Policja w Matheson, na polnocy Ontario, dokonala drugiego w ciagu miesiaca nalotu na planatcje marihuany. W koncu lipca w Iroquois Falls, 35 kilometrow od Matheson, znaleziono uprawe marihuany liczaca ponad 21,000 krzakow. Obecny lup policji do dalsze 18,000 krzakow, z ktorych wiekszosc miala wysokosc ponad metr.
Aresztowano dwoch mieszkancow Toronto, obaj sa w wieku 39 lat: Xian Zhao Li i Han Chu Hu. Zostali oskarzeni o kilka przestepstw zwiazanych z hodowla i dystrybucja narkotykow.
Niestety kary za sama uprawe marihuany sa na tyle lagodne, ze oplaca sie to czynic od nowa, mimo licznych ostatnio wpadek. Proceder ten zostal w Ontario w duzym stopniu opanowany przez gangi azjatyckie (DZIENNIK ITP, Toronto, 12 - 18 sierpnia 2005).
Emery Seeds warns buyers they 'may be in danger'
Company claims DEA is tricking buyers into admitting they bought contraband pot seeds
"YOU MAY BE in danger." That's the message from Emery Seeds, the defunct marijuana seed distribution company owned by pot activist Marc Emery, who now faces extradition to the U.S. after being arrested at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in July. At that time, Emery's physical seed shop was also raided and shut down. Now, staff of Emery Seeds say anyone who's ever bought from the online retailer had better beware: the DEA might be looking for them. "We feel very strongly that this is law enforcement trying to sweep up a lot of our customers, many whom are growers," said Jodie Giesz of emeryseeds.com. According do Giesz, approximately 200 to 300 seed orders sent out in June were likely intercepted by the DEA. She said she believes the DEA is now trying to trick buyers into admitting they requested the contraband seeds by sending them a fake letter, which purports to be from the distribution company and asks recipients to confirm their seed order. Giesz said responding to this letter and confirming any order would be tantamount to an admission of guilt, but she said Emery Seeds had protected its clients. Nothing the DEA seized from the company's headquarters - records of outgoing orders, for example - implied clients listed were actually requesting the contraband seeds, she said. "(The DEA) can't prove that pieces of mail are seed orders," she said. "What they can do is send their own mail to all of those addresses, with a letter included posing as Marc Emery Direct." Neither the Vancouver Police Department nor the DEA returned Dose's calls for comment. - JENNIFER SELK/DOSE VANCOUVER
On Sunday, Marc Emery posted the following message of defiance on his Cannabis Culture website: "If Canada becomes prohibition free, then American prohibition will fall. But if the United States government is allowed to triumph with intimidation... then liberation for all North America is that much more elusive."
How do you feel about the Marc Emery case? Vote at dose.ca/emery (DOSE 094 Tuesday 16 August 2005). http://www.dose.ca/vancouver/story.html?id=0f04ebd-a60f-4599-b7fe-ce3b24ab1a9b
Drug policy tailored to U.S.: critics
'Gesture' won't curb use of crystal meth, experts say
BY ALLAN WOODS
OTTAWA * The latest shot in Canada's war on drugs is a "throwaway political gesture" that will do little to curb the spread of crystal meth across the country, policy experts, academics and opposition politicians sad yesterday. Instead, critics believe the government's decision to increase maximum penalties for producers, users and smugglers of the drug from 10 years to life imprisonment appears designed to draw marginally tougher sentences from a reluctant judicial system and bring Canada's handling of drug crimes into line with the expectations of the United States government. "They're doing the same old thing. They're saying we've got to do something so let's toughen up the penalties," said Ottawa drug lawyer Eugene Oscapella, of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. "This is politics. These are politicians pretending to do something." The decision, announced jointly by the Justice, Health and Public Safety ministries, changes the Criminal Code to put methamphetamine into the same class of drugs as cocaine and heroin. In Banff, Alta., the move was applauded by premiers yesterday - particularly in Western Canada where abuse of the drug has been most prevalent. "I think Canadians generally should be very pleased with this news," said Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, adding the tougher measures should act as a deterrent. "It's something that we as Western premiers, when we gathered just weeks ago, called for." The move is also likely to please the United States, which expressed concern in its most recent annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report that Canada could become a major source of methamphetamine and the chemicals used to make it just as this country's marijuana crops are smuggled across the border. "Apparently, one of [the U.S. government's] objectives, and this is unbelievably offensive, is to alter and modify Canadian criminal justice policy in relation to drugs," said Alan Young, a law professor and marijuana advocate at Yourk University. "Whether or not this is part and parcel of that exercise I have no clue... but they've clearly stated this is the direction they want Canada to go in." He suggested Canada's approval of a U.S. request to begin extradition hearings against Vancouver pot merchant Marc Emery, a close friend of Mr. Young's who was arrested last month in Halifax, is another example of attempts to appease the Americans. Mr. Emery's shop was raided after an undercover operation in which authorities allege he sold marijuana seeds at an annual profit of $3-million to customers, 75% of whom were American. The allegations also constitute an offence in Canada, but such cases have rarely been prosecuted. Conservative justice critic Vic Toews said emulating the U.S. approach to the war on drugs is a good thing, but yesterday's announcement does not go far enough. "I can't remember the last time anyone dealing in meth received 10 years, so what is the point of increasing it to life in prison?" he asked. "The real issue is if you want prison to be the punishment for methamphetamine... then you have to impose mandatory minimum sentences. We have to be looking at least two years." Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at Vancouver's Simon Fraser University, said it is "misguided" to think a get-tough criminal-justice approach to the problem will curtail the existence of the drug, because methamphetamine use historically emerges, peaks and dies out naturally because of the intense, self-destructive addiction. "What I'd say about the government's approach is that, on the one hand it quite appropriately reflects the seriousness of the problems that this drug creates. On the other hand the notion that those kinds of penalties are going to be terribly effective in changing the patterns of abuse is a little misguided," he said. CanWest News Service (NATIONAL POST, Friday, August 12, 2005).
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