Liberals retable pot bill

[mindspell]

OTTAWA -- Adding a dash of cash to sweeten the pot, the Liberal government has retabled its much-maligned marijuana bill. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler reintroduced the cannabis reform package yesterday, twinning it with measures to track drug-impaired drivers. And to show the feds are serious about preventing stoners from getting behind the wheel, Cotler announced $6.9 million for law enforcement.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/11/02/696717.html

Basically says that you can be caught in the possession of under 15 grams of pot without having a criminal record, just a fine.

 

[xfer]

that's not even as liberal as Alaska's current laws, right?

i love the degradation of drug laws.

 

[Josh Seipp]

yeah I think alaska is 2 ounces

 

[xfer]

and there's no "fine". it's not criminal at all under that amount, from what i understand.

 

[xfer]

marijuana could be an issue in this election, too:

Marijuana regulation is on the ballot in seven states. Voters in Montana as well as Columbus, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Berkeley, Calif., are deciding on decriminalizing it for medical purposes. Oregonians are voting on expanding their medical marijuana program. Residents of Oakland, Calif., are voting on lowering penalties for possession. Alaska could become the first state to decriminalize pot altogether.

 

[mindspell]

Liberals in this article are the party, not the qualifier

 

[xfer]

yeah, I'm aware...I was actually thinking about that yesterday, and I'm really glad that our parties have non-signifying names ("Democrats" and "Republicans" mean nothing).

 

[mindspell]

I don't know if that really makes a difference in our case because conservative and liberal are words that are rarely used in the media compared to your case. You never hear about the liberal media and the conservative right or anything like that. Parties here are mostly analyzed for their program and not their tendencies. If you go back to the eighties the federal Conservative party had a program even more liberal and to the left than the federal Liberals. I am sure it does make a difference in the US but I am not sure it makes a difference elsewhere.

We even had a party back in the twenties through the forties in Quebec that was called Social Credit and they were some of the most right-wing party ever.

 

[xfer]

like how socialist means left except when you're talking about National Socialists.

 

[mindspell]

Exactly.

 

[mindspell]

Well, the National Socialist German Workers' party did have some left, social and community-based, policies but also had that extreme right thing that took over. Haider wasn't all that wrong when he said he like Hitler's social policies, because they were very populist and more to the left than the right.

 

[xfer]

it's true, right down to anti-Semitism!

 

[mindspell]

Well, yeah... I guess that kinda came out wrong... Notice that I said SOME of the social policies. Haider is also Coucou, that's another matter...

 

[avi]

the ex-vocalist for Blatz and The Criminals is running for Berkeley City Council (and will hopefully win)

 

[xfer]

oh yeah mindspell I should point out that generally "table" here connotes "putting aside" or "shelving" or otherwise putting off, not "putting it on the table to talk about". kind of the opposite of what actually happened, right? (unless you mean Liberals have put off the pot legislation for another four years or whatever)

 

[mindspell]

They shelved it last winter and they are putting it back on the agenda... that's what happenning. As in putting the legislation back on the table for review and possibly passing this time around. I think YOU misunderstood.

 

[xfer]

I think you just misunderstood my last post.

 

[mindspell]

I did. Sorry about that... didn't read carefully the last part Question answered anyhow.

 

[lizard]

I don't want to create a thread just for this but it is really funny/interesting.

Those "family values" assholes that like to pick on "liberal" Massachusetts (like, um, President Bush) are in for a surprise.
PRESIDENT Bush and Vice President Cheney make reference to "Massachusetts liberals" as if they were referring to people with some kind of disease. I decided it was time to do some research on these people, and here is what I found.
The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.

But don't take the US government's word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.

The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people."

All that talk about "family values" is just that -- talk. It is states like the oft demonized Massachusetts that lead the way in true family values.

 

[xfer]

ummm that's becuz MA is full of DIRTY PAPISTS who FORBID DIVORCE and instead split up illegally and live with BLACK MEN OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE!!!!111