Liberals can win the next federal election, but only if they come up with clear policy alternatives, some fresh ideas, new faces and a simple message, the party's pollster said Thursday.The problem is their Leader.
While Canadians still don't trust Harper entirely, MPs said Marzolini told them voters aren't particularly enamoured of the Liberal team or its agenda either.
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- The Puffin Song
- Copyright 1990 by Tom Knight
- I'm not like the penguin, don't confuse me with ducks
- I'm dressed for dinner in my finest fancy tux
- My beak it is pretty, my feathers are fine
- Long time ago, the hunters wanted mine
- Call me a Puffin, 'cuz that's my name
- I live on an island just off the coast of Maine
- But I wasn't born here, I was brought by a man
- And now my burrow is here on Egg Rock Island
- Chorus:
- Come fly with me
- Fly across the sea
- Come fly with me
- Puffins we will be
- My brothers and sisters, my lovely wife
- We like to gather, we love the social life
- A picnic for puffins, a tasty old treat
- I hope you like fish, it's our favorite thing to eat (Chorus)
An original dramatic action song – “Underwater World” – proved the perfect
opportunity for all age groups to work together.
" For a Puffin likes nuthin',
more than tasty fish,
And a beak thats full for stuffin',
is every Puffin's wish."
The value of this sharing was soon apparent. The children
worked in mixed age groups and the P3 seaweeds (7-8 year olds) were
soon swaying as gracefully as the P7 ones (11-12 year olds). The P1 shoals
of fish (5-6 year olds) were shown how to twist and wriggle by their older
brothers and sisters, and the young puffins took no time at all to copy the
older ones in tossing sandeels in their beaks, while waddling around the
stage! There was a great sense of togetherness and of each individual
contribution being an important part of the whole
Pagan branch gains strength
31 Aug 2007
Followers of Wicca, a branch of paganism, have stepped up efforts for recognition of the religion.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today commended President George W. Bush for his apology to a Wiccan war widow who was excluded from a private meeting with veterans and their deceased family members in Nevada earlier this week.
Roberta Stewart, whose husband Sgt. Patrick Stewart was killed in combat in Afghanistan, was not invited to meet with Bush and other family members of soldiers who have died in combat. Other members of Sgt. Stewart's family were invited to the meeting."He apologized for the exclusion and the error that was made and said that he admired me for my spirit and thanked me for accepting his apology and said that he hoped he would have the opportunity to someday meet me," Stewart continued. "I was very pleased with the way the conversation went, very pleased that he did call and put this right."
Lynn asked Stewart if the president touched upon her Wiccan faith. She replied that the president told her that "he would not discriminate against someone because of their religion."
Unlike other Born Again Christians who are still at war with the Old Religion.
The Return of the Old Gods: A Challenge to Green EvangelicalsJust as they are against secular society which allows Wicca and other alternative religions to flourish in spite of Christian Hegemony.
"Iran Arrests 230 Youths Attending 'Satanic' Rock Concert," AP, August 5, 2007
Kawwal Khoudeida Hasan, the leader of a community of about 50 Yezidi families now living in Lincoln, Nebraska, is pleading with the U.S. Congress and with the United Nations to stop the genocide of the Yezidis, a Kurdish people in Iraq with a unique history and religion.According to Kawwal, Genocide is occurring at this moment in northern Iraq to the Yezidis, a Kurdish people with a unique history and religion. Their persecution is coming at the hands of Islamic militants, who for centuries have slaughtered all Yezidis who have refused to convert to their religion.
On April 22, 2007, the world became shockingly aware of the Yezidi plight when 23 of them were lined up and systematically gunned down by a firing squad of Moslem Kurds. A few days later, 3 more Yezidi men were gunned down by Moslem extremists in the city of Mosul, thus bringing the total of Yezidi murders to 34 during the three month period from March to May, 2007.
Most recently, on August 12, 2007, the drivers of four bomb-laden trucks detonated their loads after driving into two residential areas near the town of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, killing at least 250 Yezidis and injuring at least 500 more. This attack occurred in an area principally occupied by Faqirs, members of the Yezidi priest class, thus indicating that the ultimate goal of the culprits was apparently to strike at the jugular of the Yezidi religion by destroying its priests.
'They won't stop until we are all wiped out.' Among the Yezidi
"The attack came as no surprise to us," Prince Tahseen Sayid Ali, the temporal leader of the Yezidis, told the Guardian in his headquarters in Sheikhan, about 40 miles north-east of Mosul. Last April, the community came under the international spotlight when a Yezidi girl married a Muslim boy and was reported to have converted to Islam. She was promptly stoned to death by a mob in her hometown of Bazan. The murder was caught on a mobile phone camera and distributed on the internet. Yezidi leaders condemned the killing, but the damage was done. In response, gunmen pulled 23 Yezidi workers off a bus near Mosul and shot them dead. Hundreds of Yezidi students at Mosul university have since either fled or moved to universities inside the Kurdish autonomous area. For the past month, said Prince Tahseen, Yezidi leaders in Sinjar had been complaining of threats by Islamists. They said the militants, holed up among local Sunni Arab settlements along the Syrian border, had effectively blockaded Yezidi towns, preventing delivery of foodstuffs and fuel.
"The Islamic terrorists had made it very clear that they wanted to see rivers of Yezidi blood," said Prince Tahseen. But no one, least of all the US army, which is nominally in control of the region, was listening. "I'm sure it will happen again unless we take steps to protect ourselves," he said. "We are a peaceful people. We don't have force of arms. The only protection is for all the Yezidis is to be part of the Kurdish self-rule zone. But whether the Arabs allow us to vote on it as the constitution says we should, is another question."
The Yezidi are considered a 'satanic' religion, because as a gnostic religion they believe that the god of this world is Lucifer, the Peacock Angel.Their religion is an example of the transition from Goddess worship to that of the Patriarchal Monotheistic God. The polytheism of the the Goddess and God based cultures gave way to a polytheistic pantheon ruled over by One God.
A series of 4 massive car bombs in the Kurdish area of Iraq, near the Syrian border, killed more than 250 people yesterday. The attacks were aimed at the Yezedi sect, a pre-Islamic religious community that has been persecuted for centuries. Tensions escalated earlier this year however, when a 17-year-old Yezedi girl was stoned to death for falling in love with a Muslim boy and converting to Islam.
This stoning, incidently, led to the massacre of 23 Yezedis by Muslims who believed Du'a was murdered for converting to Islam:Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a police spokesman for Ninevah province, said the executions were in response to the killing two weeks ago of a Yazidi woman who had recently converted to Islam after she fell in love with a Muslim and ran off with him. Her relatives had disapproved of the match and dragged her back to Bashika, where she was stoned to death, he said.
A grainy video showing gruesome scenes of the woman's killing was distributed on Iraqi Web sites in recent weeks, but its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
The town of Ain Sifni is being garrisoned by a force of approximately 1000 Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) and police. It is not clear when Kurdish forces will leave but the Yazidis are quite intimidated at this point. The Yazidis have long endured persecution and intimidation from their Arab and Kurdish Muslim neighbors as have the Christian Chaldo-Assyrians of the region. It would be great if a legitimate reporter could get in and take a look at what’s going on but based on how a journalist was treated when we were there yesterday, they may be very restricted in their movement and activities.
Yezidism is syncretistic: it combines elements of many faiths. Like Hindus, they believe in reincarnation. Like ancient Mithraists, they sacrifice bulls. They practise baptism, like Christians. When they pray they face the sun, like Zoroastrians. They profess to revile Islam, but there are strong links with Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam.
It's a remarkably confusing picture. And I still haven't got an answer to the main question: do they worship "Satan"?
In the centre of town I am greeted by Halil Savucu, a westernised spokesman for the Yezidi. Also with us is Uta Tolle, a German scholar of Yezidism.
In Halil's Mercedes we drive into the suburbs. On the way, the two of them give me their view of the faith. "Yezidi is oral, not literary," says Uta. "This is why it is sometimes hard to pin down precise beliefs. There are religious texts, like the Black Book, but they are not crucial. The faith is really handed down by kawwas, sort of musical preachers."
And who is Melek Taus? Halil looks slightly uncomfortable: "We believe he is a proud angel, who rebelled and was thrown into Hell by God. He stayed there 40,000 years, until his tears quenched the fires of the underworld. Now he is reconciled to God."
But is he good or evil? "He is both. Like fire. Flames can cook but they can also burn. The world is good and bad."
For a Yezidi to say they worship the Devil is understandably difficult. It is their reputation as infidels - as genuine "devil worshippers" - that has led to their fierce persecution over time, especially by Muslims. Saddam Hussein intensified this suppression.
But some Yezidi do claim that Melek Taus is "the Devil". One hereditary leader of the Yezidi, Mir Hazem, said in 2005: "I cannot say this word [Devil] out loud because it is sacred. It's the chief of angels. We believe in the chief of angels."
There are further indications that Melek Taus is "the Devil". The parallels between the story of the peacock angel's rebellion, and the story of Lucifer, cast into Hell by the Christian God, are surely too close to be coincidence. The very word "Melek" is cognate with "Moloch", the name of a Biblical demon - who demanded human sacrifice.
The avian imagery of Melek Taus also indicates a demonic aspect. The Yezidi come from Kurdistan, the ancient lands of Sumeria and Assyria. Sumerian gods were often cruel, and equipped with beaks and wings. Birdlike. Three thousand years ago the Assyrians worshipped flying demons, spirits of the desert wind. One was the scaly-winged demon featured in The Exorcist: Pazuzu.
The Yezidi reverence for birds - and snakes - might also be extremely old. Excavations at ancient Catalhoyuk, in Turkey, show that the people there revered bird-gods as long ago as 7000BC. Even older is Gobekli Tepe, a megalithic site near Sanliurfa, in Kurdish Turkey (Sanliurfa was once a stronghold of Yezidism). The extraordinary temple of Gobekli boasts carvings of winged birdmen, and images of buzzards and serpents.
500 - 1,000 CE
Mohammed founds Islam (dies 632). Celtic Church outlawed by
Council of Whitby (664). Foundation of first Sufi secret
societies (c. 700). First written translation of Emerald Tablet
of Hermes Trismegistus. Charlemagne founds alleged first
Rosicrucian Lodge in Toulouse (898). Foundation of the Cathars,
Druzes and Yezedi (900). Heretical Catholic monks found first
Rosicrucian college (1,000).
Roberts was inspired by a passage found in the Travels of Marco Polo. Upon Polo's visits to Persia (the land now officially known as Iran) he was given an unusual history of the Nativity which combined unique elements of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian religion was once the most embraced and popular monothiestic/dualist organized religion in the world prior to the advent of Christianity and Judaism during the reign of the Persian Empire. The world Zoroastrian population still exists, but the adherents to that once-most-popular faith have now dwindled to only about 100,000 people.
I had been hearing about the Yezidi people who live in villages near Dohuk. Followers of an ancient religion, whose proponents claim it is the oldest in the world, there are thought to be about a half million Yezidis, living mostly in the area of Mosul, with smaller bands in forgotten villages scattered across northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and other lands. Saddam had labeled the Yezidis “Devil Worshippers,” a claim I’d heard other Iraqis make, but no source offered substantiation. I wanted to know more.
Nearly everything I heard pronounced as fact about Yezidis was certain in only one narrow sense: before long, someone equally confident of their information would provide a different set of facts. The only way to find the truth would be to talk with Yezidis in situ, so I asked an interpreter in Dohuk to take me to a Yezidi village.
An older Yezidi man with whom I speak on occasion says there are seven angels: Izrafael, Jibrael, Michael, Nordael, Dardael, Shamnael, and Azazael. All were gathered at a heavenly meeting when God told them they should bow to none other than Him. This arrangement worked for a span of forty thousand years, until God created Adam by mixing the “elements”: earth, air, water and fire. When God told the seven angels to bow before Adam, six complied. A seventh angel, citing God’s order that the angels bow only to God, refused. Although this angel was God’s favorite, his disobedience cast him from grace.
There is some dispute among Yezidis about the identity of the seventh angel; some believe it was Jibrael, while others believe it was Izrafael. Much seems lost to time. But whatever his former name, when this seventh Angel, most beloved of God, fell from grace, he was the most powerful angel in Heaven and on Earth. He rose as the Archangel Malak Ta’us. (Although this, too, is the subject of some debate; some Yezidis call him Ta’us Malak.) His herald is the peacock, for it is “by far the most beautiful bird in the world,” and the name, Malak Ta’us, literally means “King of Peacocks.”
Most Yezidis equate Malak Ta’us with Satan, a mainstay in many religions but otherwise not mentioned in Yezidism. Some Yezidis claim that Malak Ta’us is like a god himself, at least in terms of his power-particularly over the fortunes of the descendents of Adam. In this religion, God created Adam, but no Eve, and therefore all men came from Adam alone. The Yezidis were first born among all men, and consider themselves to be “the chosen people.”
It has been a long time since mass murder in Mesopotamia has been news. Few still cry for Iraq. Hardly anyone has heard of Yezidis, the victims.
\Marijuana use in Canada is the highest in the industrialized world and more than four times the global rate, according to a report from the United Nations.We have a large scale industry in producing illicit and licit marijuana. The latter for medicinal purposes. We have approved marijuana and its byproducts for medicinal uses.
Forty per cent of Canadian cannabis is produced in British Columbia, 25% in Ontario and 25% in Quebec, the report noted.Health
- One in 10 Canadian women uses marijuana.
Experts and activists are not concerned about the high rate of Canadian marijuana use reported in 2007 UN World Drug report —even though young people are the largest users of the drug.
The report states that 16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 64 used marijuana in 2004. Canada is ranked fifth in marijuana use and the country’s usage percentage is four times the world average of 3.8 per cent. To compare, the report found that 12.6 per cent of people in the United States and 6.1 per cent in Holland have used the drug.
Richard Mathias, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine, said he is pleased with the results from the report and is not worried about the high numbers of young people using the drug.
“I think that marijuana is a safer drug than some other options and I know that youth is a difficult, highly stressful time and it is to be expected that youth will explore and that’s good,” he said. “I teach these kids. They’re not criminals.”
A study conducted in 2002 by Carleton University professor Peter Fried also concluded that only heavy pot smokers are negatively affected by marijuana use. Fried’s 70-person study found that only heavy marijuana users between the ages of 10 and 20 had a decline in their IQ scores. The rest saw an increase in their scores.
The study also found that those who smoked heavily and later quit returned to their former IQ level.Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa-based lawyer who specializes in drug policy issues, said the UN report shows that the legal status of marijuana in a given country seems to have little bearing on consumption rates.
The report found that only 6.1 per cent of people in the Netherlands, where marijuana use has effectively been decriminalized, reported trying pot.
This shows decriminalization has no bearing on rates of use, and Canada shouldn't be so afraid to follow the Dutch lead, Oscapella said.
"The criminal law does not prevent people from using marijuana, nor does legalization force people to use it," he said.
Jean Chretien's Liberals first introduced a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in 2003, but it was never brought to a final vote. Stephen Harper's Conservatives killed the bill when they came to office in January 2006.
Oscapella added that Canada should be focusing its resources on the root causes of drug abuse, rather than persecuting people for possession.
"It is a health and a social issue," he said. "The criminal law is not the appropriate mechanism for dealing with drugs in the vast majority of cases."
Marijuana and tobacco use among young adults in Canada
The authors characterized marijuana smoking among young adult Canadians, examined the co-morbidity of tobacco and marijuana use, and identified correlates associated with different marijuana use consumption patterns. Data were collected from 20,275 individuals as part of the 2004 Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey. Logistic regression models were conducted to examine characteristics associated with marijuana use behaviors among young adults (aged 15-24). Rates of marijuana use were highest among current smokers and lowest among never smokers. Marijuana use was more prevalent among males, young adults living in rural areas, and increased with age. Young adults who were still in school were more likely to have tried marijuana, although among those who had tried, young adults outside of school were more like to be heavy users. Males and those who first tried marijuana at an earlier age also reported more frequent marijuana use. These findings illustrate remarkably high rates of marijuana use and high co-morbidity of tobacco use among young adult Canadians. These findings suggest that future research should consider whether the increasing popularity of marijuana use among young adults represents a threat to the continuing decline in tobacco use among this population.
“We will not be reintroducing the Liberal government’s marijuana decriminalization legislation,” Harper announced at a Canadian Professional Police Association meeting. “I thought we might find a receptive audience here,” he added, according to a Reuters report.
In view of the former Liberal government's determination to medicalize and legalize marijuana, it is not surprising that, according to a study of young people in Canada released in 2004, our youth now hold the distinction of topping all nations (Switzerland was second) in frequent marijuana use. The lead researcher for this study, Dr. William Boyce of Queen's University, stated that the increased use of marijuana in Canada was tied to the three As - affordability, availability and acceptability. He stated, "in Canada, I think all three of those things come together so that it's actually used quite a bit by kids here. It's not so expensive, it's definitely available and with the legislation introduced in the last Parliament - and perhaps again in this one - that decriminalizes marijuana use, it certainly provides a signal to kids that this is not a highly illegal activity."
Thank heaven, the Conservative government is now providing a different message to our youth on marijuana use.
Please write to Prime Minister Harper and Minister of Justice Toews to thank them for the planned enforcement of the present marijuana laws rather than legalizing its use. Their actions will make a significant difference to our nation's youth. Please also request that marijuana use for so-called medical reasons be stopped if and until such time that it can be scientifically determined that its use has in fact, medical benefits.
The Harpocrites have adopted the oh so successful American War On Drugs Policy. And they have included marijuana as a key element of their new anti-drug campaign. Look forward to more regressive stupidity in the fall sitting of the house as the Minister of Health declares a drug panic.
Meanwhile the Police and Senate disagree with the Harpocrites new War On Drugs.Clement to MDs: Get tougher on illicit drugs
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement delivered a tough, anti-drug message to doctors yesterday, saying young people need straight talk about the dangers of illicit drugs, including marijuana.
"The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least," Clement told the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver.
"We are very concerned about the damage and pain that drugs cause families and we intend to reverse the trend toward vague, ambiguous messaging that has characterized Canadian attitudes in the recent past," he said.
Ottawa plans a campaign emphasizing the dangers of all illicit drugs in any quantity, Clement said. "We will discourage young people from thinking there are safe amounts or safe drugs."
Victoria's No. 2 cop testified in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday that neither the Vancouver Island Compassion Society nor its distribution of medical marijuana has ever been the subject of a criminal investigation.
Deputy Chief Bill Naughton said the society's Cormorant Street office of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society has not generated any complaints, adding marijuana ranks behind drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in terms of Victoria police priorities.
"The enforcement of federal laws against marijuana takes a back seat," said Naughton, who was subpoenaed by the defence in the trial of Michael Swallow, 41, and Mat Beren, 33.
Also testifying yesterday in Victoria was Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who chaired the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which called in 2002 for the legalization of marijuana in Canada.
Nolin told the court the regulations, as they currently exist, are an obstacle to Canadians who want access to medical marijuana.
He said the rules ask doctors to be "gatekeepers" for access to legal marijuana. It's a role doctors don't want, and so Canadians are being denied access to a medical product.
"[The] medical profession is reluctant, generally reluctant," he said. "They don't want to be the gatekeepers, they don't want that responsibility."
Heck even the da Judge disagrees with the Government.
Rolling a joint might require the removal of stems and seeds, but the legal limbo in which pot smokers in Canada find themselves is far from clear-cut.
On July 13, an Ontario Court judge in Toronto acquitted Clifford Long, who was charged with possession of 3.5 grams of marijuana.
The court held that Canada's marijuana possession laws are unconstitutional. Justice Howard Borenstein cited a seven-year-old Ontario Court of Appeal case, which also described the possession law as unconstitutional, due to its ambiguity on medical marijuana.
Long argued in court that since the government of Canada allowed for medicinal use, but did not change the law on marijuana to accommodate this policy change, then all possession laws should cease to exist.
While the Harpocrites declare a War On Drugs, including marijuana, at the same time they approve big pharma profiting off Medical Marijuana.
GW Pharmaceuticals plc (AIM: GWP) and Bayer Inc., a subsidiary of Bayer AG, announce that Health Canada has approved Sativex®, a cannabis derived pharmaceutical treatment, as adjunctive analgesic treatment in adult patients with advanced cancer who experience moderate to severe pain during the highest tolerated dose of strong opioid therapy for persistent background pain.
While local marijuana growers are limited in providing medical marijuana to one or two Canadians. Clearly the Harpocrites missed the point of the Fraser Institute Report. Local grow ops legally functioning can produce medical as well as recreational marijuana that then could be taxed. Quality and consumer protection, would be assured.
A Vancouver Island grower of organic marijuana is being inundated with pleas for pot from disease sufferers, but Health Canada says he can supply only one person, a provincial court trial has been told.
Eric Nash said he wrote to Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement with a list of 121 people, all approved by Health Canada to use marijuana as medicine and asking him to grow it for them. One of them was a former RCMP officer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
But Nash said regulations forbid him from growing for more than one person at a time. So his company, Island Harvest, can supply only two people, one each for him and his partner, although it could easily supply more.
And Tony's announcement of a new PR campaign in the War On Drugs looks suspicious in light of the governments failure to extend the license for the Vancouver Safe Injection Site.
The Canadian government is ramping up a massive anti-drug campaign, the first in 20 years, amid calls to keep open a Vancouver clinic that monitors heroin addicts as they inject themselves with the drug.
"Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign for almost 20 years. The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least," federal Health Minister Tony Clement said yesterday in a speech to the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver.
Meanwhile, the Health Minister was vague about whether the Insite injection clinic in Vancouver would stay open. "There has been more research done, and some of it has been questioning of the research that has already taken place and questioning of the methodology of those associated with Insite," he said.
Isra Levy, president of the National Specialty Society for Community Medicine called for Insite to remain open in an interview with The Globe and Mail, stating that "illicit drug use is indeed a scourge, it's the cause of untold misery for those ill with addiction and their loved ones."
Is Harpers War in Afghanistan an excuse to expand his War On Drugs.....not only against opium but against the powerful Cannabis Indica and Afghani Hash....remember Afghani hash? It ain't been around in North America since the late Sixties and early Seventies when Hippies made their holy pilgrimage to Marrakesh and on to Afghanistan and back. It remains however a staple in Europe.
Hashish is produced practically everywhere in and around Afghanistan. The best kinds of Hash originate from the Northern provinces between Hindu Kush and the Russian border (Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif). As tourist in Afghanistan it will be very difficult to be allowed to see Cannabis-Fields or Hash Production. The plants which are used for Hash production are very small and bushy Indicas. In Afghanistan Hashish is pressed by hand under addition of a small quantity of tea or water. The Hashish is worked on until it becomes highly elastic and has a strong aromatic smell. In Afghanistan the product is stored in the form of Hash-Balls (because a round ball has the less contact with air), however, before being shipped, the Hash is pressed in 100g slabs. Good qualities of Afghani are signed with the stem of the producing family. Sometimes Hash of this kind is sold as Royal Afghani. Color: Black on the outside, dark greenish or brown inside. Can sometimes look kind of grayish on the outside when left in contact with the air. Smell: Spicy to very spicy. Taste: Very spicy, somewhat harsh on the throat. Afghani can induce lots of coughing in inexperienced users.Afghani
aka Afghanistan
MarijuanaAfghani Marijuana Strains - The origins of this seed strain come from Afghanistan and travel to Holland. Afghani has big round fat leaves and the same beautiful big fat buds. It usually has a rich smooth hash like heavy smoke taste. The Afghani marijuana plant tends to be very bushy and will yield large amounts of very sticky buds. Well known for excellent growth because it originated in mountainous conditions and over thousands of years a very stocky, sturdy and disease resistant plant was produced.
Maj. Patrick Robichaud, commander of the operating base, this week characterized the security situation around Ma'sum Ghar as "fragile." He said Taliban insurgents appear to have taken advantage of a change in command among the Canadians and the Afghan National Army to slip back into the region. The insurgents are looking to strong-arm local farmers for a piece of the action in the impending marijuana harvest, said Maj. Robichaud.
Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of 10-foot-tall marijuana plants.Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.
The United Nations has conducted surveys of poppy crops, but has not done so for marijuana plants. The focus on poppies possibly reflects the view of international donors that highly addictive heroin is the more urgent problem.
Marijuana plants are widely grown in at least three of the 16 districts in Balkh province, which is home to Mazar-e-Sharif. Local authorities have sent letters to villages urging farmers to stop growing the illegal crop, but they have yet to decide how and when they will crack down.
"The farmers have planted this stuff like smugglers," said Saheed Azizullah Hashmi, head of the province's agriculture department. "We don't know how much there is out there."
He said many people associated with the hashish trade were linked to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But marijuana plants thrived well before they held sway over much of Afghanistan, and local commanders with large land holdings reportedly benefit from its cultivation.
Rouzudin and his fellow farmers made no effort to hide their plants, which loom over nearby cotton bushes. The two crops are interspersed along the road leading to Shibergan, the headquarters of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek commander and powerful political figure in the north.
Farmer Majid Gul said he can get 5 million Afghanis, or about $100, for 2.2 pounds of hashish, 200 times more than he could earn for the same amount of cotton.
"When we're ready to sell, people in big cars will come from the bazaar in town," he said. "We don't know who they are, we just want the money."
. For the decade before the Soviet army invaded in 1979, the teahouses of Afghanistan were the toking tourist's hangout of choice. And even during 23 years of war, when the Afghans fought the Soviets and then one another, the hash trade thrived. "Afghan black" remained a staple sale for cannabis dealers across the world. Mazar-i-Sharif gave its name to a particularly potent variety. And last year, in the final weeks of the Taliban, Amsterdam's coffee-shop owners even boasted they were doing their bit for the war on terror by buying blocks stamped with a golden Northern Alliance stencil reading "Freedom for Afghanistan."
Now, as Afghanistan emerges from war, dope farming has never been so good�and the drought never so bad. The Taliban banned hash production, but in the postwar chaos of lawless fiefdoms that dot the land, growers and traders across the country are finding themselves free once again to cultivate and export hashish without fear, and often with warlord protection. Moreover, the international perception that cannabis is a relatively benign drug�prompting some authorities across Europe and Australia to decriminalize its use�has persuaded drug-policing agencies to largely ignore it. So, while opium cultivation is monitored to the acre, neither Interpol, the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention nor the U.S.'s Drug Enforcement Agency can offer even rough estimates for how much hashish Afghanistan produces or what the trade is worth. But around Mazar it's almost impossible to find a field where hemp is not being grown, either openly or poorly hidden behind watermelons or knee-high cotton plants. "Everybody's farming chaars now," says former Taliban fighter Faizullah, 27, watering a verdant six-hectare oasis of hemp surrounded by desert. Cannabis used to be outlawed by the Taliban. "But now," says Faizullah, "it's a free-for-all."
Also, a little known fact is that if Ron Paul got his way, there would be no federal war on drugs. He has called the war on drugs “as stupid as the war in Iraq”. He is uncompromisingly against federal laws banning medical marijuana, and completely opposed to the federal government coming in, when a state has legalized medical marijuana, and using force to nullify this legalization (such as has happened in California, where medical marijuana is legal, but the federal government uses force to effectively keep it criminalized. This would NOT happen under a Paul administration.)
