Old Dopers Seem to Be Returning to the Pot Habits of Their Youth

Paula has quit. At 68, the manager of a health-food store has put away the rolling paper, stopped buying her beloved hashish and is going straight.

"I'm trying to find more peace," she says.

Her adult children, now with children of their own, used to smoke pot but have stopped, as has her husband, also a former hard-core indulger.

But Barry, a 65-year-old Ottawa radiologist, has no intention of giving up his one or two or maybe three-joints a-day habit. Semi-retired, five minutes after looking at the last X-ray, Barry is in his car and firing up the marijuana joint he keeps in the ashtray for the ride home.

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Call off B.C.'s police from busting folks with pot for personal use, then lobby Ottawa to legalize and tax marijuana.

That's basically the three-year, two-step plan being pitched by decriminalization advocate Dana Larsen who's visiting the Cowichan Library Monday at 6 p.m., then Mill Bay's Kerry Park Recreation Centre Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Pivotal to Larsen's push - called Sensible BC - is the province's Sensible Policing Act.

It could order all B.C. cops to stop spending time or resources searching, seizing or arresting anyone for simple cannabis possession, explained the director of Vancouver's Medical Cannabis Dispensary.

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Researchers behind a four-year scientific study have recommended the establishment of two safe injection sites for Ottawa that they say would help drug users and reduce drug use in the capital.

Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi and Dr. Carol Strike presented the findings of the Toronto and Ottawa Supervised Consumption Assessment last week. The researchers participated in a panel discussion with representatives of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and the Drug Users Advocacy League, as part of Ottawa AIDS Awareness Week.

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Re: "Legalized pot opens Pandora's box of problems," Susan Martinuk, Opinion, Dec. 7.

Susan Martinuk seems to have a big problem with marijuana. I am curious whether she has the same problem with alcohol or cigarettes, since her issues with marijuana can be applied to them as well.

She raises the issue of underage youth getting hold of pot once it's legalized. This happens even if it's not legalized, and it also happens with alcohol and cigarettes. The fact these are illegal doesn't stop most teens from partaking.

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Health and harm-reduction services for those suffering from severe addictions and mental-health problems will be expanded and based out of two downtown Victoria hubs.

The Access Health Centre on Johnson Street and the Withdrawal Management complex (Sobering Centre) at Cook and Pembroke streets will reach out to about 100 of the most vulnerable people in downtown Victoria.

The plan includes case managers who will track clients even when they are in hospital or in jail and reconnect them with services ranging from clean needles to housing.

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Local Trials Connected to Major Busts

As Kuldeep Singh Dharni rolled his tractor-trailer up to the Ambassador Bridge customs booth, an agent's drug senses started tingling.

It was 8:30 p.m., Aug. 10, 2009, and Canada Border Services Agency officers had a "look out," or tip, to focus on longhaul trucks they did not recognize.

So the agent sent the cleancut Brampton trucker and his load of aluminum coils to secondary inspection - where the then 36-year-old's life unravelled in a string of legal troubles, expenses and $10 million in cocaine. He said he had no idea about the coke. A Windsor judge believed him.

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A case against a Lower Mainland man accused of running a large marijuana grow operation on the outskirts of Prince George suffered a blow Tuesday when a provincial court judge threw out evidence obtained under a search warrant.

Judge Victor Galbraith ruled the search warrant invalid because it was obtained under an allegation of theft of telecommunication service while the actual charge should have been theft of electricity.

Although both offences are under the same section of the Criminal Code, and headed with the term "theft of telecommunication service" it's broken into subsections for two distinct offences - one related to electricity or gas and the other to telecommunications.

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Editor:

Re: Legalizing marijuana opens the door to host of social problems, Nov. 16 If marijuana were just decriminalized, then alcohol needs to be de-legalized.

Remember prohibition? Alcohol is a drug.

I have also worked in the field of alcohol and drug abuse, and am more than 28 years clean and sober.

Did Jim Stimson's family members overdose on marijuana? Did his sister die from marijuana? Is his son addicted to marijuana? I think not. The three separate car crashes resulted from alcohol abuse, not marijuana.

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As random drug-testing for oilsands workers is battled out in the courts, local employees are not likely to have to undergo that level of intrusion.

Currently, Suncor in court to put in place randomized drug tests for its Fort McMurray operations.

However, Encana, which employs a large number of people in the Peace Region, said that it does not plan to institute similar measures in this part of the world.

"Encana does not have random drug testing in place and we have no current plans to implement it," wrote Doug McIntyre, a spokesman for Encana.

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MDs Reluctant to Have Role As 'Gatekeepers'

Doctors in Canada are so skittish about the medical use of marijuana that a third of MDs who have been asked to endorse a patient's access to the drug never agree to it, a Canadian Medical Association survey suggests.

A further 25 per cent of doctors who responded to the survey said they would "seldom" be willing to support a patient's access to medicinal pot; 64 per cent are worried that patients who request medical marijuana might only want it to get high.

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Survey Reveals Reluctance to Assume Gatekeeper Role

Doctors in Canada are so skittish about the medical use of marijuana that a third of MDs who have been asked to endorse a patient's access to the drug never agree to it, a Canadian Medical Association survey suggests.

Another 25 per cent of doctors who responded to the survey said they would "seldom" be willing to support a patient's access to medicinal pot; 64 per cent are worried patients who request medical marijuana may only want it to get high.

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The stoners in Washington state didn't waste any time celebrating (or pushing the boundaries of) their new freedom to light up a joint. The new law went into effect Thursday, and although public consumption is banned, revellers took to the streets. At midnight Wednesday, the party began.

In November, Washington voted (55 to 45 per cent) to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for those over 21. Of course, the notion that the 21-year-old age barrier will remain intact is ridiculous, as is the notion that the person holding the marijuana won't pass it on to others. Thus another great social experiment begins and there is little hope it will end well.

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A dozen years after a landmark Alberta court ruling paved the way for greater use of medicinal marijuana in Canada, federal legislation governing its use has produced a perverse system that's failing both patients in pain and the doctors charged with their care.

The ridiculous state of legalized marijuana treatment in this country is brought into sharp focus by a new Canadian Medical Association survey that finds many doctors refuse to take part in the program, often for ethical and legal reasons. In the absence of research-based guidelines and training about dosage, potency, sourcing and efficacy, they just don't feel comfortable filling out that prescription.

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Dave Douglas has hosted two sales since October, and police seem to be okay with the way he handles it

High "medicine" costs to use marijuana from sanctioned Health Canada growers and the black market has frustrated a local man enough to start his own 420 Market in east Vancouver.

It's already been running once a month since October, pot activist Dave Douglas told 24 hours this week. His federal medical marijuana licence allows him to purchase a large amount daily - 20 grams - from a sanctioned grower. It's too much for him to use alone, so he sells it for about three-quarters of the black market price to licensees who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it.

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Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, whose new documentary pillories America's failed "war on drugs," is cautiously encouraged by the apparent shift in public attitude represented by Colorado and Washington voting to legalize marijuana and California opting to soften its "insane" three-strikes law.

"While there is progress, it has to be seen in the context of what is needed, which is a larger revolution in the way America deals with drugs," Jarecki said in a phone interview prior to the Canadian premiere of The House I Live In this week in Toronto.

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Dana Larsen, who last year ran for the leadership of the BC NDP, is touring Vancouver Island over the next two weeks to promote the Sensible Policing Act, which would effectively decriminalize cannabis possession in the province.

Larsen will be speaking to supporters in Courtenay on Saturday December 8 at the Florence Filberg Centre, 411 Anderton Avenue from 7:00-8:30pm.

"The Sensible Policing Act directs all police in BC to stop spending any time or resources on searching, seizing or arresting anyone for simple cannabis possession," explained Larsen, who works as Director of the Vancouver Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary. "The lawyers at Elections BC have confirmed that this legislation is within provincial jurisdiction and suitable for a referendum."

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The union representing employees at two Elk Valley mines has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to try to stop Teck implementing a random drug and alcohol testing program.

The union said the program, brought in to effect on Monday, is unlawful and inconsistent with human rights privacy legislation. The parties are in arbitration, but according to the union there is no way to stop the program quickly without intervention from the court.

Teck said the new program will reduce injuries at work, but the union said this is unjustified, since fatalities and injuries are low at open pit mines in B.C. They said that insurance rates for such mines, which are based in part on injury rates, are lower than those of lawn bowling facilities.

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Ottawa prepares to publish proposed new regulations to its medical marijuana access program

Doctors in Canada are so skittish about the medical use of marijuana that a third of MDs who have been asked to endorse a patient's access to the drug never agree to it, a Canadian Medical Association survey suggests.

Another 25 per cent of doctors who responded to the survey said they would "seldom" be willing to support a patient's access to medicinal pot; 64 per cent are worried that patients who request medical marijuana may only want it to get high.

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Doctors in Canada are so skittish about the medical use of marijuana that a third of MDs who have been asked to endorse a patient's access to the drug never agree to it, a Canadian Medical Association survey suggests.

Another 25 per cent of doctors who responded said they would "seldom" be willing to support a patient's access to medicinal pot, and 64 per cent are worried that patients who request medical marijuana may only want it to get high.

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A Kamloops marijuana activist says a proposed change to the city's zoning bylaw goes too far in restricting the growing of medical marijuana.

While he initially told KTW he supported changes that would allow medical-marijuana growers to quietly set up shop in the city's industrial areas, Carl Anderson of the Canadian Safe Cannabis Society said he now has some serious concerns about the proposal.

Kamloops council decided last week to hold a public hearing on the bylaw amendment, which is intended to get medical-marijuana production out of residential areas.

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