A two-year process is underway for the Liard First Nation and the Liard Aboriginal Women's Society to come up with a plan to deal with substance abuse and detoxification in the community thanks to $321,000 in funding from the Northern Strategy Trust. It's an initiative that's been needed for a long time as the territory's southeast community has continued to deal with the impact of addiction. "It's been one of our struggles," Ann Maje Raider, the women's society executive director, said in a recent interview. [continues 354 words]
This controversy isn't likely to blow over. Yukoners have now joined a national campaign to have Blow, a controversial new powdered energy drink, banned from the Canadian market. Named after street slang for cocaine, Blow is a white,z powdered concoction that is supposed to be mixed with water to create an energy drink. Currently, it's only available in the US. But the manufacturer has immediate plans to expand into the Canadian market. "Since we launched, we've received a tremendous amount of customer requests from Canada . it just became too loud for us to ignore," said Logan Gola, the Las Vegas-based creator of Blow, in an interview with the News. [continues 706 words]
A new powdered beverage supplement called Blow, which could be on Canadian shelves this summer, has Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell calling for its ban from the Yukon. On Thursday, the Copperbelt MLA urged the government to "undertake a review of ways of preventing the controversial drink ... from being sold in (the territory)." Logan Gola, the founder of the Blow Energy Drink Mix, has dismissed criticism his Las Vegas-based company is promoting cocaine use or providing an alternative to illegal drugs. [continues 183 words]
A Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the use of random drug searches will not impact the Canines for Safer Schools program at Porter Creek Secondary School, says the school's drug awareness co-ordinator. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the use of random drug searches will not impact the Canines for Safer Schools program at Porter Creek Secondary School, says the school's drug awareness co-ordinator. "We don't do random searches at Porter Creek," Doug Green said in an interview this morning. [continues 421 words]
Everyone Has The Right To Be Secure Against Unreasonable Search And Seizure. So says Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And, because of its existence, Ebony the drug dog must be pulled from Porter Creek Secondary School. The animal's presence in the school violates the students' rights, according to a Supreme Court of Canada decision delivered Friday. The court ruling stemmed from a drug sweep of a Sarnia, Ontario, school by a police canine team in 2002. [continues 827 words]
A Supreme Court of Canada ruling that random searches by drug-sniffing dogs violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms won't affect a Yukon school's canine program, says the government. The court ruled random searches in two cases breached the Charter. The decision puts the use of drug dogs for random searches into question across the country. A Yukon school's use of a drug dog that patrols the hallways could be challenged, but the Education department believes the decision won't affect the program. [continues 524 words]
A couple of years ago, Ben Gribben nearly killed himself with crack cocaine. "Technically, I was dead for about two minutes," says the 19-year-old. Gribben smoked it through a pipe he got from the outreach van. The cargo van makes the harm-reduction rounds through Whitehorse six nights a week, its workers handing out food and drink, medical care, blankets, counselling, and harm-reduction devices like condoms, needles, spoons and crack pipes. "They consciously set us up for failure," says Gribben. [continues 1270 words]
While federal Tories threaten to force downtown Vancouver drug addicts out of a safe injection site and back onto the streets, three Whitehorse-based organizations are collaborating to launch a harm reduction network for Yukon. The new network, comprised of Blood Ties Four Directions, Many Rivers Counselling and Support Services and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon, was formed to "promote the health and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by substance abuse," said a release from the groups. "We do have a population of people in Whitehorse who use drugs, and they tend to be an underrepresented, misunderstood, often maligned, stigmatized community," said Blood Ties executive director and network chair Patricia Bacon at a news conference on Thursday. [continues 716 words]
Re War on drugs is blowing up in our faces, expert warns (the News, February 22): "We couldn't have done a worse job if we tried," says Eugene Oscapella. Unless one considers the possibility it might have all been on purpose, in which case it is all going exactly as planned. Cops have powers they don't deserve, military suppliers are getting rich and the prison industry is growing fast! Prohibition serves police and government in that it usurps basic rights. [continues 317 words]
Why do people sell drugs? In a variation of the old question, Eugene Oscapella pauses in front of his audience gathered at the Harm Reduction Conference at the Gold Rush Inn. He answers his own question. First - money, second - money, and third - - money. His premise? That the war on drugs has served to create a black market so fantastically lucrative that it has perpetuated an industry worth billions of dollars that has financed organized crime for decades, destabilized countries around the world, failed to stop people from using drugs and made using drugs more dangerous than the practice would otherwise be. [continues 943 words]
Re: Appeal Dropped Against Grow-op Gang: For decades we keep getting the PR machine telling us the redcoats are so wonderful, such a "tradition." In reality, what we have is Dudley Do-wrong. "Police also manipulated court documents, arrested people without grounds and failed to follow established rules for processing the accused after arrest." Is anyone actually surprised by this? The more we hear about the RCMP, the more we hear about bending or breaking of rules, all in the name of "Justice." [continues 125 words]
Sometimes Mounties get their man, and sometimes they don't. Crown prosecutors have abandoned their appeal against four men allegedly involved in the largest grow-op in Yukon history after police couldn't find them. The four men were acquitted after territorial court judge Karen Ruddy decided evidence against them had been improperly collected by RCMP. In 2005, after seizing 4,500 pot plants from grow-ops in Copper Ridge, police charged eight men for possessing and growing marijuana. The trial was held in November 2006. [continues 378 words]
In the year that's passed since the Yukon adopted the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) Act, the public has made 139 complaints about 108 properties whose tenants are engaging in harmful activity. In the year that's passed since the Yukon adopted the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) Act, the public has made 139 complaints about 108 properties whose tenants are engaging in harmful activity. Since the SCAN office opened in late 2006, Yukoners have been able to report such ongoing harmful activities as prostitution, drug activity or bootlegging at residences in their communities. [continues 595 words]
Better titles would have been, Drug Laws Destroy Lives, or "Drugs Destroy Lives", Parents Brainwashed ("Drugs Destroy Lives", Parents Reminded, Nov. 28, 2007) since the war on drugs is often more harmful than the substances being prohibited. Consider cannabis (kaneh bosm / marijuana) which isn't even a drug but rather a relatively safe God-given plant, that is safer than alcohol especially compared to whiskey. Cannabis hasn't killed one person in over 5,000 years of documented use while cigarettes kill over 1,000 North Americans daily and it's less addictive than coffee. It's time to re-legalize cannabis to add credibility to any "war" on "drugs". People that support perpetuating Reefer Madness laws fail the "drug test" and may be doing more harm than good. Truthfully, Stan White, Dillon, Colorado [end]
In Douglas Green's opinion, the war on drugs is over. And drugs have won. "We've been fighting them for over 100 years," the former veteran police officer told a group of about 50 parents at Porter Creek Secondary School on Tuesday evening. The Porter Creek School Council hosted the event, called Just Say "Know" - Drugs 101, to help parents learn about preventing teen substance abuse, reasons for teen drug use, and recognizing signs of substance use. Green, who spent 26 years with the Edmonton Police Service, is now the school's drug awareness co-ordinator. [continues 1049 words]
Ed. note: This is the fourth instalment of a five-part series tracing a tale of drug addiction and rehabilitation in recognition of National Drug Awareness Week (Nov. 18-24). Addiction treatment goes on behind closed doors and becomes a cocoon for addicts to become wrapped up in affirmations, 12 steps, and of course, their demons. "It's the most difficult thing you'll ever do," says Dale Gordon, director of treatment for the territory's Alcohol and Drug Services unit, and a recovering addict himself. [continues 884 words]
A drug-sniffing dog will be on guard at Porter Creek Secondary School tomorrow morning. An injunction being sought by a Porter Creek student to prevent the dog from attending her school is denied, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale said this morning. "I dismiss the application to restrain the introduction of the drug-detecting dog," he said. The public interest of helping to alleviate the taking and selling of drugs at Porter Creek secondary must take priority over the student's intense allergies to animals, which has been known to cause hives, and swelling of the student's throat and tongue, Veale said in his decision this morning. [continues 400 words]
A Porter Creek Secondary School student who suffers severe allergies to animals would be forced to seek her high school education elsewhere if the Canines for Safer Schools program brings a dog into the building. Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale heard that argument this morning. The student's family is seeking an injunction which would prevent the dog from coming into the school each day, as the family seeks a judicial review of the Yukon Human Rights Commission decision against it. [continues 606 words]
Porter Creek Secondary School's drug awareness co-ordinator says he's disappointed having his dog, Ebony, enter the school for the program came down to a matter of winning and losing. This morning, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale ruled the school can bring Ebony in on a daily basis as part of the Canines for Safer Schools program, which is being run by Doug Green. School principal Kerry Huff also expressed disappointment at the way the case had played out, telling reporters he had hoped the school would find a way to accommodate the student. [continues 742 words]
Inside Yukon Territory
