“Christopher Clay paraded in the hall of the Supreme Court with a giant poster of the front page of the Globe and Mail of June 20, 1970. ‘Ottawa to ease marijuana law’, headlined the article. Thirty-two years later, Clay is still waiting.” (Le Devoir, December 16, 2002) Since 1970, Liberal governments in Canada under Pierre Trudeau, JeanRead more
Bill Blair, the man now in charge of cannabis legalization in Canada, once oversaw “Project Growstop” for the Toronto Police. Starting in 2004, the campaign diverted “investigators, police, staff and equipment” from other tasks and focused them on cannabis gardens. Project Growstop had “some success;” the team identified and raided over 160 gardens within six months. However, despite anRead more
Photo courtesy of Hank LeClair In 1971, the Trudeau government’s Committee on Youth issued “one of the most extraordinary documents ever issued through a Cabinet Department of a national state.” The Committee had been tasked two years earlier to “study the (a) ‘aspirations, attitudes and needs of youth’, and (b) ‘the government’s present role in this area.’” InRead more
In 1973, the Globe and Mail published a blistering editorial criticizing the Liberal government for their inaction on cannabis legislation. The conclusion rings true today, as the Liberals discuss legalization while arrests continue. Canada no longer has the rule of law, with regard to marijuana, but the rule of men. And the rule of men is capricious…Read more
In January 1970, while awaiting the results of a royal commission studying cannabis and other illicit substances, the Liberal Minister of Health, John Munro, attended a taping of CBC’s Under Attack program. Each episode was a one-hour “free-for-all, where a studio audience of highly vocal students had a chance to pose awkward questions and demand answers from aRead more
In 1982, the Globe and Mail‘s Ottawa bureau chief, John Gray, wrote a scathing critique on the Trudeau Liberal government’s failure to ease the cannabis laws. Most troubling to him were the hundreds of thousands of arrests that continued unabated while the government promised change. The decade the Government has spent promising change has seen more than 300,000 CanadiansRead more
Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758) Once a week, between 1737 and 1739, Elizabeth Blackwell released a new section of her beautifully-illustrated book, A Curious Herbal containing five hundred cuts of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick, to which is added a short description of ye plants and their common usesRead more
Forty years ago, cannabis activist Andy Rapoch vented his frustration to Ottawa reporters over the Liberal government’s policy to enforce prohibition while at the same time repeatedly promising decriminalization. Years were passing by, and arrests continued for things the Trudeaus were clearly enjoying themselves. Margaret Trudeau didn’t hide her cannabis use while living at 24 SussexRead more
The Grand Hospital of Milan (founded in 1456) In April 1860, a 38-year old Italian man was bitten by a “mad dog” carrying the rabies virus. One month later, he was admitted to the historic Grand Hospital of Milan “suffering with all the symptoms” himself. He soon found himself in the care of Professor Giovanni Polli, aRead more
Excerpted from the Therapeutic Gazette, July 15, 1889, p. 483 BELLADONNA AND CANNABIS INDICA. – USE OF PER RECTUM IN GYNAECOLOGICAL PRACTICE In the Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, May 23, 1889, Dr. J. W. Farlow calls attention to the value of employing the absorbing power of the rectum in different affections of the pelvicRead more
