+ 27th August 2007 | Dirty nappies 'used to smuggle drugs'

Source: News.com.au
Author: Unknown

A man allegedly used dirty nappies to smuggle drugs into a southeast Arnhem Land community.

A 45-year-old man in a four-wheel-drive was stopped shortly before midnight last Friday, east of Roper Bar Crossing at the dry Aboriginal community of Ngukurr, police said. A search of his vehicle turned up six bottles of beer, six cans of rum and cola, a bottle of rum and one can of beer.

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+ 25th August 2007 | Is it or isn't it? The pot pendulum swings again

Source: The Toronto Star
Author: Lynda Hurst

Just as Canadians are embracing pot as never before, the government plans a new war on drugs. The move is fitting, given this country's ambivalent relationship with weed over the decades.

In announcing an upcoming federal anti-drug campaign, Health Minister Tony Clement stated the obvious this week. "The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least."

Clement specifically mentioned the on-off debate on marijuana: It "has left an entire generation confused over whether or not pot is legal." He felt it necessary to remind his audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, it is not."

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+ 18th August 2007 | Police seize hydro cannabis in house raid

Source: News.com.au
Author: Unknown

Cannabis worth $290,000 has been seized in a raid on a house in Sydney's south-west, police say.

Two men have been charged with numerous drug offences after police allegedly found a hydroponic cannabis set-up in a house at Edensor Park during a raid at about 4.15pm (AEST) yesterday. Police allegedly seized 145 large cannabis plants and a quantity of equipment. A 44-year-old Condell Park man has been charged with seven offences, including cultivating a prohibited plant.

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+ 17th August 2007 | Australia's 'cannabis king' put away for 13 years

Source: The Courier Mail (QLD)
Author: Peter Michael

DRUG kingpin Alexander Malcolm Lane does not look like a "Mr Big". But for more than a decade the Cairns father-of-two, who turns 60 tomorrow, presided over one of Australia's most sophisticated marijuana-growing cartels.

The former bank manager and grazier was yesterday sentenced in Cairns Supreme Court to 13½ years' jail for his role as head of the multi-million-dollar syndicate. Justice Stanley Jones, in sentencing, said Lane was "second to none" in the organisation.

"You were responsible for marketing of the drug, distribution of profits, conversion of cash into gold, (and the) keeping of accounts," Justice Jones said.

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+ 13th August 2007 | What to do about toking and driving?

Source: The Toronto Star (CN)
Author: Emile Therien

Is a driver on pot as much of a danger on the road as a driver above the legal alcohol limit?

In fact, alcohol poses a much higher driving risk than cannabis. That is not to say it is safe to drive under the influence of pot. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), its psychoactive ingredient, definitely impairs driving ability, but in very different ways from alcohol. Relatively few road fatalities test positive for THC alone; most often, it is found in combination with alcohol.

The criminal threshold for alcohol is a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 80 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood. A large body of research shows the risk of a crash starts to go up dramatically at that level. However, no impairment levels are in place for pot. Complicating the issue, THC can be detected in the body for up to four weeks, although its impairing effects do not last.

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+ 13th August 2007 | Let's be rational over cannabis

Source: Swindon Advertiser (UK)
Author: R Warren

WHILE I truly feel sorry for the mother of Michael Harris, even your own Shirley Mathias concludes that we cannot know if her supposition that skunk was to blame is correct or not.

Second to alcohol, cannabis is said to be the most frequently misused substance among patients with schizophrenia. In fact, even this statement is misleading. Nicotine is used by more schizophrenic people than either alcohol or cannabis. I make this point because it's important that we approach the subject of reforming the cannabis laws in a rational manner. Nobody is currently suggesting that alcohol is responsible for schizophrenia are they?

The anti-pot campaigners have very effectively used a possible link between cannabis and the onset of mental illness as an excuse for a return to the reefer madness propaganda that was prominent in the United States in the 40s and 50s. The fact remains that no scientific study has proven such a link. I would be quite happy to accept damning evidence, but so far none exists.

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+ 10th August 2007 | 40,000 pot plants found on reservation

Source: San Luis Obispo (CA USA)
Author: Unknown

AKIMA, Wash. -- Investigators seized about 40,000 marijuana plants from a closed area of the Yakama Indian Reservation, but authorities believed members of the tribe were not responsible.

A helicopter spied the pot farm during a routine surveillance flight Wednesday by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Guard, said Lt. Richard A. Wiley of the Washington State Patrol. A flight earlier this year turned up another 11,000 plants on the reservation, he said.

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+ 9th August 2007 | Man refused bail over towering cannabis plants

Source: News.com.au
Author: Andrew Drummond

CANNABIS plants up to three metres high - among the tallest police have ever seen - were allegedly found when detectives raided a Sydney home.

Harilaos Spanoudis, 55, from Brighton-le-Sands in Sydney's south, appeared in Kogarah Local Court today on charges of cultivating an indictable quantity of a prohibited plant, supplying a commercial quantity of cannabis and using electricity without authority.

Police arrested Mr Spanoudis today following raids on two houses in the Sydney suburbs of Campsie and Brighton-le-Sands yesterday afternoon that allegedly turned up $360,000 worth of cannabis.

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+ 6th August 2007 | Fatal crash driver 'had smoked pot'

Source: News.com.au
Author: unknown

THE driver of a car that collided with a van in Victoria's northwest, killing seven people including himself, had smoked cannabis in the hour before the crash, an inquest was told today.

Five adults and two young children died when a car smashed into a van travelling in the opposite direction on the Borung Highway, near Donald on September 26 last year.

Husband and wife Graham and Kath Millard, of Heywood in Victoria's southwest were travelling in the van to Dubbo, NSW, for the state's go-cart championships.

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+ 4th August 2007 | Police Chief - Get Tough On Cannabis

Source: The West Australian
Author: Ronan O'Connell

WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan demanded a toughening up of the State's liberal cannabis laws yesterday, arguing that offenders should no longer be offered the luxury of a small fine as Alan Carpenter defended his Government's approach to cannabis users.

A day after the Australian Medical Association's WA branch called for the controversial legislation to be rewritten, Mr O'Callaghan said cannabis users who refused to take part in a drug education program should face court. He said those who chose to attend an education class rather than pay the fine but then failed to show up should be prosecuted.

His comments came despite the Premier saying Mr O'Callaghan continued to support the Government's position. "I support the drug diversion program,'" Mr O'Callaghan said. "However, in our submission to the Government's review of the Cannabis Control Act we will state that we want it strengthened.

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+ 1st August 2007 | Marijuana smoke obstructs air flow

Source: Contra Costa Times (USA)
Author: Ray Lilley

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A single joint of marijuana obstructs the flow of air as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes, but long-term marijuana use does not increase the risk of developing emphysema, new research suggests.

The study by New Zealand's Medical Research Institute found that longtime marijuana smokers can develop symptoms of asthma and bronchitis, along with obstruction of the large airways and excessive lung inflation. The paper was released Tuesday ahead of its publication in the journal Thorax.

"The study shows that one cannabis joint causes a similar degree of lung damage as between 2.5 and five tobacco cigarettes," lead author Sarah Aldington said.

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