With 3,000 customers a day, a restaurant, ample parking and turnover of €26m (£23m) a year, Checkpoint cafe, the largest cannabis-selling coffee shop in the Netherlands, was a fabulous commercial success. That was until it was closed down in 2009 for testing to the limits what the Dutch describe as their gedogenbeleid (tolerance policy) under which prosecutors turn a blind eye to the breaking of certain laws, including in the business of selling cannabis.

The latest and most likely final appeal hearing of criminal charges against the cafe’s owner, Meddie Willemsen, has highlighted what the president of a court in Den Bosch described as “paradoxes” in the Dutch approach to so-called soft drugs. Licensed coffee shops are allowed to sell cannabis from their premises, but can keep only 500g on site at any time. Production of the drug is illegal.

When Checkpoint was at its peak, Willemsen, 66, was regularly keeping about 200kg of cannabis on his large premises in Terneuzen, near the Belgian border. The size of the enterprise could have led to fairly reasonable assumptions that those providing the drugs would be large criminal gangs.(theguardian)…[+]

Voluntary assisted dying will be legal in Victoria from 2019, after a landmark bill successfully passed through state parliament. The government-led, amended bill passed the Legislative Assembly after more than 100 hours of debate across both houses, including several overnight sittings.

It will make the state the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise assisted dying since the Northern Territory’s short-lived Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was overturned by federal parliament in 1997. Since then the Victorian legislation marks the first time in the world that a parliament has gone through an extensive process to introduce voluntary assisted dying. Other countries have introduced laws through referendum or a court process.

Upper house MP Fiona Patten,one of the key proponents of the legislation, told Guardian Australia she was overwhelmed that it had passed. While the upper house passed the legislation one week ago 22 votes to 18 after a marathon debate, a number of amendments were made which had to pass the lower house. “It’s very clear the vast majority of Victorians are happy the parliament has done this work,” she said.(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN- It’s a makeover that is transforming lives and stimulating pride in 1,200 Jamaican students. At the Christiana Moravian Primary and Infant School, there were once as many as 46 students to one teacher in some classes. Now 10 new classrooms, the renovation of two existing school buildings and student bathrooms, and new programmes and materials have not only alleviated problems of overcrowding but are also enhancing the lives of students.

The Principal credits both funds with leaving an indelible mark on the school community through socially progressive programs such as the Special Education Needs Coordinators Training Project; the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme (WASH) and the Literacy and Numeracy Project (LNP). Through LNP, the school received teaching and learning aids to support the math and language curriculum, and academic staff participated in intensive training. As a result, students’ performance in national examinations improved, the school surpassed the national average for literacy, and there has been a marked improvement in numeracy.

Knowledge gained through WASH led to the creation of an action plan intended to address sanitation and hygiene issues within the school’s environment, and it stirred creativity among staff and students. In addition to creating Squeaky, a mascot who reminds students to “WASH”, they reworked “Nuh Dutty Up Jamaica”, a popular song, with new lyrics “nuh dutty up di school yaad.” Improvements made within the school’s Special Education Unit were particularly notable, with significant increases in the numbers of special education students reaching mastery levels in literacy and numeracy.(CDB)…[+]