Use Of Cannabis Now Legal

When George Papandreou spoke about "green development" most of us here in Greece actually thought he meant eco-friendly products and services, but we never thought that he actually meant "smoke weed,,, it does the body good." The BIG news this week is that the use of drugs (and possible cultivation of cannabis for personal use) is now LEGAL! The new bill which was quietly voted on by the majority of the PASOK party late last week involves the de-criminalisation of use of drugs but strict penalties will still apply for traffickers. According to the new bill the use of narcotics will be punished as a petty offence, rather than as a misdemeanour (indictable) as is currently the case.

Traffickers and dealers will be separated into three categories. The first category concerns traffickers, which will entail a life sentence, without mitigating circumstances. A second category will entail 5-20 years imprisonment. The third category that of a simple misdemeanour will entail a prison term of up to five years.

This is a controversial issue since on the one hand some 350 drug-related deaths documented annually, while 5,000 inmates in the country's prison system have been incarcerated on drug charges. On the other though, we can just picture farmers in Zoniana on the island of Crete, or happy "organic farmers" in the southern part of Kalamata and/or the area of Agrinio contemplating if they should plant cotton, tomatoes, herbs or some cannabis and bank in on the opportunity... If caught they can always claim that it’s for their own personal use now. And this makes us wonder... a chain smoker for instance can say that he needs ten acres of cannabis a year and someone who smokes less than a pack a day can claim that he is cultivating five acres a year for his personal use. In this economic strangling environment expect to hear the wildest stories from hereafter.

(Oh brother)

In such a framework, we decided to dedicate the following video to our pot-loving former premier, now we understand.... me toses mamakies pou exei pei... to paidi pinei mbafous kai pezi pro.

Army To Supply Heat For School Children in Samothrace

The recession has indeed taken its toll on Greek society. Families are giving up their children for adoption because they cannot support them, tens of thousands of young adults are leaving the country to seek work abroad, people are looking into the rubbish to eat and our schools are becoming poorer and less desirable areas for enlightenment. In such a framework, an interesting story was released on the news247 web site claiming that aside from not having books, children attending primary and secondary schools in Samothrace have also had no heating in their classrooms for weeks now and have been suffering from blistering temperatures. The seriousness of the matter struck a cord of generosity in Minister of National Defence Dimitris Avramopoulos who sent a mandate to the Armed Forces to quickly distribute half of its fuel supply to the schools on this north Aegean island so that the students there can finally receive some heat, even if it meant that the soldiers themselves would freeze to death. The Ministry said in an announcement later on that this gesture was "a small token of recognition and respect to their daily struggle". The story was also featured on newsit and zoogla.gr. Indeed Mr. Avramopoulos this was an honorable gesture on your part, but your focus should now be on how to confront similar issues in hundreds of other schools around the country since your colleague Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou has not even distributed the required text books to some of these schools and we are already in the second semester of the school year, let alone address the problem of heating. Here is a proposal: Maybe you can use your influence to slash some of the salaries and benefits from our privileged politicians including your friend Anna! Surely we could heat up hundreds of schools that way. (Editor's note: Similar reports have also been noted in Rethymno, Chania as well as other areas of Greece).

Greek Citizens Side With Prosecutors Against Papandreou & Papakonstantinou

The gates of hell have indeed opened and have totally taken the PASOK party by storm. In such a climate, the mere suggestion that George Papandreou might face investigation on charges that he committed fraud drew strong criticism from PASOK spokesman Panos Beglitis over the weekend who questioned the prosecutor’s handling of the case. Beglitis in an effort to obviously downplay the seriousness of the issue, used known PASOK tactics of mud-slinging, and accused the two prosecutors of “dangerous oversight” and of being part of a “well-organized intervention in political and economic life, which puts national interests in danger, ” while he called on the Supreme Court to “do its duty.” His statements came under attack by most of the blog sphere and Beglitis was charged of trying to "influence" the Greek justice system.Meanwhile a shocking investigative report on Kontra Channel's "Makeleio 2" on Saturday night featured the statements yet another PASOK cadre, this time it was Minister of Justice Miltiades Papaioannou who instead of announcing measures on how his ministry will support and protect these two prosecutors, is instead looking into how to strip the Greek prosecutors of their positions in what the report claims is in the framework of not allowing them to probe into the case further. It was also revealed in the same report that the two Greek prosecutors were "approached" by a corrupt journalist who left it to be understood that they should allow the case to be placed on the back burner.

It should be reminded that on Friday prosecutor Grigoris Peponis delivered the results of his initial probe into the alleged wrongdoing to the Supreme Court. The results claim that Greece’s statistics service inflated the country’s public deficit figure to justify tougher austerity measures and the prosecutors probing the case recommended that Parliament should now investigate the case as well as look into whether former Prime Minister George Papandreou, members of his government and former Finance Minister Georgos Papakostantinou have committed any offenses.

The probe was launched following allegations made last September by Zoe Georganta, a former employee of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). Shortly after she was dismissed from the service, Georganta claimed that 2009 deficit data had been artificially inflated from around 12-13 percent to 15.4 percent of gross domestic product. The statistician claimed that European officials wanted Greece to show a greater deficit than Ireland in order to trigger a bailout and tough fiscal measures. Georganta’s allegations were later supported by Nikos Logothetis, the former vice president of ELSTAT. Logothetis denied charges that he hacked into the e-mail account of Andreas Georgiou, who was appointed head of the overhauled and more independent ELSTAT in 2010. Peponis invited Georgiou to give evidence but not suprisingly the Greek prosecutor never took a deposition from him. (Click here to read related story)

The case is now in the hands of Supreme Court prosecutor Nikos Pantelis, who was appointed to examine the case file and decide whether it should be sent to Parliament. If it does, then a parliamentary investigative commission will open with the signature of 30 only parlimentarians.

The Greek blog sphere was set ablaze with this story on Friday and most of the stories since then have focused on this case. The mainstream media, on the other has totally down played the seriousness of this story for obvious reasons. What our "influential" government does not realize is that the Greek blog sphere is made up from common citizens, not puppet journalists and they are not
planning to put the case on the back burner but rather will continue to support these two BRAVE and very HONORABLE prosecutors who have the courage to actually stand up against this corrupt government. Eimaste mazi sas!



Of particular interest is what is said after 15 minutes into the video.

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