, as the news clip points out, we haven’t reduced drug availability. We’ve instead made drugs more available, of higher potency, lower price, yet with higher impurity levels ultimately making the drugs more dangerous than they were to begin with.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, we’ve enriched the most vile members of our society through the lure of easy drug trade riches. After all, millions can be made by anyone who is willing to risk their freedom in exchange for extreme wealth. As long as you are willing to kill for it, its yours for the taking. That’s the proposition drug prohibition makes to the desperate, the poor and the greedy among us.
And did you get a load of the cops in that news clip? Kash Heed – how can you say shit like that and keep a straight face? You know what you said is an outright lie. And even if you thought you were being honest, and your 30 years of policing did convince you that prohibition is the only appropriate policy, don’t ya think that maybe your perspective might be a bit tainted by having to deal with the ugly side of drug prohibition day in and day out? Perhaps you’re having a hard time visualizing a world without prohibition because you have lived it’s ugly side for too long. But I think it’s much more likely that you’re just being a weasel politician and doing what is popular and not what is right.
And Tim Shields of the R.C.M.P. – please stick to enforcing our laws, not commenting on their validity. That’s what politicians are supposed to be paid to do. When they decide to show up for work. And ultimately that’s the reason we still have to endure the drug war despite all the mounting evidence against it – our politicians are fucking useless. Until they start doing what’s right instead of what’s politically easy we’re going to see our streets get more violent, more drug filled, and ultimately we’ll all suffer at the hands of organized crime in one way or another.”
Good to see that Americans are starting to see the light – marijuana should not be illegal, it makes no sense at all! And in fact we are spending scarce tax dollars trying to prohibit it when we could be taxing it and making a killing. Look at how much the gangsters are making off it – that could be us instead!!!
Ex Conservative MP for Edmonton Rahim Jaffer got off on his drunk driving and cocaine possession charges today and instead plea bargained down to dangerous driving. Clearly this is BS. The cops laid charges feeling they had enough evidence to convict on both drunk driving and possession. So what the fuck happened? Why is he not facing the music like any other Canadian? I can’t wait to see this story play out further.
Ya gotta love “The Body”. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, as he used to be known as a pro wrestler, was on Larry King last night. He came out swinging against the drug war, especially our stupid, and harmful, marijuana laws.
Way to go former Governor Ventura, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Instead of reiterating the millions of good reasons why marijuana should be legalized (and taxed to everyone’s benefit) I figured I’d share today’s marijuana news stories with you. They’re some goodies!
"Gordon Campbell likes his booze - its time to pay attention to marijuana Gordo!
Gordon Campbell needs to listen to his friend Arnold from California when it comes to the topic of marijuana legalization and taxation. After all, if Arnie is good enough to carry the Olympic torch through Stanley Park on the last day of Canada’s Olympic torch relay, why shouldn’t we listen to what he has to say on the topic of cannabis and government budget shortfalls.
You see, last year Arnold Schwarzenegger clearly stated that he felt it was time for debate on the topic of legalizing marijuana. He felt that it could be the answer to the huge holes in his states budget. In response to the Governor’s musings the California legislative Counsel passed with large support Bill 390 (a bill that would treat marijuana pretty much the same as alcohol, including a 50 dollar an ounce fee that would generate nearly 1 Billion dollars a year in revenues). All the money generated through taxation would be money diverted from gangsters and into the pockets of government to support social programs. The passing of Bill 390 sets the stage for a full Assembly vote on the matter later in 2010.
Well Gordo, we also have a huge budget shortfall here in BC and we all know that we have a huge marijuana industry, an industry that our economy is reliant on. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop ignoring the obvious – it’s time to legalize and tax this so called “”drug”"! Marijuana is far safer than alcohol or tobacco, and using it is far less harmful to our social fabric than the use of booze is. And you can use Vancouver as an example – having both booze and marijuana legal won’t cause us more issues than just booze alone. Its essentially legal here in Vancouver and the pot smokers do not cause any issues for police. In fact the cops ignore the stores that let people smoke pot in public. If that doesn’t show you that we have nothing to fear from legal pot I don’t know what does.
The responsible use of marijuana by adults does not warrant the harsh criminal penalties we currently associate with it. Right now the only people making money from pot are gangsters that flood our streets with guns purchased from the money earned through marijuana sales. The coke and heroin on our streets is originally financed through the sale of BC Bud. All of this ugliness could be eliminated through the government taking the marijuana industry out of organized crimes hands and into the hands of government regulated growers and distributors. And at the same time we would earn enough money from taxing it that we might not have to lay off teachers, police, fire fighters, close parks, reduce garbage pickup times, charge more for accessing our provincial parks, etc, etc. In other words, turn what is currently a total negative for our province (not enough tax dollars to support our needs) into a total positive through the legalization of an industry we have no hope of shutting down through criminal sanctions.
Basically, lets stop being stupid and legalize pot. It’s way beyond time to do so, we’re now at the point where we can’t afford NOT to legalize it.”
