26.2.12

Driving Under The Influence Of Marijuana - 1 In 5 Teens Have Done It

23 Feb 2012, by Christian Nordqvist, MNT
19% of teenagers in the USA say they have driven a car while under the influence of marijuana, compared to 13% who say they have driven after consuming alcohol, according to a new report issued by SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and commissioned by Liberty Mutual Insurance. The authors added that marijuana use among 12-graders is at its highest level in three decades.

36% of teenagers believe that consuming marijuana has no negative effects on driving skills - this is a myth. Surprisingly, 19% of teenagers believe that consuming alcohol does not undermine driving safety...

17.2.12

Big Tobacco praying hard for pot legalization

(Letters  published in the Globe and Mail newspaper, Feb. 17, 2012)
Blowing a joint
Gary Mason suggests that legalizing marijuana will produce policy complexities (Legalize Weed, Yes, But The Demon’s In The Details – Feb. 16). Here are just a few: 1) Marijuana makes people with some mental illnesses more prone to psychosis. How will we protect vulnerable people from this harm?; 2) Marijuana smoke is as damaging to physical health as tobacco smoke; 3) Because raw marijuana has been accepted as a “medication,” anti-smoking regulations must be strengthened so they can be applied even to those who claim they are taking medication; 4) Legal marijuana will become a gift worth billions to Big Tobacco. The industry will devote its vast resources to obfuscating research on health effects, resisting regulation, targeting youth and maximizing marijuana’s addictive qualities; 5) Roadside tests must be developed to detect and prosecute drivers impaired by marijuana.
We need careful preparation before we jump on this bandwagon.
Judith Anderson, Burnaby, B.C.
-------------------------
Re Paul McCartney Quits Smoking Pot To Be A Better Parent (Feb. 16): Maybe Sir Paul is just trying to get back to where he once belonged.
Douglas Cornish, Ottawa

16.2.12

Paul McCartney quits smoking pot for daughter

'I smoked my share,' former Beatle tells magazine
CBC News, Posted: Feb 16, 2012
Sir Paul McCartney has reportedly canned his cannabis habit to be a better parent.

The former Beatle, who has spoken openly in the past about experimenting with harder drugs including cocaine and heroin, told Rolling Stone magazine in a recent interview he stopped smoking marijuana for the sake of his eight-year-old daughter, Beatrice.

"I smoked my share. When you're bringing up a youngster, your sense of responsibility does kick in, if you're lucky, at some point," he told the magazine.

Beatrice is McCartney's daughter from his second marriage, with ex-wife Heather Mills. He has four other children.

McCartney, 69, is currently married to American trucking heiress Nancy Shevell.

The rock legend's appreciation for pot has been well known for decades.

In 1980, he was arrested in Tokyo and deported while on tour with his band Wings, after customs officers there found nearly half a pound of marijuana in his baggage.

Mills claimed McCartney would smoke joints as often as people would drink cups of tea during their divorce proceedings.

The new Rolling Stone interview shows an apparent change of heart.

"Enough's enough — you just don't seem to think it's necessary," he said. 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2012/02/16/mccartney-quits-pot.html
Related news:
Paul McCartney quits smoking pot to be a better parent

15.2.12

"Harmless pot" propaganda crash again

Weed Doubles the Risk of Causing Serious and Fatal Car Crashes

Cannabis twice as likely to cause road smash, British Medical Journal (BMJ) finds

Pot smoking doubles risk of crash: study

( It is clear that  pro-pot advocates, addicts and legalization supporters are willing to accept many INEVITABLE, ADDITIONAL deaths from vehicle accidents due to pot use--as a PRICE of legalization--in order to satisfy the pot cravings of some. It's just "collateral damage". No big deal. Pot smokers' happiness is much more important than a few thousand additional accident deaths per year in the future due to pot legalization)

More stoned-driving news

The latest threat on the road: stoned drivers
michael kesterton, Globe and Mail, Jul. 05, 2011
Driving while stoned
“It was his green tongue that helped give away Jimmy Candido Flores when police arrived at the fatal accident scene near Chico [Calif.],” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Flores had run off the road and killed a jogger, Carrie Jean Holiman, a 56-year-old Chico elementary school teacher. California Highway Patrol officers thought he might be impaired and conducted a sobriety examination. Flores’s tongue had a green coat typical of heavy marijuana users and a later test showed he had pot, as well as other drugs, in his blood. After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Flores, a medical marijuana user, was sentenced in February to 10 years and eight months in prison. Holliman’s death and others like it across the nation hint at what experts say is an unrecognized crisis: stoned drivers.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/social-studies/the-latest-threat-on-the-road-stoned-drivers/article2087398/

14.2.12

Why this city is the most drug-addicted in the world

Although the article below has nothing to do with pot, it is important in revealing why Vancouver is the most hard drug-addicted city in the whole world---drug liberalism carried to the most extreme...

Vancouver pro-drug lobby doesn’t deserve taxpayer dollars
VANDU gets $250,000 from province, $20,000 from city hall
By Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier,  February 13, 2012

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

That’s how much Vancouver Coastal Health, your public health authority, gave VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, last year. This year, according to VCH officials, VANDU will receive another $250,000 from taxpayers, continuing a provincial funding scheme established in 1999.

Most Vancouverites don’t know VANDU. Headquartered in a brick building at 380 East Hastings in the Downtown Eastside, it’s a non-profit hangout conforming to neighbourhood drug culture. Folks gather outside on the sidewalk and inside the lobby. Traffic seems to have increased since December when VANDU began distributing free crack pipes to addicts, part of a VCH crack pipe giveaway. But mainly, thanks to longtime leader Ann Livingston, VANDU exists for activism...