News

Marijuana Policy Project Refutes Claims of Study, Says It Doesn't Account for All Factors Smoking marijuana just a few hours before driving nearly doubles a person's risk of getting into a car accident, a recent study found.

Twice in the past two years, Gary Storck has boarded Amtrak's Empire Builder outside his hometown of Madison, Wis., and headed west to Oregon. The trip takes about 40 hours and costs more then $1,000 - all for something that makes the illegal legal.

Geoff Plant has felt for years that the prohibition of marijuana is wrong. Now that the former B.C. attorney-general is out of government, he has joined the chorus of officials and former politicians pushing for the legalization of the drug.

Agency Says CVS and Cardinal Health Knew of Hefty Painkiller Orders The federal government alleges Cardinal Health Inc. and CVS Caremark Corp. were aware of high-volume orders of prescription painkiller oxycodone shipped to two pharmacies in Florida, in a closely watched case probing how much responsibility companies bear for a growing drug-abuse problem.

Opinions

County Commissioners Correctly Decide to Protect Employees From Prosecution Athough many local residents might suspect there's a legalizing-pot debate under way among Clark County leaders, that's really not the case. A more accurate description is that of a legal dilemma. County commissioners are caught in a tug of war between a new state law that allows collective medical marijuana gardens, and federal law that prohibits growing, distributing and possessing the substance.Last year, the commissioners made the right call when they imposed a moratorium on implementing the state law, and now they say they will extend that moratorium beyond its July expiration date. That, too, appears to be a correct decision, even more so in light of a recent letter to county commissioners from the U.S. Department of Justice. As Stephanie Rice reported in Friday's Columbian, commissioners had asked the feds if county employees would be immune from prosecution if they perform tasks related to zoning and permitting of state-sanctioned collective medical! marijuana gardens. That seems to be a question of profound importance, especially of county employees who don't want to face federal criminal charges for doing their jobs.

That warning of prosecution for state workers employed in medical-marijuana facilities from U.S. Attorney Charles M. Oberly III last week was pretty ominous.

With former attorneys general, ex-municipal mayors and a host of medical health officers all advocating for the legalization of marijuana, the public should start to wonder what politicians are smoking to make inaction seem like the right decision.

Four former Attorneys-General of British Columbia - spanning two political parties (NDP and Liberal) and fourteen years in office - have called for the legalization of marijuana. The federal government (Conservative) continues to move towards harsher drug penalties including for the marijuana trade. This political split mirrors opinion in the country, where periodic polls do not show a solid, sustaining majority one way or the other on the issue.

Letters

Re: "Where does bizarre crime fixation of Conservatives come from?" Michael Den Tandt, Opinion, Feb. 15.

The TCU stories illustrate one thing I learned during my 30-year career as a federal agent: Cracking down on these young adults will have no lasting effect and will only drive them further underground and increase market share for those not caught up in this sting. You can't keep drugs off campus when you cannot even keep them out of our prisons. These arrests will make no difference in the insatiable demand for drugs on college campuses anywhere. It may instead cause the students to seek drugs from far more dangerous venues.

To the Editor, Re: Prohibition of pot simply bad policy, Letters, Feb. 13. Stan White is essentially correct.

The use of synthetic marijuana is an unintended side effect of the war on natural marijuana. Military personnel and others who are drug tested are turning to potentially toxic drugs made in China and sold as research chemicals before being repackaged as legal incense. Expanding the drug war will only add to what is already the highest incarceration rate in the world. Chinese chemists will tweak formulas to stay one step ahead of the law and two steps ahead of the drug tests. Misguided efforts to protect children from drugs are putting children at great risk.

The prohibitionist model is one of blind ignorance, abject failure and economic collapse. Its underlying ideology is one of fear, envy, greed and hate. Never have so many been endangered and impoverished by so few, so quickly!

As a retired detective, I heartily agree with your proposal (editorial, Sunday) to legalize/regulate marijuana. Marijuana has always been too dangerous a drug to leave its production in the hands of criminals and its retail sales in the hands of our teenagers. It should be given the same laws and respect as beer.

Re: Liberals get it right with promise to legalize marijuana (Gravenhurst Banner, Feb. 1, 2012) As someone who has been up to his eyeballs in pot activism for nine years, I would classify this Liberal vote to legalize pot as nothing more than a bamboozle. The delegates did the right thing, but the party will not.