Needle pickup costs concern city councillor

Saskatoon city councillors sure like to complain.

The City of Saskatoon shouldn't pay to pick up discarded needles that originate from the Saskatoon Health Region's needle exchange program, according to Coun. Myles Heidt.

The needle exchange program is necessary and does excellent work, Heidt said, but he wonders if the health region should be doing more to help with cleanup.

"I don't think it's fair. Not handing needles out is not an option, so what do we do? The communities shouldn't be footing the bill (for needle pickups)," Heidt said.

Waaaah! Maybe they should complain about having to shovel snow too. I would think that the cost of picking up needles would be minor compared to the risk of a child getting poked by a dirty needle. As it turns out, Heidt is complaining about nothing.

Assistant fire chief Bob Fawcett said the only cost to the city is the fuel used by fire trucks picking up the needles.

While it may seem excessive to send a large fire truck to pick up one tiny needle, Fawcett said the dangers of dirty needles outweigh concerns of wasteful spending.

"We don't find needle pick-up tedious. This is in the interest of community safety of children. We would rather go out and pick them up rather then children poking themselves," he said.

Maybe they could find a smaller vehicle that is used specifically for needle pick-up if they are so worried about fuel. Otherwise it seems like a pretty good idea having firefighters pick up needles, after all, what do firefighters do when they aren't fighting fires anyway?

If city councillors are wringing their hands about the cost of picking up needles, imagine the fuss if anybody suggested a safe injection site in Saskatoon.

Pothead to spend a minimum of 16 years in prison

Brown, who pleaded guilty to his first and only offense at age 17, was given probation after a $2 armed robbery in which the victim wasn't harmed and had his wallet returned. But months later, Brown violated his probation by testing positive for marijuana. In most cases of marijuana violations, Texas judges — and Dean — often recommend counseling and allow the defendant to remain on probation with a stiff warning.

In this case, however, without explanation, Brown was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

But this story has a "happier" ending.

The response from the story led to a Web site and protests — pressure that seems to have worked. Brown may soon be on the road to freedom, 16 years after his probation violation.

Nobody can give him sixteen years back. But it's nice to know that activism pays off.

I wonder what race Mr. Brown is? I have a feeling that he isn't white. The war on drugs has been absolutely devestating to minorities. Remember kids, "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."*

Hat tip to PZ and TalkLeft.

*Quoth Harry Anslinger, America's first Drug Czar

Marijuana : Mexico's Dandelion

LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico - Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico's top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with pesticides.

This is a perfect example of evolution in progress. The indiscriminate spraying of toxic chemicals in Mexico results in marijuana plants that survive year-round.

Now you know why they call it weed.

Hat tip to Drug War Rant

Cash value of pot crops is highlighted in report

SACRAMENTO -- For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report to be released Monday by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the United States exceeds $35 billion -- far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay.

California is responsible for more than one-third of the cannabis harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined -- and marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report states.

The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter-century despite an anti-drug effort by law enforcement.

Those numbers are shocking. Pot is worth $35 billion dollars a year? It's worth more than the value of grapes, vegetables and hay combined? It's amazing to think that the government is losing out on all that tax revenue due to the black market which they helped create. The economic impact of this misguided social policy is unconscionable.

Predictably, the propogandists at the White House Office of National Drug Control policy don't want to hear it.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, cited examples of foreign countries that have struggled with big crops used to produce cocaine and heroin.

"Coca is Colombia's largest cash crop, and that hasn't worked out for them, and opium poppies are Afghanistan's largest crop, and that has worked out disastrously for them," Riley said. "I don't know why we would venture down that road."

Riiiiight. Is that why opium production is sky-rocketing in Afghanistan?

"It's almost the devil's own problem," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told Congress last month. "Right now the issue is stability. . . . Going in there in itself and attacking the drug trade actually feeds the instability that you want to overcome."

"Attacking the problem directly in terms of the drug trade . . . would undermine the attempt to gain popular support in the region," agreed Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. "There's a real conflict, I think."

Not only do I give you definitive proof that the War on Some drugs has had a huge and devestating impact on the economy, I give you one more reason why the Bush admin should get the hell out of Afghanistn. It's a two-for-one kind of deal.

But Mr. Riley also mentioned something about Columbia? The drug war has had a devestating impact on Columbia. What the US government has done to Columbia's people and the environment in the name of the War on Some Drugs is criminal.

Since early January, pilots from DynCorp, working under contract to the U.S. State Department and under the supervision of the Colombian National Police, have been spraying glyphosate over indigenous and Afro-Colombian villages in the fragile rainforests of Chocó on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Ostensibly they are working to eradicate the coca crops that have sprung up in the region in recent years, as fumigations to the south in Putumayo, Guaviare, and Narino have pushed coca cultivation into new areas, and the utter destruction of local communities and economies has forced more and more people into the lower rungs of the cocaine economy. Rain recently forced a temporary halt to the fumigations, but they are slated to resume once the rain stops.

The reason why "it hasn't worked out for" Columbia is your government's insistence on using chemical warfare to fight the War on Some Drugs, among many other things.

Mayerthorpe

Mayerthorpe was home to the tragic death of four RCMP officers March 3, 2005. James Roszko gunned down the officers after they came to his farm to investigate his illegal activities. Roszko was running a "chop-shop" and a marijuana grow-op. It was a well-known fact in the community that Roszko was an extremely violent individual with an extensive criminal record and untreated mental illness.

In the days following this tragedy we had the predictable knee-jerk reactions. The calls for cracking down on grow-ops, more police and a "crackdown" on violent crime including mandatory minimum sentencing.

And we have the absolute asshats that take advantage of a grieving and shocked public to push their personal political agendas.

Colleen Myrol, the mother of one of the slain officers, made a statement that spoke to the whole country's grief, and our deep common desire to strike back for the loss of these four young men. "It is time that our government take a stand on evil," she said. "It is time to take our liberal-minded attitude to task. Prime Minister Paul Martin, we depend on you and we expect you to change the laws and give the courts real power."

Others, like Liberal MP Dan McTeague, were even more explicit. Pointing to a proposed marijuana bill currently before Parliament that would, among other things, decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot, he called for that legislation to be rewritten to include a minimum sentence of four years for those convicted of running marijuana grow ops. "This has gone too far," he said. "We have legislation that may have the unintended effect of increasing marijuana grow operations. I think it's now time for Parliament to target marijuana grow operations." Those sentiments were echoed by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Professional Police Association, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, among others.

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I know a simple way to eliminate grow-ops. Legalize marijuana and allow people to grow small amounts. Even allowing people to grow three plants to a household would have a significant impact on grow-ops. I would never buy another bag of weed if I could grow it myself without risking jail time and a criminal record. Another awesome idea is allowing full legalization and sale of a regulated product in the liquor store. Nobody would spend the time and money that is required to maintain a highly inefficient indoor grow-op in a legal market. Saskatchewan has very long days and a lot of sunshine. We could be known worldwide for high-quality marijuana if
any of our politicians had any courage. Instead we have Liberal MP's demanding that we piss away more of our tax dollars to impliment stratgies that have no impact on crime rates or drug use.

Targeting grow-ops sounds like a great idea to a lot of people that have been indoctrinated by the media and the school system to fear and loathe marijuana. After all, we aren't punishing small-time users, we are going after drug pushers. Except that small-time users aren't going to give up their weed. For those of us that think that a finely rolled joint of Jack Herer is the best way to end an exhausting day, shutting down grow-ops accomplishes nothing. As long as there are people like me that love the demon weed there are going to be people supplying it. For every grow-op you shut down, a new one starts up to take its' place. Cracking down on grow-ops attacks people like me.

Did Liberal MP Dan McTeague and company do their homework? Did they read the Senate Report? Obviously not or they wouldn't be pandering to the publics' fears in order to push their misguided agenda.

The needless deaths of the RCMP officers was a tragedy. James Roszko was a violent whackjob that should have been institutionalized and his own father was afraid of him. If marijuana was a legal and government regulated substance, Roszko would not have been growing it. The RCMP would not have conducted an illegal search of Rozsko's property. But he would still have had a chop-shop and he still would have been a violent cop-hater with a gun.

I hope one day I can run for office and educate people about the harm caused by the War on Some Drugs. I would like to be a politician that does not sell-out her morals or abuse the publics' fear and grief.

Luckily, some people came to their senses. What a relief!