JCT: In the last post, I mentioned that the Expositor's
Susan Gamble had called to tell me the mayor was also having
a clean-up the Brant River work-bee at the very same park I
had picked (because it was right behind the casino.) At the
very same time.

Brantford Expositor April 30 2004
by Susan Gamble
WORD HAS IT

Mayor Mike has no plans to inhale

BRANTFORD - Let's hope it come to a showdown at high noon
Saturday when the pot party runs smack into a bunch of
environmentalists, freshly back from cleaning up the river.

Unbeknownst to each other, the two groups of activists have
each planned events for the same spot - Brant's Crossing.

On the one side, we have the well-organized Mohawk-Laurier
Environmental Group collecting garbage along the banks of
the Grand and the folks from Blue Heron Rafting trolling the
waters for debris.

On the other, we have the whacky-tobaccy advocate and
ubiquitous political wannabe John Turmel who is inviting one
and all to come and smoke a doobie with him in the Million
Marijuana March.

It all culminates at noon when, by my reckoning, the two
forces meet over a barbecue.

Now the lunch is actually a reward for several hundred river
refiners, hosted by Mayor Mike Hancock and his band of merry
councillors.

But how will they keep the tokers at bay, especially once
the munchies kick in?

Add to this party a stern police presence, as promised to
the mayor and you have an interesting recipe.

John Turmel - a professional gambler and famous pot advocate
- was startled but quite delighted to hear that the mayor
will be in close proximity to his marijuana event.

"We can help pick up the garbage," he offered. "Then they
can join us for the afternoon.

"Maybe the mayor will come over and share a doobie with us."

Mayor Mike says that's pretty unlikely. "I know he's trying
to make a point," he said Thursday. "I just wish he'd pick a
different park and a different day to do it in."
===

JCT: Well, picking the park was just another case of
serendipity and picking the day for his work-bee as the
Million Marijuana March was his own bad luck. So he should
have actually said: "I just wish I'd pick a different park
and a different day to do it in."

Brantford Expositor May 3 2004
by Heather Ibbotson

Cleansing the river
Marijuana protest held along Grand River fizzles as cops
watch

While the clean-up was going on, 53-year-old marijuana
promoter John Turmel was nearby handing out flyers promoting
his pro-pot stance.

Turmel's earlier public urging to teenagers to attend at
Brant's Crossing on Saturday at noon to "smoke a doobie" -
part of pro-marijuana events around the world - also
resulted in a heavy police presence.

Possession of marijuana remains illegal and about 10
uniform and undercover police officers dotted the area and
kept an eye out for drug use. But no one was seen smoking
marijuana and no arrests were made,.

Turmel, who advocates the smoking of marijuana by everyone -
even children and drivers - spent most of his time on
Saturday speaking to small clusters of young people.

Turmel's behaviour offended Coun. John Starkey, who had
spent the noon hour serving up food to hungry volunteers
fresh from three hours of community beautification.

"For him (Turmel) to latch onto an event like this is the
worst kind of exploitation," Starkey said.

"I didn't see him picking up litter or doing anything
productive."

JCT: I wasn't urging only teenagers, probably some kind of
offence, I was inviting everyone. I'm not sure what
behaviour in particular Starkey found offensive. I thought
he was offended at my just being there, regardless of
behaviour. And I'm not sure what he means by productive. I
was productive telling them about how engineering a LETS
Brantford currency could permit the city to reward
volunteers "every weekend" on many more projects with "thank
you" currency they can use to pay their taxes instead of a
hamburger. He was productive serving the hamburger. Turmel,
The Engineer, working productively on the financial
software; Starkey, the Councillor, working productively on
the stove.

Same attitude from the mayor. "Could I come make a
presentation on paying volunteers with Timedollars?"
"Probably not" he answered. Though he added "send me
something." He almost made the mistake of being ignorant of
LETS and wanting to stay that way. I'll send him my web site
and see if he can figure out how he could use Timedollars to
fund all sorts of work-bees in town. If he does, then I
won't have to run for mayor against him next time. If he
does, I'll even vote for him. I'd love not to have to run
because municipal interest-free banking is already working.

Saturday was a dark overcast day though dry. I showed up
around 11:45 and counted 13 police patrolling a few dozen
people. I surmised they weren't there to watch the people
cleaning up the river.

I'd guess that there were about a dozen people there for my
marijuana demo when I arrived and more and more clusters
kept showing up over the 2 hours I was there.

The whole time, I was surrounded by police. I felt just like
Billy Jack again, two uniforms and two undercovers around me
everywhere I went. Protecting innocents from the danger that
I might light up a joint and try to force it on them.

My flyers explained why the marijuana prohibition was still
down and so I told all the young people who kept arriving to
go ask the cops if, accepting that judges have the power to
strike down bad laws, do judges have the right to bring laws
back up. The cops said they didn't care. They'd bust
anyone they saw who was smoking.

How about judges making prostitution or poker illegal again?
Of course, in other cities, the cops didn't but thousands of
smokers but vigilante cops get away it in small towns like
they couldn't in big ones.

And it's all because of the crooked Crown Attorneys at the
Justice Department who told Canadians that the law had not
died when I was screaming that it had. Lara Speirs, Harvey
Frankel, Alain Prefontaine, et al, are the Crowns who said
Turmel's interpretation of the Parker decision was wrong and
caused over 100,000 Canadians to be wrongly busted because
they were wrong. And they're still on the payroll.

Think about that. Lawyers who wrongly advised the Minister
to keep busting 100,000 Canadians or lawyers who just obeyed
their minister wish to so misinform the police to keep busting
Canadians, and they're haven't been chastised, haven't been
fired, haven't been punished. 100,000 Canadian were wrongly
busted because of these few bad lawyers who either did their
Minister's dirty work or wrong advised their Minister.
Either way, it's the lawyers who have to be held accountable
for the 100,000 harmed Canadians.

I was ruminating the other day how lawyers get people off
one person at a time and how The Engineer got 4000 people
off all at once. But let's realize that these few Crown
Attorneys affected 100,000 people's lives for the worse.
That's power. Especially when you don't have to answer for
the havoc you have caused in so many lives.

So either the Brantford Police didn't check because they're
vigilantes who don't care how they abuse their trust or they
did check with some Crown Attorney who once again
misinformed them that Turmel is wrong about judges not
having the Parliamentary power to bring the prohibition back
to life.

Remember, the lawyers are pretending that what the Court of
Appeal in bringing back a criminal statute is not wrong.
Even though, they, as educated lawyers, know that what the
Court of Appeal did was above its jurisdiction. Lawyers are
prostituting their ethics as only lawyers are allowed to do.
At least we can offer them the online reviling posterity
will hold their actions merit even if not the firing their
actions merit.

So yes, once the police had said they were going to bust
anyone who smoked, I advised no one to challenge the
vigilante posse unless they wanted to pick a fight in which
case I'd help them fight. No one did. It would have been
nice to find someone who would have fought but there is much
to lose in being dragged through the system. And the
vigilantes don't care, they get paid either way.

It's incredible how almost everyone against cannabis trouts
up the "gateway" theory. The reporter did. As she pointed
out how heavy drug users all tried marijuana, I pointed out
that all heavy drug users all drank milk too. I always point
out the misnomer of the "gate" theory. Marijuana acts as
gate stopping people from moving on to harder drugs.

Still, the point is that that logical fallacy is embedded in
the average mind. They have successfully planted a lie in
the majority's brain. Still, it lets me stump them by asking
what conclusion can be drawn from so many lies having been
told about the herb that have now been disproven. Doesn't so
much government misinformation suggest something to them?

Anyway, it was a useful political exercise. Almost everyone
in Brantford heard about it and I met several people who
were busted in the right 26 months to want their convictions
overturned.

Action is just on the horizon.


--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel 519-753-0645 USENET: can.politics