Canada, Victoria, BC: CHEK Point Poll: Will you buy Marijuana when it becomes legal next summer?

Victoria, BC, Canada

Saturday, April 15, 2017.

10c

Source: CHEK Point Poll: Will you buy marijuana when it becomes legal next summer? | CHEK

I love my town. Look at how liberal we are towards marijuana. This question was asked by our local TV station:

CHEK Point Poll: Will you buy marijuana when it becomes legal next summer?

This poll is limited, as the only answers are, “Yes, I will.” and, “No, legal or not I am not going to buy marijuana.”

I was hoping for an other option, like, “Heck, we are already buying it, eating it, and smoking it, thank you.”

As of 3:30 pm the poll was running at 68% yes, and 32% no.

5016 so far have voted. 3387 said yes, and 1629 said no.

This means that roughly 7 out of 10 residents of my town will happily buy and consume cannabis once it is legal.

Of course,  the truth is that most of us already buy and consume cannabis on a daily basis. We have 23 dispensaries selling it. We also have some of the best cannabis horticulturalists on the planet. And no, civilization has not come crumbling down. If anything, we are one of the most productive and compassionate people on the globe.

(Victoria demographics at the bottom)

 

Wiki:

Victoria /vɪkˈtɔːriə/ is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada’s Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 85,792, while the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, has a population of 367,770, making it the 15th most populous Canadian urban region.

Victoria is the southernmost major city in Western Canada, and is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from BC’s largest city of Vancouver on the mainland. The city is about 100 km (60 mi) from Seattle by airplane, ferry, or the Victoria Clipper passenger-only ferry which operates daily, year round between Seattle and Victoria and 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Port Angeles, Washington, by ferry Coho across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and, at the time, British North America, Victoria is one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlement beginning in 1843. The city has retained a large number of its historic buildings, in particular its two most famous landmarks, Legislative buildings (finished in 1897 and home of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia) and the Empress hotel (opened in 1908). The city’s Chinatown is the second oldest in North America after San Francisco’s. The region’s Coast Salish First Nations peoples established communities in the area long before non-native settlement, possibly several thousand years earlier, which had large populations at the time of European exploration.

Known as the “The Garden City”, Victoria is an attractive city and a popular tourism destination with a thriving technology sector that has risen to be its largest revenue-generating private industry.^[6] Victoria is in the top twenty of world cities for quality-of-life,^[7] according to Numbeo. The city has a large non-local student population, who come to attend the University of Victoria, Camosun College, Royal Roads University, the Victoria College of Art, the Sooke Schools International Programme and the Canadian College of Performing Arts. Victoria is very popular with boaters with its beautiful and rugged shorelines and beaches. Victoria is also popular with retirees, who come to enjoy the temperate and usually snow-free climate of the area as well as the usually relaxed pace of the city.

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Isolated? Nearly 50% of Mentally Ill Say Police Involvement Makes a Bad Situation Worse

A scathing new survey reveals people don’t fair well when police are called to investigate mentally ill health related issues.

Source: Isolated? Nearly 50% of Mentally Ill Say Police Involvement Makes a Bad Situation Worse

thefreethoughtproject.com

By Jack Burns

April 15, 2017

 

One recurrent theme we hear, time after time here at The Free Thought Project, is that when police are involved in a mental health crisis, bad things happen. Now, there’s a survey to validate our observations.

Researchers sought to answer the question of whether or not police help or hinder the situation when they respond to a call of a mentally disturbed individual. The survey was conducted by the Phoenix Mayor’s Commission on Disability Issues. The method employed was a survey. The sample for the survey was taken from those seeking mental health care. There were 244 individuals who were polled and self-reported having mental-health issues seeking treatment in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. They were located in health clinics, residential programs, and some were homeless. Of those polled, a reported 51 percent had at least one encounter with police and 24 percent had three or more encounters with officers of the law.

The results of the survey found that 45 percent of those who reported having been in contact with police said the encounter quickly deteriorated after police arrived. Only 30 percent said police helped at all. And just 19 percent said they helped a lot. Only 6 percent of those polled said police had no effect at all. The statistics can be interpreted in many different ways. Principally, it could indicate Phoenix’ finest need a lot of help and training in dealing with mentally ill citizens.

Phoenix has a dedicated squad of officers to deal with mentally ill individuals. They’re called the Crisis Intervention Team, or CIT. There are two such teams today. The first was created in 2014, following the shooting death of Michelle Cusseaux. She was killed after greeting police with a claw hammer raised above her head. The public decried the shooting and said it was another murder of an unarmed African American at the hands of police.

The results of the study could serve to indicate just how much more training needs to take place within the Phoenix police department, but since it’s a first, there are no benchmarks to compare it to. In other words, it could have been worse before the CIT teams were created and the statistics simply don’t reflect their impact on society. But when nearly 50 percent of respondents say their interactions with police deteriorated once they arrived, something more must be done to protect the mentally ill in our society.

There may be no better example of just how bad a police encounter can become with someone who suffers from mental illness, than a story we reported to you in December.

Justin Tyler Scott was a mentally ill homeless man who literally lived on a sidewalk in Austin, Texas. Police Sgt. Gregory White approached him while pursuing a suspect. White began to ask Scott a series of questions. When the homeless man refused to answer all of his questions, he severely beat the man so badly he had to be hospitalized.

Upon being discharged from the hospital, he was then transferred to jail. Scott spent nearly six months in jail before prosecutors realized they did not have a case against him and dropped all charges. Scott sued and will likely win in court, a settlement the taxpayers will have to saddle.

In Phoenix, the situation for the mentally ill seems just as precarious. We spoke with a mentally-ill woman we will refer to only by her first name, Rene. She lives in South East Phoenix and was going to see a friend one day when she had a tire blow out. She was so distraught with the breakdown, she decided she’d walk the rest of the way to her friend’s house.

Rene grabbed her beer from her vehicle and started walking the short distance. Being stressed out by the blowout, Rene decided she’d crack open the beer she’d just bought and drink some liquid comfort along the way. That’s when she says she was bum rushed by a gang of men she did not recognize.

It turns out the men were undercover police officers who’d noticed her drinking beer in public and decided to arrest the mentally ill woman. What they didn’t know about her was that she was a rape survivor and being grabbed by a group of men was a trigger for her. She wailed against the men, even kicking one in the leg, a reaction which got her charged with assaulting an officer. The charge stuck, and she spent 188 days in jail for a crime she said she should never have been charged with.

Had police been better trained in identifying mental illness, it’s quite possible they could have noticed something was a bit off with Rene. She survived her stint in jail and left with a renewed commitment to seeing those who’ve been jailed unjustly, go free.

According to AZ Central, Phoenix Police understand there’s more work that needs to be done for citizens to remain safe, out of jail and getting the care they need. Phoenix police Sgt. Jonathan Howard explained to AZ Central there are thousands of mental-health pickup calls in Phoenix each year. He said the majority are problem free. He said other calls come in which involve some sort of crisis and isn’t unclear whether or not those individuals with whom the police are dealing, are mentally ill or not.

“So while we do have two squads of certified crisis intervention-trained officers … we still have thousands of officers responding to calls for service every day, working with people in crisis for a variety of reasons,” he said, adding there are an additional 500 Phoenix officers trained in the same crisis-intervention techniques as the two dedicated squads.

As we have previously reported, the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, an organization dedicated to eliminating the barriers faced by those with severe mental illnesses, released a jaw-dropping report, last year. In their report titled, Overlooked in the Undercounted: The Role of Mental Illness in Fatal Law Enforcement Encounters, researchers discovered that people with an untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during an interaction with police than anyone else.

According to the study, by all accounts – official and unofficial – a minimum of 1 in 4 fatal police encounters ends the life of an individual with severe mental illness.

WHERE OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT DATA REGARDING POLICE SHOOTINGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS HAVE BEEN ANALYZED – IN ONE U.S. CITY AND SEVERAL OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES – THE FINDINGS INDICATE THAT MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS ARE A FACTOR IN AS MANY AS 1 IN 2 FATAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ENCOUNTERS.

Big Pharma Frightened After New Study Shows Cannabis is a Highly Effective Antidepressant

Source: Big Pharma Frightened After New Study Shows Cannabis is a Highly Effective Antidepressant

thefreethoughtproject.com

By Justin Gardner

March 13, 2016

 

A new study in the journal Neuropharmacology is showing yet again the incredibly diverse ways that medical cannabis can heal the body. We already know of several physical conditions it can treat—such as epileptic seizures, Crohn’s disease and neuropathic pain—but medical cannabis is also showing promise for the treatment of depression.

Researchers at the Universidad de Cantabria focused on cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, finding that that CBD has fast-acting antidepressant effects that can be sustained with continued doses.

“Our results demonstrate that CBD exerts fast and maintained antidepressant-like effects as evidenced by the reversal of the OBX-induced hyperactivity and anhedonia…

In conclusion, our findings indicate that CBD could represent a novel fast antidepressant drug, via enhancing both serotonergic and glutamate cortical signaling through a 5-HT1A receptor-dependent mechanism.”

The scientists used an established method of research on mice that has proven to be an accurate model for human depression, allowing study of the biological causes and potential treatments. They discovered that CBD acted to reverse depression symptoms by causing an increased release of serotonin and glutamate.

“Mice with the OBX surgery showed significantly reduced symptoms of hyperactivity 30 minutes after CBD was administered, in comparison to mice that were given a placebo. Continued daily administration of CBD was found to completely reverse the effects of OBX surgery on the mice’s loss of interest in sugar after one week. Examination of chemical activity within the mice’s brains indicated that CBD caused increased release of serotonin and glutamate.

Glutamate release was affected dramatically in all mice who received CBD, both immediately after the first dose and after weeks of repeated administration. The impact on serotonin was more subtle after the first dose, and it persisted over time only in mice who had OBX surgery, suggesting that this change may have occurred only in response to the depression-like conditions in the mice’s brains. — PsyPost.org”

In January we reported that people who have discovered the therapeutic uses of cannabis are giving up prescription drugs. Big Pharma is very concerned that their manufactured products could be replaced by a miraculous plant.

As we reported last month, chemical antidepressants may be causing an increase in suicides, and government-backed pill pushers are trying to hide these destructive effects. This new study brings more bad news for Big Pharma, as CBD could prove to be more effective than their notorious products.

World Held Hostage by American Military Madness

Source: World Held Hostage by American Military Madness

sputniknews.com

Finian Cunningham

14.04.2017

Whether a nuclear war breaks out within the next few days or not – the despicable fact remains, that the entire world is being held hostage by American military madness.

© AP Photo/ Ford Williams/U.S. Navy

Poodle Trump Runs With Dogs of War

It seems only a matter of time before the US finally triggers a war with any number of foreign states that it designates as “enemies” – North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia or China.Or any other state whom Washington deems to be a “threat” in its paranoid hegemonic view of the world. The common denominator here is US military aggression.

And what makes US military power so dangerous is that the people who run that country are, to be blunt, so stupid – full of their own delusion self-righteousness and ignorance.

US news outlet NBC is reporting that the Trump administration is ready to launch pre-emptive military strikes on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Meanwhile, North Korea says that it is prepared to pre-empt any US strikes with a nuclear attack on America or its allies in response to what Pyongyang says is provocative aggression.

© REUTERS/ KCNA

N Korea Vows to Launch ‘Preemptive Strike’ on US Military Bases in Japan, S Korea, US Aircraft Carrier

This weekend marks a major anniversary for North Korea, the 105th birth date of its founder Kim Il Sung. His grandson, Kim Jong Un, the current leader, may be tempted to carry out a sixth underground nuclear weapon test to “celebrate” the occasion, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Let’s keep in mind, however, that such action by North Korea is only a “test” – not an act of war.But what is undeniable is that the amassing of nuclear forces – an “armada” as US President Donald Trump calls it – off the Korean Peninsula by Washington is bound to be seen as an aggression by the North Korean leadership. It is arguable that the US is the one that is carrying out an act of war by sailing its forces towards North Korea.

The Trump’s administration’s launching of 59 cruise missiles on Syria last week, in what was a flagrant violation of international law, was no doubt a calculated signal from Washington that it is willing to use massive military force whenever and wherever it deems, regardless of legalities.

© AP Photo/ Abdul Khaliq

Trump’s Strike in Afghanistan ‘Not Meaningful in Any Strategic Sense’

Then in the past few days, the dropping by the US of the biggest non-nuclear bomb – the MOAB or so-called Mother of all Bombs – in Afghanistan is another calculated step towards obliterating any legal restraint on Washington, as well as again sending a signal to North Korea and others that it is prepared to act unilaterally and preemptively.All major powers in the Pacific region – including Russia and China – are calling for a negotiated solution to the tinderbox tensions over the Korean Peninsula. But the only power that is refusing to open dialogue is Washington. US secretary of state Rex Tillerson in Moscow this week said there would be no talks to resolve the Korean crisis for the foreseeable future. Why not? Who is the US to dictate that?

Trump has said he will solve the “North Korea problem” alone and with military force. Such a mentality begs the question: who is the rogue state here?

What is even more perplexing than US military force and its arsenal of 4,700 actionable nukes (Russia has 4,500, according to the Arms Control Association) is the foolishness of the American rulers.

© REUTERS/ Damir Sagolj

This is What Can Prompt China Not to Defend N Korea in the Event of War

The NBC report cited above says that the White House is ready to order strikes on Pyongyang “should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test.” That’s hardly a proportionate response to a “test.”Nevertheless, the truly disturbing phrase here is “should US officials become convinced.” Given Trump’s trigger-happy disregard for international law and the abject standard of US intelligence, a preemptive US strike on North Korea is therefore highly probable.

Trump’s recent aggression in Syria is testament to the unstable, reckless nature of politicians and military chiefs in Washington.

Media reports show that Trump made up his mind to attack Syria with Tomahawk missiles based on his watching of Fox News footage of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria on April 4. In addition, the US president reportedly made his decision to launch those strikes at the urging of his daughter Ivanka’s emotional reaction to seeing children dying in the alleged chemical incident.

© Flickr/ Justin Owens

Tomahawk: Washington’s ‘Weapon of Democracy’ and Harbinger of Aggression

There is good reason to believe that the Syrian chemical weapons incident was a false flag perpetrated by Western-backed terrorist jihadists. Yet based on the most superficial allegations that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack, the Trump administration went ahead with a murderous assault on that country.Trump’s volatile ego is added into the explosive mix. For weeks now he has been asserting to “take care of the North Korea problem.” The assembling of US nuclear strike forces off the Korean Peninsula, in conjunction with faulty US intelligence and a fatuous, egotistical Commander-in-Chief surrounded by gung-ho advisors, are driving the logic for war.

© REUTERS/ Kevin Lamarque

Piece of Cake: New Normal of Trump’s Foreign Policy

On the other side, the North Korean leadership has taken note of Trump’s latest aggression in Syria. It is warning that it might take preemptive action. Seoul, the capital of America’s South Korean ally, is well within the range of North Korea’s firepower. With a population of over 20 million, an attack on Seoul would be catastrophic. Once the missiles start flying, the world will likely to be plunged into a global war, dragging in China and Russia in a nuclear confrontation with the US.This dire prognosis is not inevitable. Dialogue and a negotiated political settlement to the Korean crisis is entirely possible. The two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States could solve the recurring problem if all sides committed to a peaceful resolution of decades-old military tensions. But the burden of responsibility lies with the US to commit to such talks. It refuses to do so, insisting instead on a military showdown.

What makes the problem so precarious is Washington’s bull-headed, arrogant stupidity. Trump is just the latest manifestation of Washington’s hubris, with a recklessness that goes beyond previous administrations.

Trump’s readiness to use unilateral military aggression – as seen in Syria last week – and in his outrageous deployment this week of weapons of mass destruction in Afghanistan are alarming.

© AFP 2017/ HO

US Plans to Topple Assad Family Go Back Six Presidents, CIA Doc Reveals

But more than this, what is even more alarming is the delusional nature of US “intelligence” and American political “leadership.” If the US can launch cruise missiles on Syria based on highly suspect claims over chemical weapons, plus a president who is so gullible and suggestible, then the world is truly being pushed to an abysmal precipice.Far more dangerous than American nuclear weapons is the incorrigible unscrupulousness of American rulers. These are the same kind of people whose self-righteousness and criminal disregard for humanity led them to launch atomic weapons on Japan 72 years ago. A monstrous act of genocide which they still justify as “being right”.

It is an abomination that the world is being held hostage by American military madness. And has been for more than seven decades ever since the Second World War. The question is: can this American madness be defused safely, and brought to a peaceful end?

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

Sperm tested as possible candidate for delivering cancer medications in female patients

Let the jokes begin!

Source: Sperm tested as possible candidate for delivering cancer medications in female patients

phys.org

by Bob Yirka

April 14, 2017

(a) Schematic illustration of the sperm-hybrid micromotor and the sperm release process. Black arrows represent the reactive force on the arms upon hitting an obstacle. (b) Top view of the tetrapod microstructure with schematic sperm head …more

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Germany has tested the possibility of using sperm cells to deliver drugs to cancerous tumors in female patients. In their paper uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the group describes how such a technique might work, their initial test results and what they learned from their experiments.

In recent years, medical researchers have been focusing on developing carrier systems for delivery of chemicals to targets inside the body to treat ailments such as cancer, but thus far, it has been slow going due to a variety of issues such as the body responding in unhelpful ways or targets such as tumors putting up a tough front. In this new effort, the researchers looked into the idea of using a natural carrier to deliver helpful drugs to specified targets—sperm cells delivering drugs guided to tumors and other problem sites in the female reproductive tract.

While it is known that sperm cells will swim around in the vagina searching for an egg to fertilize, and in some cases, have been known to swim up and fertilize eggs still in the fallopian tube, the randomness of their behavior was deemed too untenable for drug delivery—the team wanted to be able to steer individual sperm cells. To accomplish that feat, they coaxed sperm cells to swim into a very tiny helmet coated with iron that would adhere to its head. The sperm could then be steered using an external magnet. The helmet was designed with a quick-release mechanism that allowed it to dislodge from the sperm when it ran head first into something, such as a tumor cell, allowing the sperm cell to penetrate the tumor cell the same way it would an egg, delivering the drug. The researchers also found that they could cause a sperm cell to absorb a cancer drug simply by soaking it in a solution containing the drug.

Continue:

Sperm tested as possible candidate for delivering cancer medications in female patients

Illuminati NWO Satanic Death Cult Exposed (35 min)

Ron Johnson from STFnews.com joins me to discuss the Satanic Illuminati NWO death cult that is targeting humanity for annihilation.

The US May Soon Face an Apocalyptic Seismic Event

“Western journalists are sounding the alarm – America’s youth is now fascinated with the concepts of socialism and communism. According to the poll conducted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), a half of all Americans under 35 years would love to be represented by a socialist president”

Source: The US May Soon Face an Apocalyptic Seismic Event | New Eastern Outlook

journal-neo.org

Author: Grete Mautner

 

Today, an ever increasing number of earthquakes in the United States may soon bring the country to ruin, as geologists, journalists and politicians say.

The University of Washington has already presented seismological charts showing a gigantic geological rift that stretches across the central states of the US from north to south, and marks the region of a possible split of the North America continent in two. As it has been reported by geologists, for the first time this anomaly was discovered in 1960’s, when scientists found a strange underground rupture along the Lake Superior that would run south. The discovery surprised American scientists back then since there were no mountains in that area. Following studies showed that this anomaly was stretching across the whole continent, resembling in its form and shape the giant cracks in the east of Africa.

It’s been reported that the tectonic plate beneath the southeastern regions of the United States is being fragmented by the layers of earth above it, which may be the cause of future earthquakes in the Washington area and other cities on the east coast, where basically no preconditions for the emergence of aftershocks, according to Live Science.

According to Berk Biryol from the University of North Carolina, in recent years the Washington area and the areas around other large cities in the east of the country faced a pretty intense seismic activity, which at first puzzled seismologists since the east of the country is residing on a stable continental crust that must prevent any earthquake from occurring.

In recent years, the relationship between fracturing and the mounting number of earthquakes has been brought to light by the US Geological Survey (USGS), that would note that the number of earthquakes in the US has increased drastically over the last six years. In fact, it expects an abrupt increase in the number of seismic events in some regions of the country where fracturing is being used including Oklahoma, California, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Ohio, Alabama and New Mexico.

But the split in the United States is not being predicted by the USGS alone, since the recent seismic political events aggravated the growing discord within the US society in the wake of the US presidential campaign.

Western journalists are sounding the alarm – America’s youth is now fascinated with the concepts of socialism and communism. According to the poll conducted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), a half of all Americans under 35 years would love to be represented by a socialist president. Politicians who profess capitalist views do only receive the support of 42% of the younger American generation. This explains the spectacular rise of DNC’s Bernie Sanders which would most certainly become the next president, if Hillary didn’t use her wealth and connections to replace him as the sole Democratic candidate.

The German newspaper Tagesspiegel points out that this election campaign “undermines the belief that most Americans share the idea about living in a democratic and constitutional state.” The newspaper notes that there’s been a lot of speculations about the possible armed resistance to the “US corrupt government system” lately, no matter how unlikely the future post-election violence may look now.

The latest poll conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University shows that only 40% of potential voters strongly believe in the peaceful transfer of power after the US presidential elections. With six in ten viewing the candidates unfavorably, Clinton and Trump are the two most unpopular presidential candidates in ABC/Post polls dating to the 1984 election. This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,165 likely voters.

The level of antipathy towards the two main presidential candidates in terms of party affiliation has also been at staggering level, with 97% of Trump supporters despising Hillary Clinton and 95% of Hillary’s loathing the Republican presidential candidate.

It’s no wonder that there’s been a rapidly increasing number of petitions on the separation of various states, which refer to the Declaration of Independence, where the Founding Fathers explicitly stated that “any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” To date, the petitions on the separation from the US have been filled by a total of 40 states. Texas that is viewed as the last bastion of conservatism has already gathered more than 100 thousand signatures under its petition for obtaining the status of an independent state. Behind it are Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.

Therefore, aside from the major geological rift that may soon hit the US, there’s a deep social and political rift to be observed, which may, in case of loss of all confidence in the existing political system result in a major outbreak of violence.

Earth has already witnessed the existence of two supercontinent – Rodinia and Pangaea. First, the former continent formed about 800 million years ago, until the latter one appeared some 600 million years later. Scientists expect that in the future a new supercontinent will be formed that has it own name already – Amasia. This continent will be formed out of the modern North America and Asia, notes the Nature.

Who knows, maybe before Amasia even emerges we will witness a new state or even two that would replace the US?

Grete Mautner is an indepenent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”