This time next year will be the last 4/20 - the unofficial cannabis holiday known by its numeric calendar date - when possessing weed for personal use will be a crime. Legalization is coming to Canada in the summer of 2018. So far, reactions to legalized cannabis have ranged from healthy concern to outright fearmongering. Some people have claimed it will lead the youth astray, make our roads less safe and harm our overall health. Legalizing cannabis is not without risk. But legalization can also address how risky our current approach, the so-called War On Drugs, has been. [continues 461 words]
We cannot have a future pot policy that doesn't deal with criminalized pasts. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has said that the new pot legislation will not include any special amnesty for past convictions. This is a mistake. The government's proposed legislation follows a public health approach of reducing harm and preventing problematic drug use. But the legislation, which is slated to come into effect by July 1, 2018, cannot just serve future drug users - and businesses, for that matter. It should also serve the health and wellbeing of the young, racialized men and women who are currently in court and in prison on drug charges. [continues 363 words]
After more than 90 minutes of debate and no consensus, the Atlanta City Council on Monday put off a vote on a measure that would have eliminated jail time for those caught with small quantities of marijuana. Advocates of the Atlanta legislation said the move is necessary to address the disproportionate number of black Americans incarcerated because of pot possession. The proposal, which also would reduce the fine for possession of an ounce or less to a maximum of $75, mirrors actions taken in cities across the nation, including Dallas, Kansas City and St. Louis. In DeKalb County, Clarkson also has reduced penalties. [continues 67 words]
"Far out, man!" That's likely what teenaged me would have said if a visitor from the future had said Prime Minister Trudeau had legalized marijuana in 2018. Then I might have said "What? Trudeau is still prime minister?" Then, "Wow, this is some boss weed if I'm talking to some dude from the future." I might have added "Hey, visitor, when did the Leafs win their next Cup?" Truth be told, your scribe was not much of stoner in his youth, though he effected some of the look and lifestyle. Long hair. Check. Tie-dyed shirts. Check. Bare-foot summers. Check. But a regular consumer of marijuana products? Pas a mon gout. Didn't really have the mental constitution for it. In fact, it's always been a mystery, and the subject of mountains of research, how people react differently when tetrahydrocannabinol hits their bloodstream. [continues 555 words]
The Liberal government's pot legislation looks like a handdrawn roadmap of how marijuana will be legalized, instead of the efficient GPS system it should be. It offers tougher criminal penalties in some cases. It expands some police powers. It downloads a lot of responsibility on to provinces and municipalities. Yet it doesn't address important aspects of legalization. In short, legislators know what they want to do: protect children and reduce illegal sales of pot. How they're going to do it, well, details are either hazy, missing or highly debatable. Here are three outstanding issues: [continues 308 words]
The Liberal government's pot legislation looks like a hand-drawn roadmap of how marijuana will be legalized, instead of the efficient GPS system it should be. It offers tougher criminal penalties in some cases. It expands some police powers. It downloads a lot of responsibility to provinces and municipalities. Yet it doesn't address important aspects of legalization. In short, legislators know what they want to do: protect children and reduce illegal sales of pot. How they're going to do it, well, details are either hazy, missing or highly debatable. [continues 298 words]
Tomorrow, the Liberal Government of Justin Trudeau is expected to fulfill one of its most well-publicised campaign promises and present its much anticipated legislation to legalize the possession and use of cannabis for recreational purposes. Why they couldn't wait another week until April 20 (420) is a question worth pondering, but then again, that might have required a sense of humour. The history of drug prohibition in Canada goes back to the early 20th Century when authorities became concerned about the use of certain substances among Asian immigrant communities. Marijuana was added to the ever-increasing list of banned substances in the 1920s and once again, race was an integral component. Drug use became associated with decadence, jazz, racial mixing, and sexual license - all things designed to send shivers through middle-class society and its concept of propriety. [continues 951 words]
Canada is preparing to legalize and regulate possession of marijuana - with a target date of July 1, 2018. It's a long overdue public policy with sound economic and health arguments to back it up, notably: More harm is caused by criminal prohibition and prosecution than the use of marijuana itself; Criminal laws prohibiting possession do not deter use; Decriminalization of possession does not lead to greater use; Decriminalization frees up resources for police and the courts to deal with more serious crimes; [continues 689 words]
Editor: One must ask the lawmakers and backers, "Whose side are you on?" Each time a cop busts a compassion club, they hand power back to the underground economy. I don't believe this is the effect they were aiming for. What does kicking in the door of compassion say about our laws and their views on medical care? Under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPRR), a patient can acquire any source of cannabis material, but recently only from licensed producers (LPs). There are currently almost 130,000 Canadians registered in the program. When these doors are shut, patients are left out on the street at risk of purchasing contaminated or spiked cannabis to treat their condition. [continues 585 words]
He doesn't seek the limelight and he doesn't look any too comfortable in it, but former Toronto top cop Bill Blair is adapting to life in Ottawa. As the Liberals' point man for decriminalization of marijuana, he's steering radical changes . . . cautiously OTTAWA- Bill Blair, the former undercover drug cop who rose to become Toronto police chief and now leads Justin Trudeau's charge to legalize marijuana, long ago gave up his gun and uniform. But his guard is still up. He defensively shifts position in a room when he's with a minister, switching to what he calls "protective mode." He tries to be casual: "I didn't have a first name for a decade," he tells a reporter. "Now that I've got it back" - just call him "Bill." And yet he's still all "Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am." [continues 2894 words]
With battering rams and flash-bang grenades, SWAT teams fuel the risk of violence as they forcibly enter suspects' homes. Five months and 85 miles apart, two cases took starkly divergent legal paths. SOMERVILLE, Tex. - Joshua Aaron Hall had been a resident of the Burleson County Jail for about a week when he requested a meeting with Gene Hermes, the sheriff's investigator who had locked him up for violating probation. The stocky lawman arrived in the featureless interview room on the morning of Dec. 13, 2013, placed his soda cup on the table and apologized for not getting there sooner. He asked in his gravelly drawl if they would be talking about Mr. Hall's own case. [continues 6445 words]
Issue: BCMJ, Vol. 59, No. 2, March 2017, page(s) 89 BC Centre for Disease Control Mark W. Tyndall, MD, ScD, FRCPC British Columbia is in the midst of a public health crisis, with 914 documented overdose deaths in 2016. While there has been a steady increase in overdose deaths over the past 2 years, December 2016 had the highest monthly total of deaths ever recorded (128 deaths).[1] This is particularly alarming as it is happening despite a public health emergency announcement in April 2016 and a massive scale-up of the take-home naloxone program that has been used in over 3000 overdose reversals. [continues 574 words]
Disease control director says more should be prescribed One of British Columbia's top experts on diseases has slammed longstanding "drug policies that criminalize drug users," in an op-ed in the B.C. Medical Journal's new issue, and pushed for the expansion of government-prescribed opioids. Dr. Mark Tyndall, provincial medical director of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, wrote about the province's opioid overdose epidemic, which has killed almost 1,000 people in the last year "despite a public-health emergency announcement in April 2016." [continues 355 words]
Vancouver World kept up steady stream of stories on evil of drugs The evil of drugs has been a recurring theme for Vancouver newspapers since the city was founded in 1886. But few papers went as far as the Vancouver World's anti-dope campaign in January and February of 1922. The tone of the campaign is summed up in an illustration by cartoonist Ernest LeMessurier on Feb. 18. A sharply dressed "dope trafficker" cowers before a cat o' nine tails whip being wielded by an arm labelled "public indignation." The title of the illustration is "The Cure." [continues 618 words]
Leave it to a University of Calgary political science professor to connect legal pot to the fentanyl crisis. These people are afraid to take cold medicine. Marijuana is only illegal because of turn-of-the-century racism, and the overdose epidemic has been allowed to escalate because the victims are poor. It's the so-called Calgary School's world view manifest. Reid Blakley, Vancouver, B.C. [end]
Madison- Doctors will have to check a statewide database before prescribing narcotics and other addictive drugs, under a broad series of bills that Gov. Scott Walker signed Thursday to curb the abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers. "Wisconsin, like many other states across the country, is noticing a dangerous trend - an escalating number of cases involving heroin and opioid use, addiction, and overdose. The legislation we're signing into law today as a part of our HOPE tour works to combat this trend," Walker said in a statement. [continues 569 words]
How a renowned Canadian feminist popularized our racist war on drugs Detective Joe Ricci and his partner, Alex Sinclair, were out on a routine bust in Vancouver's Chinatown. It was 1916, and Ricci and Sinclair were front-line officers in the war on opium. The drug had been criminalized in Canada eight years earlier through the introduction of the Western world's earliest drug prohibition law, and the Vancouver police department had been chasing down traffickers ever since. Ricci was a familiar sight in the neighbourhood. He had made such a big arrest in 1913 that for days after, the Vancouver Daily World reported, "not a light [was] to be seen and the ringing noise of the chuck-a-luck dice [had] stopped." But the gamblers and the opium smokers were soon back, and Ricci was out patrolling the streets again. [continues 4172 words]
Pamela McColl is guilty of some backwards thinking. Eight decades of cannabis (marijuana) prohibition has proven to be "experimenting with dangerous drug policies" and "risky public-health policy," not the other way around. Insinuating cannabis laws involve "evidence-based drug policy" could not be farther from the truth. Cannabis prohibition and persecution was orchestrated from the beginning out of greed and racism. If cannabis were discovered today for the first time, it would be hailed as a miracle plant. Stan White Dillon, CO [end]
Police chief says intervention, education key to tackling problem For the first time under Chief Clive Weighill's tenure, crime in Saskatoon is going up. This city has the highest murder rate in the country and thefts and break-ins are spiking. The StarPhoenix sat down with the city's police chief to talk crime and what's next for 2017. Q The rise of methamphetamine is well documented in Saskatoon. You've said it's a main contributor to the city's crime rate. How are you going to combat it? [continues 745 words]
Yes, there is a fentanyl crisis, but it is one we made ourselves in our all-fired enthusiasm to control everything. The Drug War had its origins almost exactly 100 years ago when legislation was created both in the U.S. and Canada to "control" cannabis and opium, and were largely racially-inspired attacks on unpopular minorities who used these substances (eg. Chinese labourers working on the CP railway, and disposable artsy types). Since the Second World War, the drug problem has grown like Topsy, each ill-advised exacerbation of the laws being reliably accompanied by an increase in prison populations, in the U.S. from 500,000 in 1980 to about 2.2 million in 2013. [continues 181 words]
