Wycinki z marihuana +

PODKOP POD GRANICA

Vancouver W srode rano amerykanska policja w zorganizowanej akcji antynarkotykowej zamknela wybudowany pod granica tunel, ktory biegnie od Kolumbii Brytyjskiej do stanu Washington.
Juz od samego poczatku podejrzewano, ze tunel jest budowany, aby przemycac nim narkotyki pomiedzy Kanada a Stanami Zjednoczonymi.
Przez osiem miesiecy amerykanskie agencje rzadowe, nie wylaczajac FBI, potajemnie obserwowaly powstajacy tunel. Ujawnily sie, gdy dzielo bylo gotowe, aresztujac przy okazji osoby zamieszane w przygotowanie tunelu.
Metrowej szerokosci i poltorametrowej wysokosci tunel zaczyna sie od metalowej budy na terenie huty Qunset w Langley w Kolumbii Brytyjskiej, a konczy sie w domu w Lynden, na terenie USA, zaledwie 90 metrow na poludnie od granicy.
Podczas oblawy, jaka zgotowala strona amerykanska, zatrzymano trzech mezczyzn z Kolumbii Brytyjskiej - 30-letniego Francisa Devandra Raja, 34-letniego Timothy'ego Woo i 27-letniego Jonathana Valenzuela, oskarzonych o przemyt marihuany, za co beda odpowiadac przed amerykanskim wymiarem sprawiedliwosci. Znaleziono przy nich 42 kilogramy marihuany szmuglowanej przez 110-metrowy tunel.
Policja powiedziala, ze jest to pierwszy tunel, jaki odkryto na granicy kanadyjskiej. Tunel biegnie na glebokosci od metra do trzech i jest wzmocniony metalowymi wspornikami i drewnianymi 2x6-calowymi palami. Tunel byl budowany przy pomocy lopat i urzadzen, ktore pozwalaly wynosic ziemie na zewnatrz.
Sledczy, ktorzy przez tyle miesiecy obserwowali budowe, zainstalowali kamery i mikrofony w tunelu i w jego sasiedztwie, aby miec pelny obraz przestepczej dzialalnosci przemytnikow.
Przy takim doswiadczeniu, jakie zdobyli przemytnicy, kto wie - moze teraz beda probowac budowac podkop w wiezieniu?
Sasiedzi powiedzieli, ze od dawna wydawalo im sie podejrzane co dzialo sie wokol domu w Lynden. Nikt jednak nie wpadl na to, ze budowano tam tunel (GAZETA 140, Toronto, 22-24 lipca 2005).

Seattle, Vancouver resist marijuana clampdown
High havens

By JOEL CONNELLY
in Seattle

Hyperbole is addictive when you direct the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, where John Walters has ratcheted up claims that marijuana smoking is a gateway to hard drug use and criminal behaviour.
Crusading against the weed is, for Mr. Walters, a cross-country and even cross-border cause.
Two cities, however, have heard him out but headed off in a new direction. One is a somewhat laid-back Seattle. The other, Vancouver, has a hard-core drug problem as serious as any place in North America.
On the weekend of Aug. 20-21 75,000 people will gather each day at the waterfront for Seattle Hempfest - annually the largest, best organized marijuana event in the United States.
In September, 2003, by a solid 58%, Seattle voters adopted Initiative 75, making marijuana possession the city's lowest law-enforcement priority.
Mr. Walters made a pre-election appearance in Seattle, visiting a detox centre with City Attorney Tom Carr. A year earlier, Mr. Walters had travelled to the Great White North, delivering his message to the Vancouver Board of Trade just before a municipal election in which voters endorsed a radical redirection of drug policy.
In Seattle, the public voice for I-75 and marijuana legalization has been a media-savvy young man named Dominic Holden, long-time Seattle Hempfest organizer - he is taking a break this year - and board member of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
"Our law enforcement saves money from I-75," Mr. Holden said. "Our jails save money. Our kids are not using marijuana more. We have tested, and succeeded in, a more humane policy."
Just 232 kilometres north, at Vancouver city hall, a guy of very different background is an even more emphatic voice for change. "Drug czars are the most ill-informed people in government," Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell said in an interview. "John Walters is pushing against good science. He's pushing an agenda that doesn't fit in the real world. He's in denial."
Mr. Campbell is a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable, and veteran of the drug squad, who became the first Vancouver district coroner. He was named British Columbia's chief coroner in 1996, at a time when drug-overdose deaths were skyrocketing to as many as 400 a year.
The Mayor decries the timidity of Canada's federal government, which has aroused Mr. Walters' wrath by proposing to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Mr. Campbell would go a long step further. "I'd legalize marijuana," he said. "I'd control it, tax the hell out of it and put the money into health care."
"The growing of marijuana in this province is a $3-billion to $7-billion business. Who is making money off it? Organized crime, that's who. No taxes are being paid. No social benefits are realized." The Mayor even gets personal. Mr. Campbell noted his sister is undergoing chemotherapy.
"I've told her - she is a nonsmoker - 'if you get nauseous, I'll get you some B.C. Bud,'" said Mr. Campbell, referring to the informal name of British Columbia's leading agricultural export. "Why? To relieve her pain," he added. "Is that not what we are about as humans?"
During ratings-driven "sweeps months," Seattle TV stations often make a beeline for Vancouver's drug-ridden Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. They have filmed addicts shooting up and breaking into cars to support their habit, and they trekked to the much-publicized Cannabis Cafe - until the police shut it down. The TV cameras just show the surface of suffering. Recently, I went to Alliance Francaise, a local cultural centre, to see a harrowing exhibit by French photographer Marc Josse. Mr. Josse spent a year in the neighbourhood. "We have drug problems, but nothing like this," he is reported as saying. The exhibit, Eastside Stories, details the lives of people, in Mr. Josse's words, "suffering and dying of indifference."
The Downtown Eastside proved to be an epiphany for Mr. Campbell. What changed the RCMP drug squad veteran? "I became a coroner," Mr. Campbell said. "My goal was not enforcement. It became saving peoples' lives." Vancouver has moved to remedy its indifference. Mr. Campbell champions what is called the Four Pillars approach to Vancouver's drug crisis - harm reduction, treatment, prevention and enforcement.
A centrepiece is the city's supervised injection centre, where addicts can shoot up - "We have almost 600 injections a day," Mr. Campbell said - while also receiving health care and counseling on how to kick their habit. In the opinion of the Mayor, the radical measure has broken up the street drug trade, and saved lives by providing emergency response to drug overdoses and curbing needle-spread HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C.
In comparison, Mr. Campbell said that with its focus on interdiction and enforcement, official U.S. drug policy seems caught in a time warp. "They're still in Reefer Madness," he said, referring to an anti-drug movie of the 1930s.
Seattle and Vancouver have chosen a different path.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (NATIONAL POST, Monday, July 25, 2005).