[Curtman]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Curtman Curtman:

$1:

Unfortunately, it is impossible for many patients to grow their own

Dude, it's called "weed" for a really good reason.

Even so.. Chemotherapy takes a lot out of a person. Gardening might not be possible for someone who is bedridden. Health canada doesn't sell cookies either, only the dispensaries do. The cancer patients probably shouldn't be inhaling burnt organic matter.
And it wasn't me who said it, it was a quote of an article.

Also, under the new rules you aren't allowed to grow your own if you are a MMAR patient.

[BartSimpson]

Curtman Curtman:

Also, under the new rules you aren't allowed to grow your own if you are a MMAR patient.

Got to love bureacrats.

[Curtman]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Curtman Curtman:

Also, under the new rules you aren't allowed to grow your own if you are a MMAR patient.

Got to love bureacrats.

It's not the bureaucrats. It's the Harperites.

Harper Government Announces Proposed New Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations

$1:

The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, announced today that after a broad consultation process, the Government of Canada intends to make changes to the way Canadians access marihuana for medical purposes.
...
In the past decade, Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Program has grown exponentially, from under 500 authorized persons in 2002 to over 26,000 today.

This rapid increase has had unintended consequences for public health, safety and security as a result of allowing individuals to produce marihuana in their homes.

The proposed new regulations will protect the health, safety and security of Canadians and their communities by eliminating the production of marihuana in homes.
...
It is the Government's intention to fully implement this new system by March 31, 2014. On this date, all authorizations to possess and licences to produce issued under the current program would expire

[Curtman]

Sending MUMM to jail?

$1:

Maritimers Unite for Medical Marijuana protest now-effective mandatory minimums and Health Canada's proposed changes

BY MILES HOWE

K'jipuktuk (Halifax) - On Nov. 13, Members of Maritimers Unite for Medical Marijuana (MUMM) gathered in Grand Parade Square to decry the fact that they, as self-medicating marijuana users, have of late been dealt a double whammy that will soon see them facing criminal charges and mandatory jail time; all for growing their own medicine.

The first shot to MUMM's members is the Health Canada-proposed changes to the Medical Marijuana Access Program, set to be unrolled in 2014. Personal and designated grow licenses, the means by which most medical marijuana users in Canada either grow or procure their medicine from licensed growers, are set for the grinder. Instead, medical marijuana will be grown by large-scale, industrial-style, licensed grow-ops.

Health Canada's justification for this rollback in personal freedom lies in the notion of community safety, and registered abuses of the current program.

Debbie Stultz-Giffin, chair of MUMM, doesn't put any weight in that argument, and sees program violations, if they do in fact exist, as being a minute negative when viewed in the context of a program that has enabled thousands to weed themselves off of big pharma's "legal toxins."

“The RCMP are citing that 35 people have been charged with violations in the program," Stultz-Giffin told the Halifax Media Co-op. "[These people] were either registered patients or designated registered growers. When you do the math on that it equates to 0.002 per cent of the people enrolled in the program that they claim are abusing it. Those people haven't even been to court. We're not talking convictions, we're just talking that the RCMP think that 35 patients have abused the program. And in actual fact, knowing a couple of the patients who've been charged, any of the overages that they had were going strictly to help other patients who had either no means to obtain the medicines they needed, or the clones that they required to grow the next crop of their own medicine.

"We're talking about people who were more healers than dealers."

Harper's second hit on MUMM, and all the MUMMs of Canada, comes with the newly-enforceable mandatory minimums for marijuana cultivation. Since Nov. 6, getting caught growing between six and 200 plants will result in a jail term of six months. Chris Barker, a member of MUMM, expects that this new law will see MUMM's membership mushroom, as medical marijuana users circle the proverbial wagons.

“I expect to see an increase in membership," said Barker. "People are going to have nowhere to go. They're going to be confused, they're not going to know what to do. With the laws just changed, people don't even understand exactly what that's going to mean. Six plants is the same as 200? It doesn't even make sense. You're going to see them in the court system, but there's just going to be so many of them. It's just going to clog everything up. With mandatory minimums everybody's going to trial then. Everybody's 'not guilty,' and it's just going to be a complete disaster. And you're jailing people for using medicine. No victim, no crime. No harm, no foul. It doesn't even make sense.”

Of course, in Stephen Harper's Canada, it does make a certain, macabre, sense.

NDP MLAs Charlie Parker and Ross Landry were highly visible at a recent ground-breaking ceremony for Pictou County's new 100-cell correctional facility. The facility will sleep 200 comfortably, and falls squarely into Minister of Defence Peter McKay's sphere of influence.

There will be a need to fill those beds, and licensed medical marijuana growers, with addresses already registered with the authorities, will be prime targets for police departments looking to beef their statistics.

Pharmaceutical drug sales in Canada have also reached absolutely monstrous proportions. In the year 2000, total sales for patented and non-patented drugs in Canada stood at $10 billion. In 2010 that figure had more than doubled to $22.2 billion.

Research has also noted a steady increase in Canadians' prescription drug use, which in 2009 averaged out to 14 prescriptions per person and did not have a direct correlation to an aging Canadian population. Aggressive marketing of synthetic heroins, such as Oxycontin, which have been increasingly prescribed across Canada as a pain relief option, is the more likely culprit for these inflated statistics, and has left thousands with serious addiction issues.

Set against this backdrop, the self-medicating marijuana user appears to be sagely avoiding the prescription drug crisis at hand. Yet they also present the greatest threat to the pharmaceutical industry. Self-medicating users, especially when gathered together in action/information groups such as MUMM, present the pharmaceutical companies, and the governments they lobby, with a bulwark.

To MUMM's Chris Barker, it's all about big pharma's bottom line.

“When they privatize it, they're going to make money off of it," said Barker." I can do it myself for next to nothing. It's not like you can't get any other narcotic you want on the street. Just because it's a prescription, it's not going to stop anything.”

[OnTheIce]

$1:

"We're talking about people who were more healers than dealers."

See Curt, even some pot smokers are greedy fucks too!

When the government gives you the ability to product the stuff on your own and you still push through it, too fuckin bad.

We all have laws to abide by and the RCMP doesn't give a crap about some half-cocked Marijuana Robin Hood story as an excuse.

I love how they tie "Personal Freedom" to the growing and use of drugs. Love it!

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

$1:

"We're talking about people who were more healers than dealers."

See Curt, even some pot smokers are greedy fucks too!

When the government gives you the ability to product the stuff on your own and you still push through it, too fuckin bad.

We all have laws to abide by and the RCMP doesn't give a crap about some half-cocked Marijuana Robin Hood story as an excuse.

I love how they tie "Personal Freedom" to the growing and use of drugs. Love it!

Curtman Curtman:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

Same for the dispensary baking cookies in it's leased building?

Marijuana dispensaries are legal businesses selling marijuana and marijuana products to legitimate customers. There's zero evidence that these new regulations will affect dispensaries in any fashion.

OK now its your turn to back up your claim. What law makes them legal and under what law are they licensed?

It will be up to the dispensary to prove they are exempted from this law, and by the ongoing court cases involving them we can assume it isnt easy

Have you found anything to back up your claim yet? Or are you giving up your assertion that these mandatory minimum sentences target organized crime?

Or have you driven a dodge lately?

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

Have you found anything to back up your claim yet? Or are you giving up your assertion that these mandatory minimum sentences target organized crime?

Or have you driven a dodge lately?

You got nerve, I'll give you that.

When you start backing up your shit, expect people to do the same.

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

Have you found anything to back up your claim yet? Or are you giving up your assertion that these mandatory minimum sentences target organized crime?

Or have you driven a dodge lately?

You got nerve, I'll give you that.

When you start backing up your shit, expect people to do the same.

Very well.. Dodge it is.



I drive one too. We got the 2012 Grand Caravan SE. It's been great.

8 or 9 times during this conversation you've mentioned that I don't know what I'm talking about. It must be horrific to discover the problem has been you not having a clue all along.

[Curtman]

No justice when it comes to addicts

$1:

Homeless aboriginal gets jail time; doctor remains free, still practises

The contrast is stark.

And appalling.

A homeless man breaches his probation by being drunk in a public place.

And is sent back to jail.

A physician pleads guilty to a disturbing list of 14 charges of professional misconduct -- including prescribing inappropriate medication to vulnerable people and billing for patients he didn't treat -- all by way of feeding his drug addiction.

And the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba rules he can continue practising. Perhaps, even probably, if police end up charging him criminally.

Thus is the privilege of a coddled professional, even a drug-addicted one such as Dr. Stephen John Coyle.

And thus is the plight of booze-addicted aboriginal street people, even ones such as Faron Hall, whose river rescue just four years ago had politicians from city hall to the House of Commons celebrating his bravery.

In a statement that unwittingly contrasted the difference between how vulnerable people and the doctor who exploited them are viewed and valued, the college rationalized its decision to allow Coyle to keep his licence with these class-defining words:

"The public good can be served by allowing a trained and educated physician, like Coyle to practise medicine..."

But with what could be viewed as college-ordered probation terms of its own.

Coyle, the former chief medical officer of the Misericordia Health Centre, must adhere "to a carefully designed set of the conditions to protect the public good."

And how, in Hall's case, is the public good protected by imposing an unrealistic probation term such as not being drunk in a public place.

When public places are his home.

When two years after his original jail sentence he's allowed to drink but not get drunk where security officers in the Richardson Building can find him and police can take him back into custody.

As for Coyle, it's not that I object to the college's effort to provide support for his rehabilitation as a person.

To the contrary. But where's the deterrence for other doctors?

And, even more importantly, where's the hand-holding prescribed treatment for jailed addicts such as Hall?

Hall is far from alone in needing the kind of treatment Coyle will have access to.

In a recent survey of prisons in Saskatchewan -- whose population demographics are similar to Manitoba's -- Statistics Canada found the most common need among inmates was addressing substance abuse.

Nine out of 10, or 92 per cent most common.

In other words, our jails and prisons are jammed with people whose fundamental crime is the same as Hall's, and for that matter, Coyle's.

But even if Coyle is charged criminally and convicted, there's little to no chance he would go jail for a first-time offence.

He probably wouldn't get house arrest if he stayed clean and was back to being such a valuable -- and valued -- part of society.

No, for the most part, jail in Manitoba is reserved mostly for addicts, aboriginals such as Hall. Many of whom are non-violent.

It's absurd.

As was the sentence that has started the "homeless hero's" predictable back-and-forth to jail breaches; an "aggressive panhandling" assault. But he kicked a vehicle door, not the woman who was struck by it.

A woman who, curiously, happened to be a physician.

That's an example of why in recent years Manitoba has had the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of incarceration among the provinces. A rate more than double the national average.

How would you even sentence someone such as Hall to house arrest?

He doesn't have a home.

So we arrest him and send him back to jail for what all of us are allowed to do in our homes.

Drink too much.

There has to be a better, more rational and humane way.

Perhaps even a less expensive way to treat addicts and so many other of our incarcerated mentally ill than taking them from the curb to the cell.

Over and over and over again.

Prison and jail cells should be reserved for the truly dangerous; not simply those who are most dangerous to themselves.

It's the 21st century, not the 19th century.

Canada needs to check the date.

We as a caring society need to start treating addicts as if they were all doctors.

Instead of criminals.

Winnipeg's homeless hero viciously beaten

$1:

Heroism captured national attention
Hall made national headlines in May after he saved Joseph Mousseau, 19, from drowning in the icy Red River. Despite the fast-moving spring current, Hall swam out to him and pulled the teen to safety.

He was later presented with the Winnipeg mayor's Medal of Valour.

Then in September, he rescued his friend, Tara Beardy, from the same river as they sat near the Norwood Bridge.

At the time of the first rescue, Hall had been homeless for years, often staying on the banks of the river and drinking heavily. Saving the boy's life was a personal turning point, he told CBC News in prior interviews.

Shortly after the May rescue, Hall moved into the government-owned apartment block where the beating took place.

Saturday's violence marks the second time Hall has been attacked recently.

On Christmas Eve, Hall said he was beaten up by people he said recognized him from stories in the media.

Friends, fairy tales, and Faron Hall

$1:

At first, Hall was cast as the “unlikely hero” in a story that emphasized difference in order to ultimately reaffirm our essential sameness. This was accomplished by claiming Hall’s very act of heroism implied a secret desire to be just like “us.”

At his core, he apparently aspired to the same basic beliefs, values and standards of those in such neighbourhoods as Tuxedo, River Heights and Linden Woods. The “Big Surprise” and lesson to be learned here, we’re told, is you “shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
...
Suddenly, the hero’s brave acts are fused to a deeper emotional, physical, and/ or psychological illness. His heroism is pathologized. It’s also embedded in a dramatic reality peddled by the media and eagerly consumed by audiences.

Hall’s homelessness, poverty and alcoholism positioned him well to be thrust into this complicated and tragic role. And, sadly, he hasn’t disappointed.

If you read his story, as it has unfolded in the media, you’d see him going to rehab, finding a home, getting severely beaten, failing in rehab and ending up in the Brandon Correctional Centre for assault, where he is today.

But there is another key social undercurrent — one so distasteful we Canadians are usually too polite, stupefyingly ignorant, or morally smug to mention — that shapes our choice of fairy tales: It is race.

According to professor Robert Harding of the University of the Fraser Valley, Canadian media tend to construct “common sense notions about the inability of aboriginal people to assume full control over their lives.” Harding suggests this is done primarily to preserve social and economic inequalities that favour non- aboriginals.

As harsh as this and the other criticisms made here seem, there’s little doubt we need to open up our comforting fairy tales to such conversations.

Not to do so will ensure the lessons the Faron Halls of this world have to teach us will both metaphorically and literally remain hopelessly locked away.

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

Very well.. Dodge it is.



I drive one too. We got the 2012 Grand Caravan SE. It's been great.

8 or 9 times during this conversation you've mentioned that I don't know what I'm talking about. It must be horrific to discover the problem has been you not having a clue all along.

Sorry to hear you couldn't afford the better van, I guess basic serves you well

Why do others have to back up their stuff, stuff that's fairly common sense if you know anything about business, when you don't do so yourself?

Since you need help .....

You know these medical dispensaries have been operating for years with the proper business license and operate within a grey area of the law and have been allowed to continue business as usual. All businesses must operate with a business license. In Ontario, it's a Master Business License. You should also know that these new changes will have little effect on these businesses within BC. They're not going anywhere. That's what the owners of the dispensaries are saying themselves

So there Curt, we're now back to you being the master of the dodge....still waiting for you to back up your shit from a few days ago....I guess that cut and paste got lost in the shuffle of your other propaganda.

$1:

Something like that. I'll do the copy paste when I get home.

Time to back up your shit, Curt....we're waiting.

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

Very well.. Dodge it is.



I drive one too. We got the 2012 Grand Caravan SE. It's been great.

8 or 9 times during this conversation you've mentioned that I don't know what I'm talking about. It must be horrific to discover the problem has been you not having a clue all along.

Sorry to hear you couldn't afford the better van, I guess basic serves you well

Why do others have to back up their stuff, stuff that's fairly common sense if you know anything about business, when you don't do so yourself?

Yeah absolutely, the rear view camera is fantastic for backing up. The Stow-N-Go seats are amazing. We needed something for the 5 of us to go on trips comfortably, and it's been great. The Uplander we used to have was a real disappointment.

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Since you need help .....

You know these medical dispensaries have been operating for years with the proper business license and operate within a grey area of the law and have been allowed to continue business as usual. All businesses must operate with a business license. In Ontario, it's a Master Business License. You should also know that these new changes will have little effect on these businesses within BC. They're not going anywhere. That's what the owners of the dispensaries are saying themselves

Yes. They all have business licenses, like Marc Emery had a business license for his seed business, like C.A.L.M. had a business license:

$1:

"We know so far that over the last hour police are all over the Queens St. location," Chris Goodwin, manager of Toronto's Vapor Central, told Cannabis Culture after the raid started. "They're in the alleys, in the building - a patient that tried to go in was told it was being raided and under police control, and that he couldn't get his medicine there. Some of the cops were saying rude comments."
Goodwin said that many of C.A.L.M.'s staff members have been arrested. "It was check day, so all staff were in, and they had the most product as today is the busiest day," he said.
C.A.L.M. is one of the oldest medical cannabis clubs in Canada, established in 1996. C.A.L.M.'s website states that the organization is a "peer-run organization that provides almost 2,000 Canadians living with severe or chronic illnesses with safe and continuous access to medicinal cannabis in a safe empowering environment. [...] Currently, C.A.L.M. is a superior dispenser of medical cannabis that functions like a wellness centre. C.A.L.M. is open seven days a week in order to provide clients with consistent and reliable access to medical cannabis."
UPDATE: Release issued to C.A.L.M. members
ATTENTION CALM MEMBERS:
Earlier this afternoon our downtown location was raided. Although we are still piecing together the information, at this time we are temporarily closed. We will hopefully be resuming our services in the coming days so please check this forum regularly for further information.
We may be organizing a pro-CALM community gathering in the coming week, your attendance would mean a lot to everyone and the medical cannabis community as a whole.
We thank you for your concern and appreciate your continued support. If we stand together nobody can take our club away from us.
We'll be seeing you again really soon,
CALM
UPDATE: Message from a club member
FORW: from MAD: Today I was at C.A.L.M when it got raided by the police. I'm very livid about this because of the treatment of the staff that I seen. punching a handcuffed man when he's cooperating and complying. Now what? What do we do how can we help those who help us? I want answers and want to do something about this this is a omplete outrage of our rights as Canadians. I hope those guys I seen getting hurt by police are okay. Can someone shed some light on this and what to do next? Thanks a bunch

Like iMedikate had a business license..

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

So there Curt, we're now back to you being the master of the dodge....still waiting for you to back up your shit from a few days ago....I guess that cut and paste got lost in the shuffle of your other propaganda.

$1:

Something like that. I'll do the copy paste when I get home.

Time to back up your shit, Curt....we're waiting.

For sure, the Bill is here: (Scroll down and click the link that says "Controlled Drugs and Substances Act")
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications ... Id=5465759

If you want context, you wont get it from the bill, you want the legislation here:

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/s ... -c-19.html

you can read the legislation as it exists before and after the omnibus ammendments that went through only after 3 years of being rejected.

I didn't copy and paste it because PA said he found the bill himself and read it.

Where is the law that protects marijuana dispensary owners and workers from mandatory minimum sentencing?

You claim one exists, and these laws only target organized crime.

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

Where is the law that protects marijuana dispensary owners and workers from mandatory minimum sentencing?

You claim one exists, and these laws only target organized crime.

The Supreme Court of Canada has overruled Health Canada on the subject of dispensaries allowing them to operate freely.

By the letter of the law, it's illegal to do what they are doing, but the Supreme Court has said that those laws are unconstitutional. The Surpreme Court is protecting these owners and workers.

Why you think these changes would have any affect on something the Supreme Court has already deemed acceptable is just another example of your chicken little theory.

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

Where is the law that protects marijuana dispensary owners and workers from mandatory minimum sentencing?

You claim one exists, and these laws only target organized crime.

The Supreme Court of Canada has overruled Health Canada on the subject of dispensaries allowing them to operate freely.

By the letter of the law, it's illegal to do what they are doing, but the Supreme Court has said that those laws are unconstitutional. The Surpreme Court is protecting these owners and workers.

Why you think these changes would have any affect on something the Supreme Court has already deemed acceptable is just another example of your chicken little theory.

Here is a more condensed version of the article I posted 2 days ago which outlines the problem:

$1:

According to Tousaw, cases involving marijuana dispensaries and their growers have often resulted in discharges for the accused. He recalled seeking a discharge in R v Beren on Vancouver Island. The judge in that case, Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg, responded “if ever there was a case in which an absolute discharge was appropriate, it was this one.”

But in order for discharge to be an option, there must be no minimum sentence attached to the crime. Immediately, this eliminates the option for any dispensary operator with more than three kilograms on site. However, a discharge is also unavailable if the crime carries a maximum sentence of 14 years or life in prison. While there is no minimum sentence attached to cultivating fewer than six plants, there is a maximum sentence of 14 years. “Discharges,” said Tousaw, “are not available any longer.”

Another alternative is the conditional sentencing order, which is basically house arrest. Like the discharge, this has been common in marijuana trafficking cases. Again, between the existence of minimum and maximum sentences, this option is now off the table.

Now its your turn to prove that Harper's prohibition laws are not a direct attack on medical marijuana, coupled with the proposed changes to MMAR.

Where is the law that protects marijuana dispensary owners and workers from mandatory minimum sentencing?

The chicken little theory is that marijuana causes crime instead of prohibition.

[OnTheIce]

The Supreme Court isn't enough? The old laws are considered unconstitutional already, this won't change that. There are no formal laws or changes to address the SC decision which plays right into the chicken little theory. Because it's not uber specific, people must be getting targeted.

This is your point to make, not mine to disapprove. You tell me why things will be different as your making that claim.

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

The Supreme Court isn't enough? The old laws are considered unconstitutional already, this won't change that.

The old laws don't exist. When parliament passes amendments to a bill it is new legislation. It will take years before mandatory minimums will be removed by the supreme court at best. The government has for 7 years refused to create a legal framework for medical marijuana even after a supreme court ruling that says we need one. The harper solution has been to put more people in jail and hope the problem goes away.

There is no law that makes dispensaries exempt from the controlled substances act, and they will continue to be persecuted by it with the minimum sentences now where traditionally they received no jail time at all.

You claimed dispensaries were legal businesses. Let's have a look at that law.