Ian Mulgrew of the Vancouver Sun writes about the Emerging Medical Cannabis Economy

This is simply too important of an article to not spread around. Ian Mulgrew of the Vancouver Sun is the only MSM journalist in Vancouver who really speaks out sensibly and professionally about the pragmatic economics and realistic public policy options about cannabis in BC and Canada.

Thanks Ian for excellent work (PS Would you like to be a guest on a Choogle on podcast?)

Copied from the Vancouver Sun article: A bright green spot in the economy

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A bright green spot in the economy

With courts striking down the government’s monopoly on supplying medical marijuana, private growers are clamouring to capitalize on pot’s commercial potential

Ian Mulgrew
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Photo: Various types of marijuana are offered by former NDP candidate Dana Larsen at his marijuana dispensary on East Hastings Street. He says the medical pot market is about to expand.CREDIT: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun “Various types of marijuana are offered by former NDP candidate Dana Larsen at his marijuana dispensary on East Hastings Street. He says the medical pot market is about to expand.”

DUNCAN – Eric Nash can barely contain his excitement waiting to hear from Health Canada whether he can start growing marijuana for 250 patients.

That would be just the start. There are tens of thousands more who are ailing across the country clamouring for his organic B.C. bud.

“There is a great opportunity here for the government to collect significant tax revenue currently being lost to the street market,” Nash, one of the best-known legal cannabis producers, enthused.

“With the current global financial crisis, this court ruling is certainly a bright light in dark economic times. We’re just waiting for clarification. I figure our production would increase significantly from several pounds to 150 pounds or more immediately.”

Now that the Federal Court of Appeal has struck down the government’s monopoly on supplying medical marijuana, Nash believes commercial agricultural production of pot is around the corner and the sky’s the limit.

His local company, Island Harvest, has cleared the industrial security regulatory hurdles so the company meets the standards set by Ottawa to grow the much-demonized plant.

“Our vision is to have a sustainable commercial agriculture operation,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t achieve that. Look at the number of compassion clubs, look at the number of people using marijuana to relieve a headache or pre-menstrual cramps!”

More and more research is supporting previous anecdotal evidence that cannabis may have a wide range of therapeutic uses from the treatment of Alzheimer’s, depression, glaucoma, epilepsy and cancer to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and ADD/ADHD. Its most ardent promoters say cannabis may be an addition to the modern pharmacopeia that rivals Aspirin in the breadth of its applications.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize the potential profits are staggering.

Until now, the government’s poorly administered medical program has artificially depressed that market by making it difficult for patients to qualify, supplied what many consider poor-quality marijuana and imposed an arbitrary restriction on qualified licensed growers to supplying only two patients.

Doctors, too, have exacerbated the situation with their reluctance to prescribe marijuana, claiming they have no guide on dosage or the usual pharmaceutical medical studies to rely on. That is changing, slowly.

Nash explained there have been three relatively recent, serious analyses of the medical marijuana market, which give an idea of its scope and potential.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal did a survey in 2000 and estimated the number of self-medicating marijuana patients to be 1.9 per cent of the population; a Price Waterhouse report prepared for Health Canada two years later concluded it was more like four per cent of the population, and a report in 2004 by a member of the federal government’s advisory committee on pot suggested the reality was closer to seven per cent.

(Health Canada, after eight years, has issued roughly 2,500 exemption permits to needy patients.)

Regardless, Nash said, based on the four-per-cent model, that puts sales at more than $400 million annually.

More optimistic projections say the medical market, including ancillary products such as vaporizers and paraphernalia, could be as high as $20 billion.

Add it up: The government sells maybe $1 million a year worth of the pot produced in a Manitoba mine, and compassion clubs across the country sell about $10 million worth of cannabis products.

By far the vast majority of patients who need marijuana as a medicine continue to buy their drugs from the black market. It’s a crazy situation: imagine if diabetics had to go to a corner dealer to score insulin.

That’s one of the fundamental reasons behind the court ruling Oct. 27: the medical marijuana program set up by Ottawa at the turn of the millennium isn’t working.

The government adopted the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) and accompanying bureaucracy in 2001. It has modified it since then in the face of judicial warnings that it was constitutionally inadequate, but it still can’t pass muster.

The courts find that offensive.

This new judgment heralds a tectonic shift in the country’s medical-marijuana regulatory regime and perhaps even the drug laws. It may even invalidate the cannabis prohibition.

Two B.C. Supreme Court justices sitting on separate cases (one about simple possession, the other production and trafficking) are currently seized with that question.

If they agree that because a section of medical program is unconstitutional the criminal law cannot be enforced, it would also mark the triumph of a Trojan horse strategy by cannabis activists to achieve legalization by expanding medical access.

Just as liquor was once obtained via prescription, cannabis could be regulated in a similar fashion, obviating the need for a criminal prohibition.

No matter how you look at it, the federal court decision promises an economic boon immediately for the hundreds of legal cannabis producers and increased opportunity for many others.

Nash said it was good news for both the consumer and producer.

The former government communications worker and his partner, Wendy Little, have been growing since 2002 and proselytizing longer than that. Their book Sell Marijuana Legally is a huge hit; they created an online users’ group for patients and growers, and they teach courses.

But medical growers across the country have been restricted, a policy that results in a huge gift of revenue to organized crime.

B.C. BUD’S STAGGERING NUMBERS

Stephen Easton, an economist at Simon Fraser University and with the Fraser Institute, has done the most respected work on the size of the domestic pot industry.

He sat down earlier this year in Denny’s with one of B.C.’s biggest dealers and went over his numbers.

“He figured it out differently than I did, using lights and ballasts,” Easton said. “But he worked out the numbers with me and it all worked out. He told me it was very close. He was quite surprised. I was very happy about that. We had a really good talk. He was really helpful for me.”

Since Easton’s original estimates, the domestic marijuana market has undergone some changes, but nothing cataclysmic.

“The fluctuations in the dollar are the main economic factor,” he said. “It has gone up and down and that pushes these guys.”

For most of the last few years, the most significant factor has been the various improvements in border security triggered by the 9/11 terrorist strikes.

In the 1990s and even throughout the early part of this decade, tons and tons of Canadian marijuana flooded into the U.S. market carried by anyone with moxy and a decent plan.

People were backpacking across with as much weed as they could carry in the Interior, or kayaking across with a stash of bud worth as much as emeralds.

Between 1990 and 2000, the Canadian pot market doubled in size fuelled primarily by the increased hydroponic production of B.C. bud.

Nationally, we apparently spent $1.8 billion toking up — just shy of the $2.3 billion we burned on tobacco.

By 2006, when he did his calculations, Easton said the numbers indicated a provincial wholesale market of $2.2 billion. You could increase that to $7.7 billion retail if consumers paid top dollar for their bud.

That dwarfed any other B.C. agricultural product.

The result on the street was easy to see: a proliferation of gangs duly documented by the RCMP, as every crook plucked what Easton called “the low-hanging fruit.”

The tightening of the border has had several effects.

Not just everyone can take it across now, with underground sensors, heightened air traffic scrutiny and the deployment of the military. Smuggling now is more the purview of the very organized and the very desperate.

At the same time, U.S. authorities have charted the rise of their own domestic production as American states relaxed enforcement and sentencing — the opposite of the 1980s and 1990s when their stiff attitude drove marijuana growers north.

In California alone, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica and San Francisco all have officially told police to make marijuana offences their lowest priority.

EVOLVING PRODUCTION

Pot production in California rivals Canada’s total output.

Similar initiatives have been adopted in other states and cities such as Seattle, Denver and even Missoula, Mont.

With the north-south route to market more problematic, more B.C. bud has moved east to feed eastern appetites or find a less monitored area of the border before turning south. The Mounties have responded by increasing surveillance along the Trans-Canada on the Prairies, resulting in large seizures.

By far the biggest factor in the marijuana market in recent years, however, has been the revolution in production — the ease, predictability and most importantly the portability that has come with advances in indoor cultivation that mean great weed can be grown anywhere.

The RCMP have been reporting huge busts in Eastern Canada as production has sprouted in the Maritimes and Ontario, reducing their appetite for West Coast pot.

In Ontario, whose provincial production is said to have surpassed B.C.’s, authorities have uncovered two separate operations each capable of producing $100 million worth of cannabis a year.

B.C. bud ruled in the 1990s when the underground marijuana trade was responsible for keeping afloat many small communities buffeted by resource-market gales.

Our pot even had cachet even up until four or five years ago but these days, be you in Charlottetown or Joe Batt’s Arm, Nfld., you can easily obtain good seeds and fail-safe equipment and within a few months be producing marijuana to rival B.C.’s best.

Nevertheless, Easton explained, when you are looking at a commodity and domestic production, it’s all about the money.

The rise of the dollar in recent years worked against growers and exporters, but its recent fall provides an upward fillip.

“I imagine with all the market turmoil the domestic marijuana industry will pick up a bit,” Easton said. “it’s just had a 15-to-20-per-cent bump in two months.”

Some estimates in the 1990s suggested as much as 50 cents of every dollar generated in some Kootenay towns could be traced directly to pot.

With the international financial tempest wreaking havoc again with commodity prices, B.C. bud may yet help ride out the storm but probably not to the same extent.

“We’ll just have to watch housing prices in Nelson,” Easton laughed.

MEXICO CONSIDERING LEGALIZATION

Sitting in Kitsilano eating breakfast before meeting the city’s police board, former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Celerino Castillo III nodded his head furiously.

“Yes, yes, it’s all about the money,” he said. “The money, it’s all so corrupt.”

Castillo spent 12 years in the USDA infiltrating Manhattan drug rings, destroying jungle cocaine labs and training anti-narcotics agents. The climax of his career was pulling the curtain back on drug-smuggling by the Nicaraguan Contras with links to Lt.-Col. Oliver North and the CIA.

From the Amazon to the slums of Mexico City to the ghettos of America, Castillo has had a front-row seat on the western hemisphere’s drug world and come to the conclusion it’s time to abandon our current approach.

Mexico is again considering legalization because of the violence and social upheaval caused by illicit drug trafficking, and Canada should be headed down the same path, he says. So should South America and, of course, the U.S.

The money is too corrosive.

“The corruption is everywhere — every month we arrest a law enforcement official, every month,” he insisted, “whether it’s a border patrol agent or a customs agent or a DEA agent or an FBI agent. We arrest a law enforcement officer once a month, It’s huge. The amount of money is just so big. ‘I have a mortgage to pay, I have to send my kids to college.’ That’s always the excuse.”

He shakes his head.

He explained that in his state, drug couriers once arrived with suitcases of cash to deposit in local banks: “Now they buy the banks. Especially now with this upheaval. Who else has the ready cash?”

He laughed.

“But that’s actually how they’re money-laundering today — they buy a bank,” Castillo added. “There’s no way we can keep up.”

In retirement, Castillo has become a featured speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an association of former police, corrections and judicial officers who want to change drug policy.

“There’s more production, more product and more of everything than there ever was. The war on drugs doesn’t work,” he said.

“All I’m hoping for is people to start to listen and educate themselves about what’s going on in the world,” he said. “I know first-hand. I’ve seen it from an agent’s point of view.

“It’s affecting and destroying a lot of families. For 40 years we’ve been trying this John Wayne approach and it’s not working. The bottom line: There are a lot more drugs today than we had 40 years ago.”

‘THESE ARE THE DEALING TABLES’

Dana Larsen ushers me into his new marijuana dispensary in the 800 block of East Hastings Street.

The former NDP candidate, who stepped down during the federal election when his recreational drug use was publicized, has renovated the run-down storefront and is promoting a new compassion club.

Like Nash, he thinks the medical pot market is about to expand exponentially and legally.

“There’s no smoking in here,” he said as he showed me around the spartan office. “But there’s a vapour lounge two doors down in the Seed Bank where you can light up after you leave.”

There is a modest reception area and a large back room. It’s clean but unfinished.

“These are the dealing tables,” he said, pointing to a handful of folding tables separated by office screens to provide a measure of privacy.

He laughed.

“I guess I should call them dispensing tables.”

Larsen, who used to be the leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party and Prince of Pot Marc Emery’s lieutenant, thinks the time has come to move into the medical field.

“I think there’s enough of a market in town to support another dispensary,” Larsen said.

“There are more than enough patients who need reliable, quality cannabis products than the current two clubs in the city provide.”

His menu of cannabis products included six strains of dried marijuana, four kinds of hash, two pot products in capsules and double-strength bon-bons — cannabis-infused organic chocolates.

The pot ranged in price from $7.50 a gram for Pine Cross up to $8 a gram for Sweet Tooth; pressed Kif (soft hash made with a sieve) went for $8 a gram; and very potent Bubblehash, which was extracted using water and ice rather than a sieve, went for $25 a gram.

In Oakland, Calif., the private dispensaries that support the state’s medical marijuana program are said to be generating revenues in excess of $70 million a year.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA COULD HELP THE SICK

Michelle Rainey is one of roughly 2,500 Canadians with a licence to possess and use marijuana. She’s also a celebrity in the medical marijuana world and on YouTube.

Rainey has Crohn’s disease and finds her home-grown pot an effective replacement for her previous expensive regimen of pharmaceutical drugs.

She believes the country’s health-care system could save a fortune if there was a working medical marijuana program, and those who could benefit from cannabis could easily shift away from other medications.

The roughly 110,000 Canadians suffering from Crohn’s disease and the 90,000 living with ulcerative colitis, for example, are estimated to spend $162 million a year for prescription drugs.

Many of those people are already benefiting from marijuana, Rainey said, but many, many more could be.

Consider too that many battling cancer and HIV/AIDS find edible cannabis products work to stimulate the appetite, but they’ve got to buy them on the street.

“We have a huge problem with physicians being apprehensive about signing for patients even though the proof is there,” Rainey said.

“Our seniors, for instance, are spending their pensions on big pharma only to end up with more aches and pains when all they may need is a puff or a brownie!”

Rainey has facilitated more than 70 exemptions for local patients, 30 suffering from Crohn’s: “I receive dozens of e-mails from people suffering every day from all over the world who have discovered cannabis alleviates pain and nausea. The government should not be preventing people from getting access to an effective medicine.”

The courts agree.

In its decision, the Federal Court of Appeal did more than simply hand Ottawa a legal loss. It said the government had been knowingly dragging its heels since at least 2003.

As a result, lawyer Kirk Tousaw told B.C. Supreme Court that this decision renders the criminal law invalid based on that history of jurisprudence, which ties enforceability of the criminal law to the existence of a constitutionally adequate medical access scheme.

He said the judgments in Ontario courts and now the federal court mean the state of the law is unclear and therefore criminal sanctions cannot be imposed.

In this latest case — called Sfetkopoulos et al v. Attorney General of Canada — some 27 patients with exemptions to possess marijuana for medicinal use applied to Health Canada for authorization to designate Carasel Harvest Supply Corporation as their marijuana producer.

Health Canada refused, saying that violated the regulations that restricted growers to supplying only two patients at a time.

But the Federal Court Trial Division agreed with the patients and declared section 41 (b.1) of the MMAR was contrary to s. 7 of the Charter because it threatened their liberty and security of the person by preventing them from choosing their marijuana producer.

The judge accepted that sick people should have access to marijuana for the treatment of serious medical conditions and they should not be forced to risk imprisonment to buy their medication on the black market.

He interpreted the constitutional guarantee of security of person rights to include access to medication without undue state interference.

Ottawa appealed and lost.

COURT REBUKES GOVERNMENT

The appeal court agreed with the trial judge — the medical marijuana scheme was constitutionally deficient — and rebuked the government.

The three judges said the Crown had brought forward a case dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2003, that nothing had changed and the marijuana access regulations remained flawed.

In the unanimous 2003 decision, the justices similarly complained about Ottawa’s failure to deal properly with this issue.

In their terse three-page decision a fortnight ago, the justices refused to suspend the impact of their ruling to give the government time to amend the regulations.

Health Canada spokesman Phillipe Laroche said the department was still studying the ruling and had not decided on its response.

Now, Tousaw has argued that those charged or convicted while the medical marijuana access scheme was deemed unconstitutional should have their convictions overturned or their charges stayed. That’s thousands of Canadians.

In particular, Tousaw says Ryan Poelzer should have his conviction overturned.

Poelzer was charged May 18, 2007 and there is no disagreement about the facts. He was smoking a joint on a B.C. Ferry as it pulled into Langdale and that offended an off-duty cop who called the RCMP. As he stepped off the ferry, Poelzer was arrested and in his backpack police found 78.3 grams of marijuana, 8.6 grams of hash, and assorted paraphernalia and pro-drug literature.

In spite of Tousaw’s argument that the cannabis prohibition was invalid, or alternatively that the status of the prohibition is so confused that prosecution constituted an abuse of process, the provincial court judge in the case decided B.C. jurisprudence had declared the medical marijuana scheme valid and therefore the criminal law was fine and Poelzer in clear violation of it.

But Tousaw says the B.C. precedents are wrong and fly in the face of this latest ruling.

The Crown disagrees.

Federal lawyer Peter Eccles said the MMAR requirements are reasonable given the legitimate societal interest in controlling the distribution of a “potentially harmful drug.”

“They ensure only those with a bona fide medical need for marijuana, verified by appropriate medical declaration, obtain legal access,” Eccles said. “Mr. Poelzer is not such an individual.”

Perhaps.

Two B.C. justices will render their opinions soon on whether there actually is a criminal marijuana law in force at the moment or whether de facto legalization has occurred because the medical access scheme is unconstitutional.

Market issues ‘need to be addressed’

The question is how will Ottawa respond to the federal court decision.

Since the impugned marijuana access scheme is a product of regulation rather than statute, the government can quickly promulgate new rules.

“They could make cosmetic regulatory changes,” Nash acknowledged, “which would force another court challenge. But I think the judges are pretty fed up with them doing that.”

And for good reason — sick people should not have to deal with the black market.

Nash said it’s time to get medical marijuana out of the courts, properly regulated and controlled.

“It comes down to consumer choice,” Nash said. “We have people across Canada who want our organic product. Patients want different price ranges, they want different strains, they want different hybrids. There are market issues here that need to be addressed. When you go to a pharmacy do you want to be told you can only have Bayer?

“This is about patients’ rights and a legitimate need.”

imulgrew@vancouversun.co

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Note:

Ian Mulgrew is the Vancouver Sun’s legal affairs columnist and the author of several non-fiction books, including Bud Inc.: Inside Canada’s Marijuana Industry (Random House, 2005).

See also:

Choogle on podcast interview with Dana Larsen: Party at the Vancouver Seed Bank – Choogle on #59

Uncle Weed on Dopefiend.co.uk’s Dopecast

Regular listeners of Choogle on With Uncle Weed have likely got to know my British counter-part The Dopefiend – we’ve recorded a few shows while i visited him and Max Freakout in London and a trip to the seashore in Brighton, then he and Dopegirl allowed me to return the hospitality with a long North Van visit which resulted in a heap of podcasts including visits with Herby, a true herbsman, hunkered down in a boutique grow room.

Current listeners know that Herby fell into some dicey situation with the law and on the newest Dopecast, i discuss Herby’s situation and the importance of knowing your rights including understanding probable cause, your right to an attorney, and why to shut up when the cops starting yapping!

Go grab Dopecast142 and Subscribe to the whole Dopefiend network even in iTunes

Mon, 15 September 2008

On this week’s episode of the Web’s Favourite Cannabis Podcast, the Dopefiend talks to Canadian Cannabis Crusader Uncle Weed about the difficult situation featuring Canadian grower and Dopecast favourite Herbie, forced to spend his weekends in jail thanks to an increasingly tough stance on Cannabis taken by the Canadian authorities, why it’s not as easy as it may sound to some, and why it’s yet more evidence of injustice in the war on drugs.

The Dopefiend then talks to Uncle Weed about the case of Dopecast listener Snoogins who was busted on a marijuana paraphernalia charge, and why it’s important for all stoners to know their rights and to exercise their civil liberties, and also gets his views on the continuing debate over abuse vs experimentation and his thoughts on the recent Big Chill gonzo extravaganza, knowing your own limits and how you have to decide what constitutes abuse on your own terms, whether there is any value in Nitrous Oxide or MDMA, and how important ritual and careful planning is to a successful entheogenic experience.

Download this episode here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/dopecast/Dopecast142.mp3

Tags: dopefiend, uncleweed, choogleon, herby, public policy, aclu, dopecast, podcast

Rick Steves gets even cooler with a Cannabis Policy Guest Column in Seattle PI

Travel in Europe guru, PBS super-star, decent Lutheran guy, and multi-purpose enlightened thinker Rick Steves wrote a guest column about the failed USA war on drugs policy - i’ve re-posted for educational use from Seattle P-I.com

We need to get smart about marijuana

RICK STEVES
GUEST COLUMNIST

As a parent helping two children navigate their teen years, and as a travel writer who has seen firsthand how Europe deals with its drug problem, I’ve thought a lot about U.S. drug policy — particularly our criminalization of marijuana.

Europe, like the U.S., is dealing with a persistent drug-abuse problem. But unlike us, Europe, which treats drug abuse primarily as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue, measures the success of its drug policy in terms of pragmatic harm reduction.

Europeans seek a cure that isn’t more costly than the problem. While the U.S. spends its tax dollars on police, courts and prisons, Europe fights drug abuse by funding doctors, counselors and clinics. European Union policymakers estimate that for each euro invested in drug education and counseling, they save 15 euros in police and health costs. Similar estimates have been made for U.S. health-based approaches by the Rand Corp. and others.

While Europeans are as firmly opposed to hard drugs as we are, the difference in how they approach marijuana is striking. Take the Netherlands, with its famously liberal marijuana laws. On my last trip to Amsterdam, I visited a “coffee shop” — a cafe that openly and legally sells marijuana to people over 18. I sat and observed the very local, almost quaint scene: Neighbors were chatting. An older couple (who apparently didn’t enjoy the trendy ambience) parked their bikes and dropped in for a baggie to go. An underage customer was shooed away. Then a police officer showed up — but only to post a warning about the latest danger from chemical drugs on the streets.

Some concerned U.S. parents are comforted by the illusion of control created by our complete prohibition of marijuana. But the policy seems to be backfiring: Their kids say it’s easier to buy marijuana than tobacco or alcohol. (You don’t get carded when you buy something illegally.) Meanwhile, Dutch parents say their approach not only protects their younger children, but also helps insulate teens over 18 from street pushers trying to get them hooked on more addictive (and profitable) hard drugs.

After a decade of regulating marijuana, Dutch anti-drug abuse professionals agree there has been no significant increase in pot smoking among young people, and that overall cannabis use has increased only slightly. European and U.S. government statistics show per-capita consumption of marijuana for most of Europe (including the Netherlands) is about half that of the U.S., despite the criminal consequences facing American pot smokers.

When it comes to marijuana, European leaders understand that a society must choose: Tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons. They’ve made their choice. We’re still building more prisons.

According to Forbes magazine, 25 million Americans currently use marijuana (federal statistics indicate that one in three Americans has used marijuana at some point), which makes it a $113 billion untaxed industry in our country. The FBI reports that about 40 percent of the roughly 1.8 million annual drug arrests in the U.S. are for marijuana — the majority (89 percent) for simple possession.

Rather than act as a deterrent, criminalization of marijuana drains precious resources, clogs our legal system and distracts law enforcement attention from more pressing safety concerns.

But things are changing. For example, in Seattle, Initiative 75, which makes adult marijuana use the lowest law enforcement priority for local cops, was recently reviewed after four years in action. The results clearly show that during that period, marijuana use didn’t measurably increase, and street crime associated with drugs actually went down.

More and more U.S. parents, lawyers, police, judges and even travel writers feel it’s time for a change. Obviously, like Europeans, we don’t want anyone to harm themselves or others by misusing marijuana. We simply believe that regulating and taxing what many consider a harmless vice is smarter than outlawing it.

Like my European friends, I believe we can adopt a pragmatic policy toward marijuana, with a focus on harm reduction and public health, rather than tough-talking but counterproductive criminalization. The time has come to have an honest discussion about our marijuana laws and their effectiveness. We need to find a policy that is neither “hard on drugs” nor “soft on drugs” — but smart on drugs.

Rick Steves is a travel writer based in Edmonds.

Tags: ricksteves, cannabis, marijuana, seattle pi, europe, amsterdam

Busted in Japan – a narrative by a Briton caught in Kansai

A quick preamble to this stunning narrative …

I wrote Hemp Culture in Japan which turned into a collaboration with HempMan, a German in Japan, to create a comprehensive clearinghouse of all information about Cannabis in Japan called Taima.org. This site is maintained by HempMan but in dire need to “web 2.0″i-fi-cation to make more searchable and participatory and such but i digress …

As part of my research, i get interesting things in the snail and postal mail – from angry letters from Iran PhDs to cool grow shot shots to other”researchers” wanting all my contacts.

This note though is heavy duty as this older gentleman recounts the dystopia experience of being shook down. Frustrating to be sure as no one would add any reason or sense to the process and he was cut off from most anyone but a rubber-stamping attorney.

I’ve followed up with the gentleman for some more insight, but for starters, get comfy and give this a read.

I arrived at Kansai Airport last March with around 15g of marijuana. I’d bought it in Amsterdam and thought it would be OK as I’d travelled in and out of Japan for years and never been searched – this time it was different. I don’t really know why they searched me – the sniffer dogs weren’t interested. Anyway, they discovered the stuff. Later that day they searched my apartment and discovered about 20g there in deep
freeze – pretty bland stuff and I was hoping the import from Amsterdam was going to give me a better buzz.

I was kept at Kansai kuko police station for 18 days and then transferred to Sakai detention center in southern Osaka, where I spent a further 42 days (almost 2 months in total).

Even though I’d cooperated fully with the police, confessed and didn’t try to hide anything, the prosecutor demanded a 2 year prison sentence as I had a ’significant’ amount. I’ve lived in Japan for 18 years and this is my first offence. In the trial, the judge regarded my ‘addiction’ as a big problem as I’d admitted to first smoking cannabis when I was 19 (I’m now 54) he said he was giving me a 18 month sentence suspended for 4 years. Very surprisingly I was granted bail after the first court appearance (the hearing and presenting of evidence). This cheered me no end as it seemed to indicate the judge and prosecutor did not regard me as a danger to society. At present I’m waiting to see what Immigration has to say as they decide to deport or not.

I did try to get my lawyer to emphasise the relative ‘harmlessness’ of cannabis abuse and the fact that I had often stopped smoking – sometimes for months at a time (couldn’t buy it) and also this was a victimless crime – smoking alone in my own home. This was ignored and not brought up at the trial but I suppose the lawyer had good reasons, he was pretty indifferent about the case to begin with and only after constant prodding by friends did he start to work a bit harder. I was still amazed at the possible harshness of the sentence. According to the lawyer, the maximum penalty for smuggling or possession of cannabis is 5 years in jail and/or a 30 million yen fine.

Detention in Japan was extremely boring and there were hundreds of rules to be obeyed. Sitting on a hard floor (this is Japan – no chairs are allowed) was very uncomfortable for me. If it wasn’t for friends bringing books and a decent cushion, I may have tried suicide in detention. The food was reasonable, though. I wasn’t made to pay court costs although my lawyer charged me his ’standard’ fee – $4500. So now I’m out of a well-paid job and a lot poorer and still have the possibility of being
kicked out of Japan.

For anyone else contemplating bringing drugs to Japan, I’d advise – DON’T take the risk. Buy it in Japan. Grow it in Japan, (seeds are ‘apparently legal’ as there is no THC – but they’re always confiscated) but DON’T bring it in. According to the web site http://www.customs.go.jp/tokyo/english/iio/iio-cased-y2006.html even amounts as small as 1g are prosecuted.

If I’d done the same in my home country (Britain), I’d probably have been kept overnight in a cell or simply cautioned and then released – the police there have far better things to do with their time. The Japanese police throw huge amounts of money (and police time) at these prosecutions and my ‘file’ was 4 inches thick at the end, with scores of colour photos and colour copies of my diary, travel notebook etc. There were at least 3 complete copies produced. My home was searched by 10 officers for 90 minutes – while they discovered cannabis seeds hidden in a box, they failed to find a large bong filled with cannabis and may not have found my deep-freeze stash if I hadn’t pointed it out!

Police here seem to rely on confessions and don’t seem to have the ability or desire to ‘investigate’ cases thoroughly – which is why many Japanese kids ’stonewall’ the cops, when arrested.

More on this topic:

For more hemp on Japan, listen to Japanese Mountain Satori Time – Choogle on #48 & International Heads and Hemp Oil – Choogle on #34

Hemp Culture in Japan - a 1992-7 ground-breaking treatise on the history and cultural significance of hemp in Japan. Hemp Culture in Japan is available in .html or .pdf.

For alternate versions, visit Taima.org, a site dedicated to Hemp in Japan. Published in Cannabis Culture magazine (#13 & Best of …), the Journal of International Hemp Association (V.4 N.1) as well as excerpted in several books including Hemp Horizons and “Hanp” from Norway and Hemp for Victory from UK.

Joey Shithead’s Band of Rebels play for Pot

Punk and Pot – two of my fave “things” come together as Vancouver legend Joe Shithead brings his eclectic and musically diverse rock circus out for a once-only rock show in solidarity with Marc Emery the (somewhat self-aggrandizing) seed seller who is hassled by the now-fired, former pit-bull US district attorney John Mackay and other DEA narco-terrorists seeking his extradition to the USA to face re-donk-u-lous charges of conspiricy and mass volume drug peddling.

I’ll be there enjoy the rock and the pot. And you?

Here’s from Sudden Death records announcement:

The long awaited live performance with Joe Shithead Keithley’s Band of Rebels will take place in Vancouver on Thursday December 6th at the Plaza Club. Band of Rebels is Keithley’s solo album, released this past summer that features many of Vancouver’s best musicians. Many of them will be performing at the CD release party, which is also Sudden Death Record’s Christmas party, DVD live recording event and a benefit for Cannabis Canada. The event will also include guest speaker Marc Emery and band Aging Youth Gang.

Joe also did a book – I, Shithead: A Life In Punk – and there is a the full DOA backcatalog available by mail order online too (though i’ve got my $15 aimed at a Bloodied by Unbowed vinyl picture disk at Noize on Seymour).

Vancouver Feisty Tyee seeks bread for journo-goodness

The Tyee is a fave read of me and other political/social minded BC-ers. They do a good thing by rallying mney to pay journalists to dig deep into a story which takes some serious time and research to cover. This is the kinda stuff mainstream media glosses over cause there is no scandalous photo and titillating headline to go along with these *serious* pieces.

Here are some examples from their mailout:

Donations by Tyee readers in ‘05/’06 enabled us to publish groundbreaking content through ‘06/’07:

A highly influential news-breaking investigative series by veteran science writer Chris Wood: “Rough Weather Ahead: How global warming will hit BC.”

A thoughtful and widely read solutions series by experienced freelancer Sandra Shields: “Reconciling with First Nations: How the ‘New Relationship’ is faring in the Fraser Valley.”

A wildly popular and vigorously debated solutions series by writer and activist Dave Olsen: “No Fares! Time for a free ride on public transit.” {note: not this Dave Olson}

And there’s one more investigative series coming soon, about corporate and government accountability.

Now they seek some more funding to keep the momentum rolling:

By making a secure online donation to this year’s drive, you can provide the support independent journalists need to conduct in-depth research, file freedom of information requests, run up phone bills, and travel to where the stories are unfolding. It’s the kind of sustained research and reporting our limited budget doesn’t generally allow.

Wait! there are prizes!  And this bread ain’t wasted.

Donate $50 or more by December 19 and you’ll be entered into a draw for one of 10 Tyee tote bags filled with Ethical Bean coffee and books from Harper Collins and New Society Publishers.

Donate $100 or more by December 19 and you’ll also be entered into a draw to win an “affordably cool” jorg&olif Scout citybike.

Quality, socially-aware writing and a chance to win coffee and a sweeeet steel sled? Get to it eh!  I figure since i am offering some blog love, i can get listed on their BC Blog list too ;-).

Washington Post discuss farmers’ quest to seperate hemp and pot

Not sure if there is much luck to be found with this strategy.  The powers that be know the difference, they just don’t find it in their economic interest to act with science and sense in mind.  Anyhow, good to see coverage in the mainstream media in a fairly decent article and a mention of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to make it even better (cross-posted here for education purposes via hemp ed).

From Washington Post: Farmers Ask Federal Court To Dissociate Hemp and Pot
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 12, 2007; Page A03

Wayne Hauge grows grains, chickpeas and some lentils on 2,000 acres in northern North Dakota. Business is up and down, as the farming trade tends to be, and he is always on the lookout for a new crop. He tried sunflowers and safflowers and black beans. Now he has set his sights on hemp.

Hemp, a strait-laced cousin of marijuana, is an ingredient in products from fabric and food to carpet backing and car door panels. Farmers in 30 countries grow it. But it is illegal to cultivate the plant in the United States without federal approval, to the frustration of Hauge and many boosters of North Dakota agriculture.

On Wednesday, Hauge and David C. Monson, a fellow aspiring hemp farmer, will ask a federal judge in Bismarck to force the Drug Enforcement Administration to yield to a state law that would license them to become hemp growers.

“I’m looking forward to the court battle,” said Hauge, a 49-year-old father of three. “I don’t know why the DEA is so afraid of this.”

The law is the law and it treats all varieties of Cannabis sativa L. the same, Bush administration lawyers argue in asking U.S. District Judge Daniel L. Hovland to throw out the case. The DEA says a review of the farmers’ applications is underway.

To clear up the popular confusion about the properties of what is sometimes called industrial hemp, the crop’s prospective purveyors explain that hemp and smokable marijuana share a genus and a species but are about as similar as rope and dope.

The active ingredient in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC. While hemp typically contains 0.3 percent THC, the leaves and flowers coveted by pot smokers have 5 percent or more, sometimes up to 30 percent.

“You could smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole,” Hague said of hemp, “and it’s not going to provide you with a high.”

Experts on the subject say a headache is far more likely than a buzz.

In the small town of Ray, N.D., Hauge said people — his friends, mostly — make cracks.

“Usually it’s something about whether or not the DEA is going to arrest me or if my phone is being tapped,” Hauge said. “It’s kind of difficult to provoke me. I’m also a CPA, and I have had a tax practice in Ray for 25 years. I was an EMT for 18 years. And I’m not a person who smokes. I don’t smoke anything. I exercise a lot and I’m pretty healthy.”

David Bronner is a vegan California businessman who uses hemp oil to make his Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap richer and smoother. He touts hemp milk as a challenger to soy and adds hemp seeds, full of Omega-3 fatty acids, to a snack bar called Alpsnack.

He says the hulled seeds look like sesame seeds and taste like pine nuts.

Bronner’s company spends about $100,000 a year importing 10,000 pounds of hemp oil and 10,000 pounds of seeds from Canada. To do so, he first had to win a federal court battle with the Justice Department, which tried to ban the imports. One of his arguments was the prevalence and popularity of the crop elsewhere.

“In Canada and Europe, where industrial hemp is grown, no one is trying to smoke it and the sky is not falling,” said Bronner, president of the Hemp Industries Association, a trade group. Likening hemp seeds to marijuana, he said, is like equating poppy seeds with opium.

Hauge is joined by Monson, a Republican state legislator who helped pass a law in 1999 that would permit hemp cultivation and establish limits to ease the federal government’s worries. They have the backing of Vote Hemp, an advocacy organization, and state Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, who personally delivered paperwork to the DEA in February on the farmers’ behalf.

In a lengthy March 5 letter to DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy, Johnson quoted a university professor’s conclusion that under “the most fundamental principles of pharmacology, it can be shown that it is absurd, in practical terms, to consider industrial hemp useful as a drug.”

That’s how Tim Purdon sees it. He is a Bismarck lawyer for Hauck and Monson.

“Some people call me up with the idea that my clients and myself are some sort of marijuana legalization effort,” Purdon said. “My clients are farmers. They are looking for a crop they can make money on in the tough business of being a family farmer.”

Hauge is feeling optimistic. He has signed up for a hemp cultivation seminar in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It starts Friday.

Ways to Immigate to Canada including a Self-Assessment Test

When folks come to visit here in glorious North Vancouver, they often opine, “gosh i wish we could live in Canada” to which i say, if you have something to bring to the table, then you can. While many/most applicants retain a lawyer for this task, if you are diligent, patient and a good form filler outer, then you can do it yourself. There are many details to tend to, so stay alert!

Bear in mind, i am not a barrister but i do have some first-hand practical experience with these immigration matters – regardless, i’m pleased to run my mouth on this but admonish you to seek elsewhere for further opinions since i am just riffing here and might miss something.

The whole deal is all very nicely up on the Canadian gov’s site – appropriately called Immigrating to Canada – but since you are here … here are the status categories which allow you to move to (and work in) Canada legally, divvied up into a few buckets:

Refugee (Humanitarian) class – If you are, or will be, persecuted unjustly in your home country if not provided with sanctuary, you may apply for refugee status, some US military service evaders are currently grinding through the refugee system with minimal success – more luck if you are from Burma today or Darfur or other such debacle-laden land.

Family class – If you marry a Canadian (note: this includes common-law relationships and same-sex relationships), the Canadian partner can sponsor the other into Canada – this involves a stack of paperwork and may include a year or two before the non-Canuck can work legally in Canada and the sponsoring partner must commit to supporting their spouse for 3 years and not go on welfare. The CIC (Citizen Immigration Canada) will do extensive background checks, including addresses, family, criminal and health history checks. The Canadian must show ability to support the spouse and prove the validity of the relationship (save those holiday photos).

Note: As of Feb. 2004 (IIRC), you can apply from within Canada under a weird loophole known as a “sweetheart” clause in which they “pretend” your spouse entered legally and then applies within Canada rather than arriving as a landed immigrant and then applying from within Canada and being unable to leave Canada during this time. Minors (kids) get an application too and medical tests etc.

Investor/Entrepreneur/Self-employed - break em down:

1) entreprenuer – if you have $300K to invest in a business, you can come on in – buy yourself a Quizno’s franchise or start a business but you do hafta have money, experience and a plan with a reasonable chance of success so … your big crazy idea to build dinosaurs in Stanley Park is out cause that’s just insane and even suggesting should land you in the crowbar hotel (pardon my digression),

2) investor – if you have $800K, you can let the Canadian gov plays with half of it ($400K) for 5 years (interest not-paid) to boost Canada’s job market and allow some mid-level to bureaucrats to party on with your bread (just kidding) while you spend your other half eating fine meals and lolling about ;-)

3) self-employed – this is the “special” category for sports, arts, culture, entertainment – i.e. elite athletes, entertainers, performers, sculptors, announcers, writers plus and farm managers whom Canada needs/wants (dying family farms and all that) also some librarians – you gotta be noteworthy though but this is a great way if you can swing it

NAFTA Professional – this actually is the status i know least about but the one i come across the most since Computer Programmers are on the list of skills needed in Canada and, through the maligned North American Free Trade Agreement (Reagan and Mulroney), various professionals are afforded a fast track to come on up once they’ve been offered a job by a Canadian firm who will sponsor you to come to Canada (and thus you may sorta be stuck with them for a period of time). Lots of you more on this status than i, so fill me in.

Provincial Nominee – this is the wild card since each Canadian province can nominate and fast track anyone they want really based on strategic occupations needed – in BC, this un-met demand includes new media and IT along with construction and health, education and other professionals – really its about the economy, if you help build it, they want you but you gotta have your stuff together beyond “i can make webpages, can i come in now?”

Skilled Worker – and now to the best part, if you are a non-Canadian with professional skills and relevant experience, particularly in an in-demand job, you can likely immigrate – really, it’s that easy (note the US has no such program, only a lottery to get in, really, a lottery) and Canada is quite pragmatic and seeks out workers with skills in-demand in Canada (famously exotic dancers fall into this category from time to time)

The test inquires if you speak a second language (French really), finished college, worked in your chosen field for a period of time, have some skills etc. If you score 67 or better, you qualify to sponsor yourself to Canada (no spouse or employer needed) which means you have responsibilities to not fck up.

So get started eh, here’s the test: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/skilled/assess/index.html

Did ya score get 67 or higher? If so, haul bum over to http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-how.asp and chose the simplified process (unless you are in one of the categories which requires the un-simple “regular” process like you are provincial nominee (this is another class which i know little about), you’ve been selected by Quebec (this francophone-heavy province seeks out French speakers specifically, again i know little more), or a few other odds and ends.

Tax and other crap

Once you’ve leapt across the border and are flipping the bird at Bush and his cronies back in the US, you’ll still need to be very aware of international tax laws (all US citizens abroad need to file US tax returns and myriad other details). Thus, i’ll direct you to David Ingram who is a bearded tax and immigration consultant – his rates aren’t trivial so subscribe to his old-school e-mailing list (in dire need of formatting) which discusses the mundanity and minutiae of international tax law. In brief, you gotta declare your worldwide income but it’s not all taxable.

What’s next

Once you are in and off your double secret probation period, you can consider applying for permanent residence status (equivilent to a US green card) allowing you to do most anything but vote and hold top secret government jobs. Three years after that, you can start thinking about the Citizenship test too. Goodtimes eh!

Now show you are Canadian and turn the hockey game on, sing Oh Canada! and eat some perogies,

Thanks to Will Pate, Kris Krug for photos

UN Reports Points out Canada’s abundant (responsible) Cannabis use

United Nations World Drug Report 2007 – Cannabis (.pdf)

Been meaning to write about this but instead, here is some snippets from Rebecca Dube (how is that pronounced?)’s article in the big fancy newspaper from TO. Proud to be doing my part.

globeandmail.com: The true North, stoned and free

REBECCA DUBE
From July 16, 2007 Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Canada is a nation of stoners. According to the United Nations’ 2007 World Drug Report released last week, Canadians lead the industrialized world in marijuana smoking. Canadians are four times more likely to have smoked pot in the past year than residents of nearly every other country: 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 use marijuana, compared to a global average of 3.8 per cent.

<snip>

Some pot smokers, however, say Canada’s high rate of recreational use is not because we’re a nation of slackers, but merely a side effect of the country’s go-getter work ethic. Canadians work hard and, unlike Europeans, don’t get 10 weeks of vacation or two-hour lunches – so we find other ways to unwind.

“You’re putting in way too many hours at work, you just want to go out and relax,” says one recreational user, a business owner and married father of three who smokes pot several times a month. Marijuana, he explains, allows busy professionals to “maximize your leisure time.”

“You go to a bar, you’re hanging out with friends – if you’re stoned, everybody’s funnier,” he says. “If you’re not sure about a movie? Get high, you’ll like it better.”

United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime 2007 World Drug Report

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