Drug Dealer Wanted Poster

I really get irritated by this big-balled, Chuck Norris, cock-swinging parody of masculinity that is so frequently promoted. Just take a look at this poster.



A drug dealer is a terrible person that deserves to be hunted down and killed. They compare violent crimes committed with guns to passing a joint. On what planet is this kind of blatant fear-mongering acceptable to post in the hallways of a school?

Apparently, the school principal got his elite drug-fighting skills in Iraq, thus proving once and for all that the US military is nothing more than a training grounds for thugs and bullies.

I hate to break it to deluded school officials, but drug dealers are not scary, horrible, terrible people. They are people that are intelligent enough to see through the overwrought propaganda of the drug warriors and realize that drug use is nothing to fear. Ingesting caffeine, cannabis, alcohol, insulin, aspirin or ibuprofen is not bad if done in a responsible manner. Drug dealers are your kids, friends, teachers, students and members of your community. Don't forget that trafficking is illegal. Passing a joint makes you a drug dealer. According to these school officials, a couple of teenagers passing a joint should be considered dangerous and violent criminals.

Conservative Drug Strategy a Resounding Success

I agree with Neil Horner. We can't have the price of weed going down or we might have to fire those RCMP drug warriors.

Decriminalization would have hit hard at the families of both pot growers and RCMP drug enforcement officers - particularly in this province. That's unacceptable, and Stephen Harper, bless him, knew it.

Won't somebody please think of the pot growers and drug cops?

Now, if the government really wanted to cut down on pot use, it seems logical for it to attack one or both of those two branches. First, disrupt the market. This has actually been done by the crackdown at the border. B.C. People can grow kickass weed, but they can't smoke all of it themselves. They need help from the U.S. With the market flooded, local pot growers are seeing less bang for their hazardous buck.

The idea that the border between the US and Canada is secure is indeed laughable. Ron Paul is running a campaign based on his fear of Mexicans. I wonder if he will promise to secure the Canada/US border once he cleans up the Mexican border.

The real reason that the price of weed is going down in Canada has nothing to do with enforcement. The worthless US currency is the reason for the falling price of domestic marijuana.

There would be nothing good about an increase in the price of marijuana. It just means that organized crime will make more money and mom and pop marijuana grows will become more risky. If they seriously want to harm organized crime, small marijuana grows should be legal. When people like myself are allowed to have beautiful, backyard gardens, organized crime will no longer make money selling an easily grown weed. It's too simple.

Conservatives stand to benefit from outbreak of gang mayhem

I have a completely scientific theory (that I pulled straight out of my ear) about Vancouver's recent crime wave.

The US dollar has sank like a stone recently. This is going to kill BC's marijuana industry. It is no secret that BC exports a lot of marijuana to the US. Exporting high-quality marijuana is what BC does. But thanks to the crashing US dollar, there is just no money to be made in exporting marijuana to the States anymore. So what is going to happen to all of that excess marijuana that is not going to go south?

A lot of people are going to get stuck with marijuana that they can't sell. This is good news for Canadians that love pot. The price will crash domestically, meaning that by Christmas time, Saskatoon will be swamped with cheap and high-quality weed. But this also means an increase in gang violence. There will be debts that can not be repaid and those issues will not be resolved by marijuana growers going bankrupt. It will be resolved with violence. And tragically, that is what we are already seeing.

But there is another evil side effect of the increase in gang violence. The victims of gang violence will be used by the Conservative government to push tough-on-crime initiatives that will not decrease crime.

- Crack down on money laundering by organized crime.

- Earmark $64 million for a "National Anti-Drug Strategy."

- Announce the hiring of 1,000 new RCMP officers as well money to help municipalities hire 2,500 more police.

- Introduce legislation to limit house arrest so that those committing violent crime would be forced to serve jail time; to require mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, and tougher sentencing for violent repeat offenders; to establish a reverse-onus principle in bail hearings for firearm-related offences.

In light of the recent tasering incident in the Vancouver International Airport, more police just might lead to an increase in crime. At any rate, the National Anti-Drug Strategy is the subject of my ire. Cracking down on grow-ops won't affect the crime rate, it will just make selling and growing pot way more profitable for the people that don't get caught.

At least they are paying attention to treatment. But I have to wonder what the prevention strategy will entail. What kind of reefer madness are they going to have to come up with in order to convince people that marijuana is the devil's own weed? Will they have contests to come up with the best "Just Say No" poster? Or will Canada come up with their very own version of Pete's couch? I just can't wait to find out, so I can make fun of it. In the meantime, I will make fun of the ONDCP for coming up with this bit of worthless reefer madness propaganda.



"Smoking marijuana is the safest thing in the world."

PS: While googling I came across this impressive debunking of reefer madness propaganda at Daily Kos. Enjoy.

Growing Fear

The National Post has done it again. They have an absolutely fabulous bit of uninformed reefer madness propaganda. They rant on and on about the danger posed by growops run by gangs. And what is their solution to this problem, pray tell? To throw more money at this problem. Fill up the jails with gang-bangers. We all know how well that has worked in the US.

It drives me absolutely crazy to read this garbage. All you have to do to avoid the violence associated with grow-ops is to legalize pot. But such a simple, straight-forward solution is not embraced. Instead we force peaceful pot people to subsidize criminal organizations. Meanwhile, we have a provincial election going on and not a single one of our provincial leaders has the courage or the intelligence to do the one thing that would provide a huge blow to the problem of gangs and violence in this province - legalize marijuana.

Canada chooses cannabis, not so high on steroids

So it isn't just Ross Rebliati, the famous Olympic snow-boarder that tested positive for weed.

Do you think cannabis is a performance-enhancing substance?

I get mail

One Robert Jereski sent me an email asking for my thoughts and opinions about Plan Mexico. Plan Mexico is the $1 billion the Americans are giving to the Mexican government to fight the drug war. John Walters and Co. have been frantically trying to sell the drug war by claiming that the price of cocaine has gone down and thus the Drug War is not a failure. Don't listen to those drugged-up hippies!

Of course, calling a temporary increase in the price of cocaine in the drug war a victory just goes to show how delusional the powers-that-be really are. Despite the demonization and otherization of scary, evil drug addicts, the fact remains that they are people. They are just as resourceful as those of us that choose to limit our drug-taking to legal and socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or prescription drugs. A poor, determined, desperate addict will simply turn to crimes such as prostitution or break and enter to afford their habit. Middle-class and wealthy people that can afford to pay for their habit simply find another supplier for their drugs. Also, new dealers will come in and supply the drugs that the ADDICTS are looking for. Any price increases thanks to law enforcement are temporary at best. As the eloquent blogger at I was the state says, when supply of a product decreases, the price goes up. With a highly profitable commodity like cocaine, there will always be people willing to risk jail time to make the big bucks.

At any rate, I am rambling again, as I like to do. I am writing this post to address Robert Jereski, who was kind enough to solicit my opinion about American interference in Mexican foreign policy. He pointed me to the fact that the Clinton administration supported an equally disastrous program known as Plan Columbia. Thanks for reminding me that Democrats and Republicans are equally imperialistic when it comes to the drug war. Apparently, Amnesty International are opposed to plan Mexico unless it targets the deep flaws in the judicial and security systems.

I have to admit, that while I am flattered that strangers on the internet value my opinion on the drug war and foreign policy, I feel deeply unqualified to comment. There is no question that the incidents at Oaxaca show that there is corruption in the criminal justice system and it needs to be cleaned up. I would love nothing more than for the corrupt Mexican regime would stop murdering disobedient left-wing dissidents that don't approve of the government. I am nothing, if not an opinionated dissident school marm mom with a blog full of opinions that will change the world.

However, let's not lose sight of the big picture. This blog is not called "Blame the drug war" for nothing. I am trying desperately to emulate the great feminist blogger Twisty Faster. I Blame the Patriarchy steps back and shows how patriarchy should be blamed instead of the individuals living within it. I want to put the blame on the drug war instead of on the individual drug addicts and dealers living within this system. Why blame them when it's the entire, corrupt system that needs to go? How is it helpful to rail against the no-good drug pushers preying on the addicts, when so much of the harm caused by drugs is caused by the drug war and not the use of drugs? Talk of punishing pushers and healing addicts distracts everybody from the real issue: The drug war sucks.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Amnesty International says nothing about the drug war. The number one cause of police corruption and the state abusing its' power against its' own people and Amnesty International says nothing about it? Where is the policy statement at AI calling for the immediate end to the war on drugs? Like I said before, I am but a lowly school marm mom with a whole lot of opinions and please correct me if I'm wrong. But I did not find anything at AI calling for an end to the drug war.

The UN is another international organization that supports the drug war. They have the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and resolutions reading like a drug warriors' wet dream.

Until these international organizations and ngo's can pull their heads out of their butts and support ending the drug war, they will get criticism from me. *BURN* Calling for reform of Mexico's corrupt judicial system is great but we should not forget to call for an end to the drug war as well.

Also, to answer your question about US president's, here is a really good summary of the war on drugs. Jimmy Carter supported the legalization of marijuana but it never went anywhere. It's hard to expect a lowly US president to be able to counteract all those years of reefer madness propaganda.

All of the US presidents have supported the war on drugs. All of them had a number of drug war pushers for Drug Czar. The Drug Czar title has always reminded me of a bunch of teens playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement. At any rate, all of the Drug Czars lived up to the pointy-hat authoritarian image and spent piles of money on enforcement while drugs have gotten increasingly cheaper and more available over the years.

Tough on Drug Pushers, Soft on Users

The polarization of political issues into the two neat categories of right and left has always struck me as problematic. There are only two sides to every issue - right and wrong. The Tories are trying to cast themselves as the white-hat cowboys by promoting a tough-on-drugs campaign. The Conservatives want to crack down on pushers while going soft on the users. What this means is more money spent fighting grow-ops and also an increase in spending to save the addicts from themselves. Meanwhile the Tories are casting the NDP as black-hats while they gush on about the Insite safe injection site. But nobody is promoting the most important harm-reduction idea of all: repealing prohibition.

Why does the NDP spend so much time focusing on the safe injection site while Harper is promising to spend $22 million on busting grow-ops? I have yet to hear an NDP member publicly support legalizing marijuana, a measure that would eliminate grow-ops and do something about the underground black market economy that is crippling our society. All the drug-related violence that the police claim to care so much about is related directly to the drug war, not the use of drugs. Yet none of these cowards has the courage to say it.

The political left is not doing a good job of opposing the war on drugs. They focus on harm-reduction while completely ignoring the war on marijuana users. Meanwhile, there is $10 million promised for "prevention initiatives", meaning worthless reefer madness propaganda about how bad pot is for your health. Tony Collavano, the president of the Canadian Police Association recently stated that marijuana is more harmful than tobacco. I guess he didn't know that marijuana does not cause lung cancer and is far less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Pot has never caused a single death in the thousands of years it has been used for both recreation and medicinal use. I am fearful for this world when the head of the police state Canadian police is promoting such blatant lies. We may have to ship them off to Jamaica for some education.

The NDP says they don't want no "US war on drugs" but they don't define what that means or why that is a bad idea. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Black people are jailed at disproportionately high rates compared to whites. Since their war on drugs began when Nancy Reagan started her "Just Say No" campaign, drugs have gotten more potent and cheaper in price over the years. Since that time the American government has devastated Columbia with narco-aerial spraying raids that has had a tremendous and negative impact on the environment and the economy. Herbicides are poison and they ruin food and drug crops alike. American money has funded the Columbian army in war on their own people. The American government is not a role model for Canada to follow.

The war on drugs does not reduce the number of drug users. The black market encourages drug use in a million ways that you can only understand if you have spent some time connected to the drug culture in some way. Selling drugs is profitable and recruiting new customers makes money. Only a small percentage of users and growers get caught.

All you have to do to end the black market economy is legalize . Growing and selling the wrong plants shouldn't be a crime.

Harper Drug Strategy: He Really Hates Those Smelly Hippies

As I was watching this news clip, I couldn't help but be struck by the giant mountain of stupid this brand new Tory get-tough-on-drugs campaign is. First I get to be embarrassed to be Canadian by the sight of our Prime Minister bloviating on the harms of the drug culture. He rails against the evils of something he knows absolutely nothing about. Harry Pothead and the Marijuana Stone is the new Taliban.

While Harper tries to resell very old and very bad ideas under the guise of saving the children from drugs, I am subjected to weak and cowardly Tory pandering disguised as commentary from CTV. "The US drug war has had mixed results." Dude, mixed results? The US war on drugs has led to them having the highest incarceration rates in the world and the cheapest drug prices. They fail at failing.

The government and the knobs that run it don't care about you or fighting crime. They have a drug war to sell. It doesn't matter to them that it's a complete and utter failure. The lefties are in utter disarray, fighting amongst themselves (NDP, Greens, "Liberals") and now they can push tough-on-crime policies that will increase crime. The price of weed will go up and people will start lying about their pot use on anonymous surveys again. The pot rates will go down by 1/2 % and they will declare victory in the war on drugs.

All this talk of busting grow-ops or "dangerous drug pushers" is ridiculous. Why do people fall for it? Pot is a safe drug and is demonized for political reasons. It's less dangerous than chewing gum. Getting tough on grow-ops makes as much sense as going after Starbucks in a war on coffee.

Police group backs stiffer drug stance

OTTAWA -- The 50,000-member Canadian Police Association yesterday hailed the Harper government's promise of a new get-tough drug strategy, expected to be unveiled this week. "That is a cornerstone, because a lot of violence is related to drugs," said association president Tony Cannavino, after a Parliament Hill ceremony to honour fallen law-enforcement officers.

Tony Cannavino must have been misquoted. This is what he really means:

"That is a cornerstone, because a lot of violence is related to the drug war."

Harper government to unveil get-tough national drug strategy

I am not in the least surprised to discover that our "Health Minister" Tony Clement has just recently promised to unleash a get-tough war-on-drugs approach to fight the problems caused by drug abuse. The Conservative government showed it's opposition to sensible drug policies when it killed the Liberals' weak and mealy-mouthed marijuana decrim bill in 2004. The decrim bill was introduced in response to the Senate Committee report from 2001 that recommended the legalization of marijuana. Legalization would mean allowing cannabis to be regulated and sold in a similar manner to alcohol and cigarettes. Conservatives howled with outrage at the idea of legalization and the Liberals came up with a decrim bill that would increase the penalties for growers while at the same time decreasing the penalties for end users.

Since Clement is a knob he has a ridiculous and easily refuted set of talking points:

"There's been a lot of mixed messages going out about illicit drugs," Mr. Clement said in an interview Saturday after a symposium designed to bring together Canada's arts and health communities to combat mental health issues.

There's also a health-care cost element to suggesting to young people that using illicit drugs is OK, the minister said.

"The fact of the matter is they're unhealthy," Mr. Clement said.

"They create poor health outcomes."

Whether illegal drugs are dangerous or not is not the issue. Every illegal drug has different health effects on the human body, ranging from relatively benign in the case of marijuana to potentially deadly, in the case of crystal meth. What is disputed is the impact of the war on drugs. Drugs are cheaper and more potent than ever, thanks to prohibition. The law supports a thriving black market economy and wastes our resources. Despite the hard work of drug policy reform groups and the ignored Senate Report, the government has not yet figured it out. Prohibition is a complete and total failure.

At any rate, talk of sensible drug policy looks to be a thing of the past. The Globe and Mail looks at both sides of the drug policy debate and this is what opponents of the tough on crime measures have to say:

Dr. Martin says he's all for increasing penalties for people who sell illegal drugs, including gangsters, but wonders why the Tories would want to target users when he says similar strategies in other countries haven't worked.

"I can't understand why the Conservatives are embracing a war-on-drugs approach that has proven to fail," he said.

"By all means, go after the pushers. By all means, absolutely go after the organized crime gangs that are the real parasites in this situation," he added.

"But for heaven's sake, treat the user as a medical problem and adopt the solutions that have proven to work in other countries."

They couldn't find a single MP to state that the war on drugs is a failure. Where are the voices of politicians that think the whole thing stinks and legalize all drugs? What a bunch of cowardly, ineffectual, brainwashed knobs.

I despair at this upcoming federal election. My choices are going to be between dumb and dumber. Should I vote NDP or Green Party? Maybe I should just start my own country.

Drug Link Round-Up

Sorry for my lack of posting. I have no brilliant excuse, I just haven't had much to say lately. Anyway, here are the stories that have been catching my eye recently:

Canada signs on to fight poppy trade. Canadian troops will be helping drug-eradication efforts in Afghanistan. It is no secret that the opium crop has been increasing over the years, thanks to the poverty and the instability in the country. Poor farmers are increasingly turning to the opium trade to feed their families. There is one thing that both drug warriors and drug policy reformers agree on:

"Breaking this linkage [between drugs production and insurgent financing] is vital to creating a stable, prosperous and democratic, Afghanistan ..." says the communique, released after the closed-door gathering.

But drug policy reformers and drug warriors will never agree on the solution to the problem. I am increasingly disgusted by the way the International community refuses to see how the drug war is helping terrorist groups and failing to see that increased enforcement will increase the harm caused by drugs. What we need to do is legalize it. If we want to help the people of Afghanistan we should be buy the opium crops and use the opium for pain-killing medicine. We should legalize all of the opium that is being grown everywhere and get away from this ridiculous domination mentality which is ruining the planet.

And more stupidity! Britain is caught in the grip of reefer madness as there are continual reports of children being trafficked into the underground cannabis trade. The New Zealand Herald refers to these kids as cannabis slaves. I haven't read such ridiculous reefer madness since Emily Murphy's The Black Candle when she stated that:

"When coming from under the influence of (marijuana), the victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal willpower, and their mentality is that of idiots. If this drug is indulged to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict."

These cannabis slaves are apparently being forced to tend to these cannabis poison gardens. They have to water the plants and have to deal with the electrical dangers of grow-ops. You know this article is absolutely crazy reefer madness when you get to this prize quote:

Police believe organised crime gangs, largely Vietnamese, have moved quickly to dominate Britain's cannabis market after declassification in 2004 increased the potential rewards of growing and selling the drug and decreased the risks of punishment.

There is no reason to believe that the dangerous criminal gangs benefit from decriminalization in any way, as it is still illegal to grow or sell cannabis in the UK. There are simply decreased penalties for users. In fact, the criminal gangs benefit greatly from this situation and if the government wants to seriously harm the gangs, they simply have to put cannabis in the legitimate drug market. If you can buy cannabis at the corner store, there is no reason to buy it on the black market. This would have the added benefit of saving the children from the horrors of being cannabis slaves. Look at that, I have saved the children and a whole lot of money in one fell swoop.

Look at all the drugs we seized

I never get tired of reading news stories about the number of drugs/marijuana plants that have been seized and kept out of the hands of young innocents and therefore the War on Drugs is a great victory. This idea is a theme running through many if not all drug war news stories. Every drug bust gets closer to the alleged goal of the War on Drugs: complete eradication.

Here is yet another one of these stories and the lies and misinformation should be readily apparent to the reader. Alas, in a reefer madness saturated universe, the reader will be forgiven if he or she requires Tanya-the-know-it-all blogger to point out truths which will become obvious. Take this news article from the Guelph Mercury Newspaper. The headline proclaims:

Regional Pot Bust Scores 5,552 Plants

As if the eradication of 5,552 plants means anything when it comes to the War on Drugs. I wonder how much marijuana is grown, harvested and sold in a year. Does anybody know? Because it is pretty difficult to determine the availability of an illegal, black market substance. Maybe I should pull 5,552 dandelions out of my garden and write a newspaper story declaring victory in the war on garden weeds. We don't need to know the size of the market or the number of weeds in existence to know whether our efforts are having an impact!

No drug war news story would be complete without an estimation of the street value of the crop.

Sergeant Cam Croal of the RCMP drug section said the plants had a street value of between $3.5 million and $5 million.

But no mention of where that number comes from or an acknowledgment that the drug war is what makes these substances so valuable in the first place.

I do think it would be a great idea if we took the advice at the end of the article and helped the police out with some handy Crime-Stopper tips. If you know of anybody in possession of a roach clip or a roach, be sure to give Crime-Stoppers a call. They need your help!

Croal encouraged anyone with information about illegal drugs to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Because remember kids, teens smoking pot is the greatest security risk in the universe and it must be stopped. So be sure to give them a call and tell them all about the marijuana-using terrorists.

This has been the latest edition of Recognizing Reefer Madness and Pro-Drug War Propaganda.

Uncle Tom Chris Rock

While it is true that I hate Uncle Toms like Bill Cosby and Chris Rock with an undying passion, I did enjoy this anti-drug war screed.



Just don't watch anything else that he does. It is absolutely terrible and the fact that Rock is famous makes me fear for the future of the universe. He really really hates bitches women.

Why am I watching this garbage? I was over at Drug War Rant and read about the lack of opposition to the war on drugs in the black community and I did a Chris Rock search on youtube. I will go wash myself in bleach now, thanks.

For some prize quotes about the racial basis of the drug laws, go here. This is my "favorite" quote:

"If a peaceable red man is subjected to the regular use of alcoholic beverage, he will speedily be put back to the plane of the savage. The Government long since recognized this and absolutely prohibits the introduction of alcoholic beverage into an Indian reservation. If a negro takes up a regular use of alcoholic beverage, in a short time he will degenerate to the level of the cannibal. No matter how high the stage of evolution, the result is the same."

Busting Grow-ops a Success!

If it's in the newspaper it has to be true. Surrey's recent success at eradicating grow-ops has been all the rage in the BC newspapers these days.

Surrey Expects to Be Grow-Op Free by the end of the year!

Busting Grow-Ops a Success so far!

Is the drug war actually succeeding or is this just more reefer madness propaganda? I am sorry to disappoint all the drug warriors out there, but there is no reason to believe that the city of Surrey will succeed in eradicating the grow-ops. All of us cannabis consumers can breathe a sigh of relief.

You see, they come to their erroneous conclusion that there are fewer grow-ops due to the fact that they have gone after home-owners with suspiciously high electricity consumption. The problem is that it is quite easy to bypass the electrical meter and get your electricity for free. I can thank my university prof for telling me all about it in that electrical engineering class that I failed out of. I wonder if he had a few plants in his closet. Fortunately, cannabis consumers and growers don't always live up to the dopey, stoner stereotype. They can read the newspaper and learn that grow-ops will be targeted and will take measures to protect their crops. Shocking, I know.

These stories rely on the underlying assumption that eliminating grow-ops would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity. Of course, for those of us who know about all the beneficial medical and recreational uses for marijuana, nothing can be further from the truth. I doubt that all those patients that find relief for their medical problems would be happy to know that their medicine has been eliminated from the planet.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with marijuana and there is no reason or all the hysteria surrounding the use of this plant.

If you want to get rid of dangerous grow-ops it's simple. Legalize it and let people grow it where ever they want.

ACLU will sue to halt teacher drug testing

Good news from Hawaii. Last year, the teachers were pressured into signing a contract that made drug-testing mandatory. Now the ACLU is suing to show their opposition to the teacher drug-testing proposal. I just wish they would or could do the same for students. Why should anybody be subjected to the pee police?

Drug-testing is one of those ideas that looks great on paper but is fraught with difficulty in practice. Most people don't realize that drug-testing is expensive, inaccurate, does not test for impairment or job performance and is an invasion of privacy. Luckily, we Canadians don't yet have to worry about this issue but who knows when we will be next. I always thought we were free of nut-job pro-lifers until I read this. If Americans do it, you can guarantee we will do it eventually.

And like I always say, if the only way you can identify drug users is by subjecting their pee to analysis in a lab, how bad can their drug problem really be?

A Cure for Cancer?

AMHERST — A Maccan-area man who says marijuana cures cancer admitted Thursday he grew marijuana on his property, turned it into an oil and distributed the oil free of charge to people fighting a variety of diseases.

However, Ricky Logan Simpson, 57, told the jury hearing his Nova Scotia Supreme Court trial on three drug charges that he should not be considered a criminal because the laws forbidding the possession, growing and distribution of marijuana are unconstitutional.

Simpson goes on to makes some extraordinary but truthful claims about the pharmaceutical industry. There is no reason to believe that they are doing everything that they can to fight cancer. We still have next-to-no access to legal medical marijuana but plenty of people that are self-medicating. It is funny to me that it's quite acceptable to self-medicate with drugs like ibuprofen and Sudafed. It is very possible to damage your liver by overdosing on ibuprofen but it's legal and we even give it to our kids to treat their fevers when they are sick. If we can do that then why can't we self-medicate with a harmless weed? Because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money and they own our politicians. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence available to prove that medical marijuana can be very helpful. I have read about many cancer and AIDS patients that were helped by the use of marijuana. I have a friend that uses it to treat her epilepsy but is unable to find a doctor to sign her papers to get her license to possess approved. Only 32 people in Saskatchewan have access to legal med pot, despite the fact that I easily know over 32 people that use pot for medical purposes.

All I can say is that I wish Ricky Simpson good luck in his fight against the over-zealous prohibition warriors that charged him possessing less than 30 grams of marijuana, possessing less than three kilograms of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking and unlawfully producing marijuana. He is challenging the constitutionality of our drug laws.

The Price of Pot

Here you can see the wonderful result of pot prohibition - elevated prices for an easy to grow weed. Luckily for me, Canada has pretty cheap pot prices, at just under 10 bucks a gram. This probably won't last long, what with the government's brand new up and coming anti-drug campaign. I wish they would hurry up and get on with it so that I can get started making fun of it. Hey, why should I wait to make fun of the government? I might as well try and do it right now.

Did you know that Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign in twenty years? It's time that we followed in the footsteps of the small, brown south and cracked down on drugs. The Americans' anti-drug campaign worked so well that they now have more drug users than ever. I will now make up statistics to prove myself right.

Actually, drug use is completely unrelated to any anti-drug campaigns and is currently fashionable right now, just like marketing strip-pole Barbie to 8 year old girls. If they really want to reduce drug use they have to make it uncool. Show pictures of little old ladies in wheelchairs using pot for their aches and pains. There is nothing cool about that. If it worked in the Netherlands, it can work here.

I would love nothing more than for teenagers to give up smoking pot because it is something that only uncool, sick old people do. That would be sweet. Ruining drugs for teenagers is my life-long ambition.

We don't give our kids enough credit

The Winnipeg Free Press is at it again. They are clutching their pearls and hitting the fainting couch because kids are smart enough to prefer marijuana to tobacco and alcohol. Just have a look at these prize quotes:

Smoking Pot Is More Popular Than Puffing On Tobacco: Study

A new study that concludes Canadian teens smoke more marijuana than cigarettes doesn't surprise Manitoba addiction officials.

An increasing rate of marijuana smoking among young people is just one finding in a report about substance report released Wednesday. Researchers say the report should serve as a "call to action" to parents.

Those parents should be celebrating! Their kids are making a smart choice to stay away from cigarettes and go for "dope" instead. The only dopes are the ones that wrote this completely one-sided and biased article. I guess the authors don't realize that pot doesn't cause cancer, is less addictive than coffee and is far safer than alcohol or tobacco.

"We're not trying to say to these kids: 'don't use', because that doesn't necessarily work. What we're saying is, understand the risks associated with ( pot ) use, and hopefully that will lead to less use," he says.

This is wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. The reason pot is so popular has nothing to do with drug education at all. Pot is cool right now because drugs are like fashion - they go in and out of style all the time. Teaching kids the truth about pot is not going to discourage them from smoking it because the truth is that pot isn't very dangerous. It doesn't cause cancer, and everything causes cancer. If you want to discourage kids from smoking pot, we have to make it a lot less cool.

Legalize pot for the medical users and show mainstream pot-smokers as little old ladies in wheelchairs treating their cancer. There is nothing cool about that.

There are far more examples of stupid in the article but pointing them out would take far too long and be far too painful for me. I am going to finish the laundry instead. It's more entertaining.

O Canada: Long, disjointed rant ahead

In case you have been too busy looking for weed to pay attention to the latest bit of nonsense from our fine, Canadian, best-medicare-in-the-world government, well go ahead and light up your fatties and sit down and enjoy reading about this craziness. Our "health minister" Tony Clement must have smoked some bad wampum if he thinks that a brand-new re-packaging of very old and ineffective reefer madness propaganda is a good idea. He is quoted in the Vancouver Sun as saying that:

The government plans a campaign emphasizing the dangers of all illicit drugs in any quantity, he said. "We will discourage young people from thinking there are safe amounts or safe drugs," he said, later telling doctors that the marijuana available today isn't the same as what they might have smoked experimentally during their youth.

They must have gotten their drug information from the drug czar, John Walters. Marijuana is not stronger or more dangerous than it used to be. Saying it over and over again doesn't make it true.

Luckily sensible harm-reduction polices are being supported by the Canadian Medical Association and the provincial NDP health critic. Anyway, my reason for bringing this up is the recent brouhaha calling for a brand-new drug education campaign. The problem is, it isn't brand new at all. It's just a re-packaging of some very old ideas. You know what I mean, the ideas that all use is abuse, marijuana is a gateway drug, there is no safe amount to ingest and marijuana is stronger and more powerful than it used to be. None of these ideas are accurate and they define the pitfalls of our past attempts at drug education. What is wrong with telling kids the truth about drugs? There is nothing wrong with telling kids that marijuana does not cause cancer or schizophrenia. Why is the truth so scary to these people?

Just read some of the prize quotes in this "editorial" that happens to be completely short of any sort of critical analysis.

If the Conservatives have made up their minds against decriminalizing marijuana - an option we continue to favour - the next best solution is to make sure the law is understood, and to inform Canadians of the legal and health consequences of using it.

They then go on to criticize the government if they go ahead and increase the number of citizens they are currently arresting. (OOOPS! They are already increasing the number of possession arrests in Canada.) They also continue onward with the reefer madness propaganda.

Studies have found even a so-called soft drug like marijuana is not entirely harmless. Among some users predisposed to mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, marijuana might heighten the risk of mental-health problems.

If this was true we would be swimming in schizophrenics. But the number of schizophrenics has stayed the same over the years even though the number of marijuana users has gone way up. Could it be that pot isn't as dangerous as its' made out to be? They even go on about an anti-smoking campaign. The problem is they don't explain that there is a huge difference between the health risks of smoking tobacco and the health risks of smoking cannabis. Cannabis does not cause schizophrenia, lung cancer or heart disease. The overdose rate is still zero. If we decide to lie by omission in future anti-drug campaigns, they will fail just like the anti-drug campaigns of yesterday. I remember clearly how I felt when I discovered that most of what I was taught about drugs in school was inaccurate or misleading. We owe our kids better than that.

Speaking of child abuse, I ran across this absolutely terrible letter to the editor written by Peter John Mitchell of the basket-of-puppies institute. Oh so sorry, I meant the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada. He sings the same old song about marijuana causing schizophrenia (it doesn't) and depression.

At least Mitchell has the good sense to mince his words when they are published in the newspaper and read by the general public. But you should go on and take a look at the whacky anti-family ideas espoused by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada on their website. I found these papers on their homepage: A foul screed blaming single mothers for the downfall of humanity and A disgusting homage to child abuse. I wonder if they have an article about beating your wife when she gets out of line. I really don't want to know.

Anyway, if that gets you down, I also found this interesting document on the Swedish governments' web-site. I will have to read it if I get a minute. In the meantime, I will be re-organizing my office and making anti-drug war propaganda in anticipation of the upcoming provincial election. This could be a lot of fun.

Court Protects Casual Drug Use

Will workplace safety be trumped by human-rights law?

What is wrong with this question as published in the National Post?

Oh you don't know? Well allow me to explain. By asking this question we have to agree on a set of underlying assumptions. You have to believe, in spite of all the evidence, that drug testing improves the safety of the workplace. You also have to believe that handing over your pee to the pee police is not an invasion of privacy.

This headline is all wrong and so is the question. It should read Court Protects the Privacy of Workers. Or how about Will the misguided concerns of overzealous employers trump common sense? Or Court Protects Workers from the Pee Police.

Listen up, you pee-policing morons. Drug testing is ineffective. It doesn't test for impairment and a failed drug test means absolutely nothing. There is an unacceptably high rate of false positives. You can lose your job based on a flawed drug test. If you think that false positives are not a problem, think again. Workers should be judged by their job performance. If you can't identify drug users without subjecting their pee to analysis, how much of a problem can drug use be?

From personal experience I can tell you that fatigue and your mental state are the biggest on-the-job impairments. Staying up all night with a cranky baby or missing my morning coffee affect my job performance. But there is no drug test for that. At least, not yet. Pretty soon if my caffeine levels go too low I will be considered impaired.

I wish that the National Post would quit re-printing this ill-thought out reefer madness and call it news.