Global

Church Members Argue Pot Laws Violate Religious Rights

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on April 8, 2010 Global, News

In a constitutional challenge to Canada’s marijuana prohibition, two men are arguing in court that the cannabis plant is sacred to their religion. The men are members of the Assembly of the Church of the Universe (COU), which claims about 35 active ministers and 4,000 members across Canada.

Rev. Brother Peter Styrsky, 52, and Rev. Brother Shahrooz Kharaghani, 31, are charged with trafficking in marijuana and hashish after police raided their church, Beaches Mission of God, back in October 2006, reports Peter Small of the Toronto Star.

Styrsky, in court Wednesday, explained his transformation from an angry, frustrated delivery driver to a more spiritually content person as a minister within the Church of the Universe, reports Shannon Kari at the National Post.

“[Cannabis is] the most spiritual thing that has ever happened to me,” Styrsky testified Wednesday.

94-Year-Old Woman Caught With 11 Lbs. Pot At Mexican Border

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on April 1, 2010 Global, News

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

CBP officers claimed the six bundles of Mexican pot have an estimated street value of more than $5,000

Officers say a 94-year-old Mexican woman has been arrested for trying to smuggle almost 11 pounds of marijuana across the border into Arizona.

U.S. Customers and Border Protection (CBP) officers claimed the woman, from Nogales, Sonora, said she was trying to cross the border Tuesday for a day of shopping. But an officer “became suspicious” and referred the woman for further searching, reports KPHO.com.

Authorities then found 10.5 pounds of cannabis strapped to the woman’s body, covering an area from her torso to her legs.

CBP officers claimed the six bundles of confiscated marijuana had an estimated “street value” of $5,250.

Dutch Court Fines Cannabis Shop Owner 10 Million Euros

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 26, 2010 Dispensaries, Global

Photo: Marcel van den Bergh/de Volkskrant

Customers queue up to place their cannabis orders at Coffeeshop Checkpoint

A Dutch court fined the owner of the Netherlands’ largest marijuana-dispensing “coffee shop” 10 million euros Thursday, after police seized more than 200 kilograms of cannabis on the premises.

According to the court, the owner of Coffeeshop Checkpoint would have had to pay a larger penalty if it had not been for the role of the local government.

“Checkpoint could not have expanded as much as it did without collaboration from the municipality of Terneuzen,” near the Belgian border, the court said.

Mexico ‘Feels Offended’ By Medical Marijuana In U.S.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 26, 2010 Global, Medical

Photo: Alejandro Bringas/Reuters

Mexican soldiers stand at attention, desperately trying to maintain a “military bearing” as the intoxicating smoke from bales of marijuana being burned billows over them

Here’s a role reversal for you. Mexico is irritated at the United States for undercutting the Drug War.

As more U.S. states legalize medical marijuana, Mexican Secretary of Interior Fernando Gómez Mont is whining that the American medical marijuana trend is “worrisome” and that it “complicates in a grave way” Mexico’s battle against violent drug cartels.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week led a high-level U.S. delegation to Mexico to discuss strategies to counter drug trafficking, the issue came to a head, reports Tim Johnson in The Sacramento Bee.

Soup Mistaken For Drugs; 73-Year-Old Man Detained In Mexico

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 25, 2010 Global, News

Photo: David Brooks/Union-Tribune

Okoronkwo Umeham, 73, was detained in Mexico while his Nigerian soup ingredients were tested.

A 73-year-old U.S. citizen had no idea that he’d end up in a Tijuana jail for possessing the ingredients for a Nigerian soup. But he said the spices, dried fish and vegetables must have looked like illegal drugs to the inspectors in Mexico — and he landed in jail for two days.

The Mexican inspectors asked the man, as he entered Mexico, if the labeled packages contained marijuana, and he said no. Since he doesn’t speak Spanish, he couldn’t explain what they were. Mexican authorities put him in jail, saying they needed to test the materials.

San Diego social worker Uokoronkwo Umeham, who was born in Nigeria, was just doing a favor for a relative who was longing for a taste of home when he crossed the border March 15.

He was entering Mexico to deliver the ingredients for “ugu,” a traditional soup, to a homesick younger relative. His nephew, Xavier Nnanna Nwafor, lives in Tijuana and doesn’t have a visa to cross the border to San Diego, where the ingredients are available.

Umeham took the same ingredients across the border last September without incident, his wife, Gail Umeham, said Wednesday, reports Raquel Maria Dillon of The Associated Press.

‘Marijuana Gang’ Gets Sensationalist Coverage In Africa

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 24, 2010 Culture, Global

Photo: Eideard

It’s not just the young folks in Nigeria who enjoy marijuana. Maybe my street smarts are fading, but dude doesn’t look gangsta to me.

Next time you start to get discouraged about the sometimes inaccurate news coverage marijuana gets in the United States, try to remember that things could be worse — much worse.

To prove this, you need go no farther than allAfrica.com, a curious little site which shows just how clueless coverage can be.

A March 23 article on the site with the imposing headline “Adura Gang of Marijuana Smokers” calls the Nigerian government to task, not for mistreating marijuana users, but for not treating them badly enough.

“In Nigeria, federal, state and local governments tend to fight against these evils to achieve peace and harmony,” we are told. “However an excursion to many part [sic]of the country shows that war against these ills is almost lost.”

According to this depressing little article, Adegolu Street, in Alagbado, a suburb of Lagos, “symbolises poor enforcement of the nation’s law on hard drugs while the youths consume Indian hemp.”

Netherlands: Kidnapped Cannabis Cafe Owner Escapes

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 23, 2010 Dispensaries, Global

Photo: ZieZoZuid

Coffee shop owner Said Faggouss was kidnapped by masked gunmen from his business on Dec. 8.

A Dutch man who was kidnapped from his cannabis-dispensing coffee shop in Amsterdam last December, escaped from his captors in Belgium on Tuesday, according to Dutch police.

“Despite the cuffs around his ankles, he managed to escape and alert the police at a petrol station,” Amsterdam police said in a statement, according to IOL.

Said Faggouss had been held since December against his will at a building in Maasmechelen in northeast Belgium.

Marijuana Discussion Urged At Clinton’s Drug Policy Summit

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 23, 2010 Global, Legislation

Graphic: Freaking News

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) on Tuesday urged U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to include a discussion of marijuana prohibition — and effective alternatives to it — at a major drug policy summit in Mexico.

Secretary of State Clinton is leading a delegation, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, to Mexico City for a two-day conference focusing on ways the United States and Mexico can “break the power” of drug-trafficking organizations.

Prohibition Doesn’t Work: Denmark’s Massive Hash Crackdown Fails

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 18, 2010 Global, News

Photo: Galaxy/.09

Six years into a Danish cannabis crackdown, the only difference is dealers now use tables instead of booths

Six years later, an expensive and brutal crackdown has only produced one real change in the hash district: Now the dealers use tables instead of booths.

It was six years ago this week that Danish police held their first full-scale raid on Pusher Street, the world famous road in Copenhagen’s hippie district, Christiania, where people openly buy hashish.

The hash raids were the result of the government’s decision to crack down hard to the area’s hash trade. But today, both police and politicians admit the trade still thrives on the street, if in a slightly more discreet way.

Dutch Coffee Shops In Danger; ‘On Strike’ On Election Day

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 15, 2010 Dispensaries, Global, Legislation

Photo: Bachrach44

Pick Up The Pieces, one of the many “coffee shops” in Amsterdam

Dutch “coffee shops,” a euphemism for outlets selling cannabis, are in danger, and have announced they are going “on strike” on June 9, the day the Netherlands will hold parliamentary elections.

“The idea behind closing for the day is to encourage all those who like to smoke a joint to get out and vote for the parties which will ensure that coffee shops will not be banned in the Netherlands,” reports Johan van Slooten at Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Browsing: Global