12 January 2011

Big weed busts in the Inner North

12 January 2011 | By johnboy

City Station police officers were kept busy yesterday (Tuesday January 11) after executing two separate drug warrants at two locations.

About 12.30pm general duties officers were conducting a foot patrol of Ainslie Village when they observed a number of people coming and going from a unit. Police knocked on the door and once opened saw a number of bags containing what is suspected to be cannabis in plain view. An emergency search warrant was executed with over 65 clip seal bags of cannabis located with an approximate total weight of 285 grams.

A 42-year-old Ainslie man will be summonsed to attend the ACT Magistrates Court at a later date charged with a number of drug offences.

In the second incident police executed a Drugs of Dependence search warrant about 9.30pm on a home in Watson. Police were notified of two males acting suspiciously around the home earlier in the day. While canvassing the home to locate the males’ police observed a number of cannabis plants in the backyard.

Upon executing the search warrant the two males were located inside one of the bedrooms. Police seized 75 cannabis plants in various sizes and recovered stolen property from a burglary earlier in the day.

The 16-year-old male was arrested for breach of bail and is likely to face further charges at a later date. The 18-year-old Watson man was arrested and bailed from the ACT Watch House. He will be summonsed to attend the ACT Magistrates Court at a later date, charged with theft, aggravated burglary, possess prohibited substance and cultivate controlled plant.

North District Superintendent Mick Calatzis said “While these matters are concerning to us, the detection and apprehension of these suspects could not have occurred without strong community support, which is a platform of our intelligence led policing”.

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fgzk11:03 am 08 Dec 11

Weed is so evil people want to put it in your food.

“Food Standards Australia will consider an application to change the national code to allow hemp use in foods.”

ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-08/hemp-seeds-cannabis-food-standards/3719846

fgzk8:37 am 05 Dec 11

Paracelsus, sometimes called the father of toxicology, wrote:

[10]German: Alle Ding’ sind Gift, und nichts ohn’ Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.

“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.”Or, more commonly”The dose makes the poison.”That is to say, substances considered toxic are harmless in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily harmless substance can be deadly if over-consumed.

Jethro8:33 am 05 Dec 11

jcitizen said :

Dont know what research your looking at, (probably funded by high times?) but I have grown up with and still visit three blokes who are all working. Ones a mechanic, ones a high ranking public servant and ones a handyman( whos studying at CIT for a degree in IT). Now these three guys are all functioning tax payers in our society and are normally only recreational users.

Problem is that they have very little self control and tend to hit the “WEED” several times a day when they feel preasured or stressed for whatever reason. They “turn to it”.

After several weeks of the extra consumption,I have witnessed the mechanic turn so paranoid that he ends up in the “rubber room” at the Canberra Hospital, usually for months at a time, every 3 to 4 years. He turns into “Astro Boy” and thinks the mothership is coming to take him away.He also gets extremely agressive and abusive. He is now on daily medication for the rest of his life.

The public servant holds a” secretive job” and is also extremely paranoid. He thinks hes a “Canberra version of Tony Suprano”, problem is that he signs off on millions of dollars at work. He also has spent a lot of time in the “Rubber Room” and now requires daily medication.

The handyman, whos attending uni, thinks that the “Freemasons” are ” out to get him” and that on every full moon that the “masons” eat a child. Hes also on daily medication.

They are all parents, of teenage children, and have all seperated from their partners. Thier kids,5 in total, are all in one way or another, severely affected by thier parents “habbits” and, all barr one, are now suffering the same fate.

Make of that what you will.
I know what I know.

So prohibition clearly hasn’t stopped these negative effects of weeding hitting your friends. I keep hearing about all these people who have been negatively impacted and keep thinking, well that means prohibition isn’t achieving its goals. Cannabis use is higher in Australia than the Netherlands or Portugal, where is is legal.

Perhaps a system that regulated the type of weed available (not the super hydro stuff that evidence suggests is more likely to lead to psychosis), and used the tax dollars from cannabis sales to run very strong public awareness campaigns (akin to the tobacco campaigns over the past 10 years) would have been more helpful for your friends. The tax revenue could also conceivably used to fund support services for people who are unable to control their use.

There is no evidence that prohibition decreases demand or decreases the number of people using cannabis at an unhealthy level, and I can’t help but feel that legalising, taxing and strictly regulating the sale of cannabis seems a better system than one where all of the money from cannabis sales gets funnelled to organised crime.

On a side note, I fail to see how a Public Servant working in a ‘secret’ area would be able to maintain his security clearance if every few years he has to spend time in a rubber room for drug induced psychosis.

fgzk8:17 am 05 Dec 11

jcitizen. I wouldn’t try to discount what you know because you have come to that conclusion through your own observation.

What I find interesting in your story is that all three are now given a drug that is regulated by the Government. These drugs have side effects too. The drugs that allegedly caused the problem are illegal and unregulated. We have no way of telling what makes up the “pot” they where smoking. A drug company in the UK who is producing a marijuana medical spray claims that there are other active components in their plants that produce different effects.

“Cannabis contains more than 400 different chemical compounds, including at least 66 other cannabinoids (cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN) and tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), etc.) which can result in different effects from those of THC alone.”

Some of these compounds, it is claimed, have anti psychotic effects. So much so that there is a great deal of interest in them by drug companies. The rub is that illegally grown hydro seems to have less CBD’s CBN’s etc, in favor of high THC levels. You wouldn’t know as growing is not tested or regulated. The strain of the plant used would seem to be an important factor in the effect it has. Whilst the system remains unregulated you have no control of active ingredients.

Maybe your mates should stay off the hydro and get some nice bush buds. Still, they are on drugs, just regulated ones.

shadow boxer8:11 am 05 Dec 11

@jcitizen, I think you are missing the point of what we are saying. People have taken drugs since the beginning of time. The war on drugs has led to the loss of countless lives in third world countries and over 1 million people being imprisoned in the US.

The nice thing about the approach being trialled in California is it acknowledges the war is lost and attempts to bring the situation under a degree of control.

i.e quality control and taxation now exist and users are required to obtain a medical certificate from a health professional.

Your point about marijuana induced psychosis is correct from what I have observed but prohibition is not helping these people.

jcitizen8:08 pm 04 Dec 11

RedDogInCan said :

Stevian said :

People predisposed to depression, psychosis and suicide, and the just plain lazy are more likely to use drugs.

There is a significant body of research to back this up – and it is not just illegal drugs. People suffering mental illness are more likely to smoke tobacco and abuse alcohol, and there is evidence that it reduces the symptoms of their illness rather than exacerbate them.

Dont know what research your looking at, (probably funded by high times?) but I have grown up with and still visit three blokes who are all working. Ones a mechanic, ones a high ranking public servant and ones a handyman( whos studying at CIT for a degree in IT). Now these three guys are all functioning tax payers in our society and are normally only recreational users.

Problem is that they have very little self control and tend to hit the “WEED” several times a day when they feel preasured or stressed for whatever reason. They “turn to it”.

After several weeks of the extra consumption,I have witnessed the mechanic turn so paranoid that he ends up in the “rubber room” at the Canberra Hospital, usually for months at a time, every 3 to 4 years. He turns into “Astro Boy” and thinks the mothership is coming to take him away.He also gets extremely agressive and abusive. He is now on daily medication for the rest of his life.

The public servant holds a” secretive job” and is also extremely paranoid. He thinks hes a “Canberra version of Tony Suprano”, problem is that he signs off on millions of dollars at work. He also has spent a lot of time in the “Rubber Room” and now requires daily medication.

The handyman, whos attending uni, thinks that the “Freemasons” are ” out to get him” and that on every full moon that the “masons” eat a child. Hes also on daily medication.

They are all parents, of teenage children, and have all seperated from their partners. Thier kids,5 in total, are all in one way or another, severely affected by thier parents “habbits” and, all barr one, are now suffering the same fate.

Make of that what you will.
I know what I know.

Jethro2:55 pm 04 Dec 11

fgzk said :

Been to Mexico lately.

What is happening in Mexico is a direct result of prohibition.

fgzk1:48 pm 04 Dec 11

Shadow boxer the California thing only reeks of American self interest. They are so addicted to solving issues with a gun, they have no hope of actually doing anything else but war. I think we are smarter than that. I hope we are. We need to dump the American model. Its not working for them, it wont work for us. Been to Mexico lately.

shadow boxer1:29 pm 04 Dec 11

When handled correctly drugs are fun. Some need more handling than others (and a few are best avoided all together) but quite safe when used correctly.

Prohibitions days are numbered, places like California are so close to legalisation it is only 2-3 years away at the most.

fgzk1:28 pm 04 Dec 11

buzz819 said :

Leinna said :

Shouldn’t we make tobacco illegal instead? It causes much more harm to the community than marijuana.

How can people not get this, it causes more harm, because more people use it. Legalise dope and it will cause more harm as more people will use it.

Maybe. Then again the stop smoking campaigns have had a huge impact on reducing smoking. Tweaks to packaging and advertising have also had an effect. The model used for tobacco should include “dope”. If your goal is to reduce use then you need to actual employ strategies that actually work. Of course criminalizing tobacco is a strategy we know will fail.

Just a reality check buzz anyone that wants to use “pot” right now, can. They might not be able to get it over the counter but with a phone call, it s available in the car park.

More harm. Less harm. I think they call it harm minimization. Right now “we” don’t control the harm apart from substantially add to it with prohibition. Fear mongering you are. Get it.