The Soros Marijuana Movement In Canada

The current website for Cannabis Rights Coalition, a leader in marijuana activism in Canada, does not reveal the financial backers of this cannabis activist group (1). A historical archive search of the website revealed the sponsors (2)(3). Most are tied to the US marijuana and drug legalization movement financed by George Soros and Tides Foundation. They include organizations made up of lawyers and academics whose members are alt-left and anti-Trump. Some have origins in the Communist Movement in Canada, anti-pipeline and anti-oil activism, environmental activism, and campaigns to “defeat Harper.” They support Justin Trudeau and the Liberals and “Big Pharma”, with ties to Hitler’s Germany. Here is a background summary of some of their supporters:

1. BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA): The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association promotes civil liberties and human rights through litigation, lobbying and social media. It is Canada’s oldest civil liberties association (4). Originally in 1938, it was called the VCLU (Vancouver Civil Liberties Union) and it emerged as a branch from the Canadian Civil Liberties Union in Montreal, Quebec. These civil liberties unions formed in opposition to Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessiis, a conservative premier who strongly rejected the communist movement in Canada (5).

The VCLU took up a number of causes: free speech rights of communists; defending individuals from Quebec’s infamous “Padlock Law,” which allowed police to confiscate property being used for spreading communist propaganda (6); restrictive immigration legislation; cold-war paranoia about communist infiltration; “Gastown Riots” of 1971 over marijuana legalization; and the treatment and protection of a domestic terrorist group called the “Sons of Freedom,” that were involved in 1100 arsons and bombing between 1923-1962. They also opposed the “Provincial Heroin Treatment Act” which would detain drug addicts and compel them to seek treatment (7). Members tended to be lawyers and academics, primarily left-liberals or social democrats. However, it was infiltrated by the Canadian Communist Movement and some members leaned very far left. In 1962 it became the BCCLA.

Kirk Tousaw, a Vancouver lawyer, serves on the Board of Directors for BC Civil Liberties Association. He is also founding Board member of the Sensible BC Society and serves on the Board of Directors for NORML Canada (8). All of these associations are offshoots of their US counterparts. NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Cannabis Laws) along with George Soros’ Drug Policy Alliance and Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) (founded by Rob Kamia formerly from NORML, and funded by billionaire Peter Lewis), are the chief spinmeisters for America’s normalization of drug use, the decriminalization of all drugs, and they endorse the implementation of “safe injection sites (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)”.

Kirk Tousaw also provides legal counsel to Canopy Growth Corporation, the world’s largest cannabis company (15)(16) that just recently secured the right to buy Acreage Holdings in order to position itself as a prime mover in the U.S. legal marijuana market in a deal valued at $3.4 billion. The deal, the first between two cannabis companies on either side of the U.S.-Canada border, gives Canopy the right to acquire 100 percent of New York-based Acreage when marijuana is legalized on a federal level by the U.S. government (17). Sitting on the Board for Acreage Holdings is former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney: 

“Given the great social experiment going on in Canada… I thought it was important that Canada articulate a leadership position (in the legalization of Marijuana) and I think that the leadership position that was staked in this important area by the Government of Canada (Justin Trudeau) is a good one (18)(19).”

Kirk Tousaw was opposed to Stephen Harper and his conservative views on the legalization of marijuana and not only endorsed Justin Trudeau, he also participated in a conference organized and funded by Liberal Party of Canada (20)(21)(22)(23). Lisa Kerr, a civil rights lawyer and Trudeau Foundation Scholar, has also done extensive work with the BC Civil Liberties Association (24)(25)(26).

The BC Civil Liberties Association is funded by George Soros’ Tides Canada Foundation, which has funded much of the Canadian anti-pipeline activism (27)(28). The BCCLA is also funded by The Law Foundation of BC (29), and includes members such as environmental activist, anti-pipeline, UNPA supporter David Suzuki, and Quebec regime (Desmarais family) reporter Andrew Coyne (30)(31)(32). The BC Civil Liberties Association is also financed by Ruth and Henry Goodman Fund for Social and Ecological Justice (33) that endorse initiatives against oil, pipelines, and national & regional campaigns to defeat the Harper Conservative Government in 2015 (34).

The US counterpart to the BCCLA is the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), which is financed by George Soros. Soros gives a great deal of money to the ACLU which funds studies and then tells people how they’re supposed to be thinking; giving minorities permission to destroy their brains with drugs is not social justice nor is advocating that racism can be solved by marijuana legalization. This merely destroys the rights of minorities who choose not to use drugs while empowering drug users and drug dealers (35). BCCLA has endorsed several ACLU initiatives, collaborated on projects with the ACLU, and hosted events in honour of ACLU directors (36)(37)(38)(39).

Dana Larson is a marijuana rights activist and editor of Cannabis Culture magazine with publisher Marc Emery. In 2008, he was the federal NDP candidate for the riding of West Vancouver but was forced to resign after videos surfaced which showed him taking LSD and smoking marijuana (40). He also organizes the annual 4/20 event in Vancouver where taxpayers were on the hook for over half a million in damages at local rallies (41). Dana Larsen was arrested in 2016 in Calgary during his Overgrow Canada Tour, a cross-country mission to give out a 2.3 million free cannabis seeds to encourage growing as a form of civil disobedience (42)(43). This was followed by a 5 million cannabis seed giveaway in 2017 (44).

2. Sensible BC Society: Kirk Tousaw and Dana Larson are founding board members of Sensible BC Society, a group which is working to decriminalize cannabis possession in BC through a referendum on the Sensible Policing Act (45). The Sensible Policing Act would amend the BC Police Act, to redirect all BC police (municipal and RCMP) from spending time and resources on searches, seizures or arrests in cases of cannabis possession (46). Kirk Tousaw drafted the Sensible Policing Act, a recent ballot initiative in BC that required 400,000 signatures to pass (47). A similar campaign for Initiative 502, south of the border, raised and spent more than $5 million, and had help from billionaires Peter Lewis (who gave $1.5 million) and Drug Policy Action, a group financed by George Soros (it gave $1.3 million) (48).

Sensible BC is also involved in conferences with CSSDP (Canadian Students for a Sensible Drug Policy) run by Lisa Campbell and funded by Open Society (49). Lisa Campbell is a long time devotee of George Soros’s Open Society. The US counterpart to CSSDP is SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) with several international chapters (50). SSDP is also funded by the Open Society Foundation (51).

I joined the international drug policy network Youth RISE and eventually became outreach director for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, where I got to take part in discussions on progressive drug policy at the United Nations, thanks to the support of George Soros Open Society Foundation (52).

3. Dads for Marijuana International: This is an organization that is part of Moms and Dads for Marijuana International sponsored by billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis (53)(54)(55).

4. Time4Hemp: Time4Hemp made its TV debut in 1991 and has since evolved into a 5-days a week live television broadcast that is focused on ending prohibition on industrial hemp and medical marijuana. Casper Leitch, also known as “The Father of Marijuana Television” founded the organization (56). Casper Leitch is pictured in a 1991 event that helped to facilitate the merger between the two “green movements”, the Cannabis Movement with Earth Day.

Time4Hemp features writers, politicians, doctors, scientists, and global activists such as Kasia Malinowska from the Open Society Foundation. Past guests on the series include: Keith Stroup (founder of NORML), David Boaz (Founder of the CATO Institute funded by the Koch brothers and George Soros), Kevin Zeese (Co-founder of the Soros’ funded Drug Policy Foundation), Ethan Nadelmann (Founder of the Soros’ funded Drug Policy Alliance), Marc Emery (founder of Cannabis Culture Magazine), and George Soros’ Marijuana and LSD guru Harvard Professor Dr. Timothy Leary (57)(58)(59)(60)(61).

5. The BC Compassion Club: On their website, The BC Compassion Club lists all their funders (62): Tides Canada Foundation (funded by George Soros); Kirk Tousaw (REFER to #1 & #2 above: Linked to organizations funded by George Soros)(63); MILLS, an advocate for Sustainable development and Green Initiatives (64); the Social Venture Institute (65), consisting of business leaders and social entrepreneurs such as Drummond Pike, chair and founder of the US Tides Foundation and Joel Solomon, Vice-Chair of Tides Canada Foundation (66); and Vancity Credit Union, who has partnered with Frank Giustra (67) on several outreach initiatives and has also partnered with Tides Foundation to build the “Social Economy”, a Marxist movement designed to usher in a one world government (68).

6. National: National is owned by Enterprise Holdings (69), who have joined the leftist ThinkProgress, which is funded by George Soros’ Center for American Progress, #BoycottNRA movement (70). This boycott is against the U.S. gun rights advocacy group National Rifle Association (NRA) and its business affiliates (71). The boycott extended to Canada where Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Running Room cut supplier relationships with Vista Outdoor (72).  

7. MCRCI: Cannabis isn’t (yet) sold at pharmacies in Canada. Resource centers such as MCRCI (Medical Cannabis Resource Center Inc.) assist patients in finding doctors and obtaining medical cannabis (73)(74)(75). MCRCI is owned by Tilray, a global medical cannabis supply company with 169 distribution centers in 84 Canadian cities (76). Tilray entered into an alliance with Big Pharma, Novartis, to distribute medical cannabis world-wide and now has distribution centers in Ireland, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa (77)(78)(79).

References:

1. http://www.cannabisrightscoalition.ca/
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20140716161048/http://www.mmarcoalitionagainstrepeal.com/supporters.html
3. https://web.archive.org/web/20150428222919/http://cannabisrightscoalition.ca/team.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Civil_Liberties_Association
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Duplessis
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padlock_Law
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11. https://www.cnbc.com/id/36179727
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13. http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/supervised-consumption-services-opp_0.pdf
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15. https://www.newcannabisventures.com/kirk-tousaw-and-mat-beren-join-forces-with-canopy-growth/
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopy_Growth
17. https://www.brewbound.com/news/canopy-growth-corporation-secures-right-to-buy-acreage-holdings
18. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/commodities/video/why-brian-mulroney-is-joining-the-board-of-a-pot-company~1516608
19. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/10/17/fmr-canadian-pm-says-marijuana-legalization-will-be-widely-admired-with-other-countries-likely-to-follow.html
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