Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
If You Drink From Cans, Watch This
As if you need another reason not to drink this toxic sugar waste, you won't believe what was found inside this can in Washington.
Monday, 12 August 2013
Oregon Temporarily Bans Pesticides Following Bee Deaths
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State officials in Oregon are temporarily restricting the use of more than a dozen pesticide products following the deaths of an estimated 50,000 bumblebees in the Portland area this month.
The measure, effective immediately, will last for 180 days while the Oregon State Agricultural Department investigates incidents of a mass bee die-off in the Portland suburb of Wilsonville, and a much smaller die-off in neighbouring Hillsboro.
Eighteen pesticide products containing the active ingredient dinotefuran and used for ornamental, turf and agricultural applications have been banned for now.
“I have directed the agency to take this step in an effort to minimize any potential for additional incidents involving bee deaths connected to pesticide products with this active ingredient until such time as our investigation is completed and we have more information,” the agency’s director, Katy Coba, said in a statement released Thursday.
“Conclusions from the investigation will help us and our partners evaluate whether additional steps need to be considered.”
A pesticide known as Safari, which contains dinotefuran and belongs to a class called neonicotinoids, caused the deaths of an estimated 50,000 bumblebees in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville this month, authorities said. Crews have wrapped the affected linden trees around the lot with protective netting to prevent further deaths.
The staggering number marks the world’s largest recorded mass-die off of bumblebees, experts said. Initial estimates pegged the number of deaths at 25,000, but that figure doubled after a second assessment, said Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Late last week, a second report of dead bumblebees emerged in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro. City officials were alerted a week ago to a cluster of at least 100 bees on the ground beneath a single linden tree downtown.
Following Wilsonville’s lead, the city of Hillsboro bought netting to wrap around the tree, public affairs manager Patrick Preston told the Los Angeles Times. The Oregon Department of Agriculture visited the site to take samples and test whether pesticides also played a role.
The city of Hillsboro sprayed 200 trees with Safari in March, Preston said. As the trees were not flowering at the time, city officials were following label directions, he said.
The city has sprayed the trees with Safari for the past three years. This is the first time bee deaths have been reported, Preston said.
“If Safari is found to have been behind the bee deaths then we will not be using it anymore,” Preston said.
Valent U.S.A. Corp., the manufacturer of Safari, said in a statement this week that it was making a donation to pay for the protective netting surrounding the Wilsonville trees. The company also sent an entomologist to work with city and state officials.
The company said it is committed to protecting pollinators, noting the product label warns against applying the product or allowing it to drift to blooming foliage if bees are present.
“Valent also promotes the responsible use of our products, and we are actively conducting outreach with our customers and industry partners to reinforce the importance of responsible use according to label guidelines,” the statement said.
But scientists with the Xerces Society said the discovery in Hillsboro shows that the pesticide can have a lasting impact in the environment, and have urged city and county governments to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides entirely.
Meanwhile, Portland’s ecologically-minded activists have organized a memorial for the dead bees. Organizer Rozzell Medina, an artist and educational activist in Portland, said that once he heard the bee deaths were caused by a pesticide, he became “very sad about it, very concerned.”
Medina soon realized that others in the community shared his distress. He decided to plan a memorial where people could gather, share information and discuss the incident.
“This isn’t a funeral,” Medina, who earned a master’s in leadership and sustainability education from Portland State University and now works there as a program coordinator, told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. “We’re not there to bury the bees or build little bee coffins. We’re going there to talk about what this means.”
The event will take place in the Target parking lot in Wilsonville where the bees were discovered.
Sources: Raw For Beauty, http://www.latimes.com
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State officials in Oregon are temporarily restricting the use of more than a dozen pesticide products following the deaths of an estimated 50,000 bumblebees in the Portland area this month.
The measure, effective immediately, will last for 180 days while the Oregon State Agricultural Department investigates incidents of a mass bee die-off in the Portland suburb of Wilsonville, and a much smaller die-off in neighbouring Hillsboro.
Eighteen pesticide products containing the active ingredient dinotefuran and used for ornamental, turf and agricultural applications have been banned for now.
“I have directed the agency to take this step in an effort to minimize any potential for additional incidents involving bee deaths connected to pesticide products with this active ingredient until such time as our investigation is completed and we have more information,” the agency’s director, Katy Coba, said in a statement released Thursday.
“Conclusions from the investigation will help us and our partners evaluate whether additional steps need to be considered.”
A pesticide known as Safari, which contains dinotefuran and belongs to a class called neonicotinoids, caused the deaths of an estimated 50,000 bumblebees in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville this month, authorities said. Crews have wrapped the affected linden trees around the lot with protective netting to prevent further deaths.
The staggering number marks the world’s largest recorded mass-die off of bumblebees, experts said. Initial estimates pegged the number of deaths at 25,000, but that figure doubled after a second assessment, said Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Late last week, a second report of dead bumblebees emerged in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro. City officials were alerted a week ago to a cluster of at least 100 bees on the ground beneath a single linden tree downtown.
Following Wilsonville’s lead, the city of Hillsboro bought netting to wrap around the tree, public affairs manager Patrick Preston told the Los Angeles Times. The Oregon Department of Agriculture visited the site to take samples and test whether pesticides also played a role.
The city of Hillsboro sprayed 200 trees with Safari in March, Preston said. As the trees were not flowering at the time, city officials were following label directions, he said.
The city has sprayed the trees with Safari for the past three years. This is the first time bee deaths have been reported, Preston said.
“If Safari is found to have been behind the bee deaths then we will not be using it anymore,” Preston said.
Valent U.S.A. Corp., the manufacturer of Safari, said in a statement this week that it was making a donation to pay for the protective netting surrounding the Wilsonville trees. The company also sent an entomologist to work with city and state officials.
The company said it is committed to protecting pollinators, noting the product label warns against applying the product or allowing it to drift to blooming foliage if bees are present.
“Valent also promotes the responsible use of our products, and we are actively conducting outreach with our customers and industry partners to reinforce the importance of responsible use according to label guidelines,” the statement said.
But scientists with the Xerces Society said the discovery in Hillsboro shows that the pesticide can have a lasting impact in the environment, and have urged city and county governments to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides entirely.
Meanwhile, Portland’s ecologically-minded activists have organized a memorial for the dead bees. Organizer Rozzell Medina, an artist and educational activist in Portland, said that once he heard the bee deaths were caused by a pesticide, he became “very sad about it, very concerned.”
Medina soon realized that others in the community shared his distress. He decided to plan a memorial where people could gather, share information and discuss the incident.
“This isn’t a funeral,” Medina, who earned a master’s in leadership and sustainability education from Portland State University and now works there as a program coordinator, told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. “We’re not there to bury the bees or build little bee coffins. We’re going there to talk about what this means.”
The event will take place in the Target parking lot in Wilsonville where the bees were discovered.
Sources: Raw For Beauty, http://www.latimes.com
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Saturday, 10 August 2013
Uruguay Becomes First Country In World To Fully Legalize Cannabis
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Uruguay’s bold move does much more than just follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington state, which last November became the first political jurisdictions in the world to approve the legalization of marijuana.
It provides, significantly, a model for how to engage in debate over marijuana policy in a mature and responsible way. When President Mujica first issued his proposal last June, he made clear that he welcomed vigorous debate over both its merits and the particulars. International experts were invited from abroad for intensive discussions with people from all walks of civil society and government. A range of specific proposals were considered, all with an eye toward transforming an illegal industry into a legal one to better protect public safety and health. Political rhetoric and grandstanding permeated the debate, as would be expected in any vibrant democratic process, but substantive issues dominated.
The bill passed on Wednesday effectively integrates elements of Colorado’s and Washington’s laws with innovations from Europe and provisions unique to Uruguay. Adults are permitted to cultivate up to six plants; cooperatives can provide marijuana for a limited number of members; and pharmacies can sell it. Sales to minors, driving under the influence and all forms of advertising are prohibited. This new model will be of great interest to advocates and legislators in other countries, and of course in the growing number of U.S. states in which a majority of citizens now favor legalizing marijuana.
Uruguay’s bold move does much more than just follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington state, which last November became the first political jurisdictions in the world to approve the legalization of marijuana.
It provides, significantly, a model for how to engage in debate over marijuana policy in a mature and responsible way. When President Mujica first issued his proposal last June, he made clear that he welcomed vigorous debate over both its merits and the particulars. International experts were invited from abroad for intensive discussions with people from all walks of civil society and government. A range of specific proposals were considered, all with an eye toward transforming an illegal industry into a legal one to better protect public safety and health. Political rhetoric and grandstanding permeated the debate, as would be expected in any vibrant democratic process, but substantive issues dominated.
The bill passed on Wednesday effectively integrates elements of Colorado’s and Washington’s laws with innovations from Europe and provisions unique to Uruguay. Adults are permitted to cultivate up to six plants; cooperatives can provide marijuana for a limited number of members; and pharmacies can sell it. Sales to minors, driving under the influence and all forms of advertising are prohibited. This new model will be of great interest to advocates and legislators in other countries, and of course in the growing number of U.S. states in which a majority of citizens now favor legalizing marijuana.
President Mujica is not the only Latin American leader to demonstrate courage in calling for alternatives to the drug war. Presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala have boldly demanded that legalization, decriminalization and other alternatives to ineffective, costly and destructive prohibitionist drug policies be considered. More recently, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza has catapulted regional discussion of drug policy to an intellectual level unprecedented among multilateral organizations. But President Mujica’s proposal is unique in changing not just public debate but also actual laws and policies.
All this serves as a wake-up call for Europe, which was at the forefront of global drug policy reform in the latter part of the 20th century but has now been leapfrogged by developments in the Americas. Serious proposals for legal regulation of marijuana are proliferating in countries like Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Netherlands. And in Morocco, long one of the world’s leading producers of marijuana, legalization proposals are now being taken seriously by the national government.
So who’s next? In the U.S., numerous states are likely to legalize marijuana in coming years, with Oregon perhaps first in line. In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems like a throwback to the drug war fanatics who dominated U.S. drug policy in the 1980s and 1990s, but both opposition parties seem ready to legalize marijuana once they regain power. And I’d keep my eye on the Dutch, who thirty-plus years ago pioneered the legal regulation of retail sales of marijuana through the “coffeeshop” system, and who may now be inspired by Colorado, Washington and Uruguay to fully legalize and regulate the industry.
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Thursday, 8 August 2013
Gardening is not a crime: Woman charged with misdemeanor for having a garden
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Gardening and crime don't really sound like they go together, but when faced with an overbearing government bureaucracy anything is possible. This video is a prime example of what happens when the government gets out of control and the corporate grocery industry has it's tentacles around the local city politicians. Julie Bass was fined and charged with a misdemeanor for planting an organic garden in her front yard.
A more in depth look at Julie's situation:
Gardening and crime don't really sound like they go together, but when faced with an overbearing government bureaucracy anything is possible. This video is a prime example of what happens when the government gets out of control and the corporate grocery industry has it's tentacles around the local city politicians. Julie Bass was fined and charged with a misdemeanor for planting an organic garden in her front yard.
A more in depth look at Julie's situation:
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Mother Fined $2,500 After Her 3yr Old Pees in Her Own Yard
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A mother has been fined $2,500 (£1,600) after her 3-year-old son peed in the front garden. Ashley Warden in Piedmont, Oklahoma received the fine when her toddler Dillan was caught urinating in the yard by a passing police officer. Dillan was being potty trained at the time and was not near a toilet.Ashley told News 9: "Dillan pulled down his pants to pee outside.[Then] the cop pulled up and asked for my licence, and told me he was going to give me a ticket for public urination."
Dillan's grandmother Jennifer added: "I said, 'Really? He is 3 years old', and he said, 'It doesn't matter, it is public urination'. I said we are on our property and he said it's in public view."
Ashley stated that she would be fighting the fine, as Dillan didn't finish peeing because he was interrupted by the police officer.
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