Coun. Sam Merulla wants to head off new local taxpayer costs to cover increased bylaw and policing enforcement - and public health services - - from legalized pot well before legalization happens this summer. "Fifty per cent of what we tax for now has nothing to do with city council," he said, adding that much of it is a result of services once funded by the province being downloaded onto municipalities. Merulla has put councillors on notice that he's introducing a motion at their Jan. 24 meeting to get city staff to find out the city's costs of implementing marijuana legalization - and ask the province for a commitment to fully cover those costs. The province is getting a windfall in marijuana sales taxes after all, he says. [continues 168 words]
The Ontario government's move to distribute and sell marijuana in LCBO-type stores when it becomes legal - and to shut down illegal pot shops - has stunned Hamilton's pot shop owners, says Conrad Floyd, of the Hamilton Village Dispensary collective. "Hamilton has 30 shops ... We have created this entire industry and now the government is going to take it over," he said. "Everybody is just kind of shell-shocked." Floyd argues that not only is the private businessman and entrepreneur losing out, but so is the city when it comes to taxes collected at the governmentrun stores. [continues 425 words]
New law will require strategy to deal with use of pot and its effects on student life, learning There is reason to be concerned about legalizing marijuana when it comes to youth, a McMaster University health forum heard. Psychologist and cannabis-use researcher Franco Vaccarino told Tuesday's Cannabis on Campus forum that young people need special attention because their brains don't fully develop until age of 25. Vaccarino, a principal editor of "The Effects of Cannabis Use during Adolescence" report in 2015, said brains undergo dramatic changes during adolescence and youth are vulnerable to drug use. [continues 401 words]
18 recommendations from Chinnery jury focus on prevention, reaction A coroner's jury looking into the shooting death of Andreas Chinnery by police is proposing wide-ranging recommendations, from controlling young people's marijuana use to police using lapel cameras. The jury made 18 recommendations Monday, adopting all of the suggestions made by the parties with standing - those with a direct interest - and then added three of its own. Chinnery had turned 19 just five weeks before he was shot and killed on Feb. 2, 2011 in his Barton Street East apartment by an officer responding to a call about a disturbance in his unit. [continues 655 words]
Mark Thornborrow knows he has to coexist in Beasley with drunks, prostitutes and druggies, but when they do their business in the park, he draws the line. He'll tell them straight, 'hey, not here' ... you're going to hurt the kids by doing that in front of them." Some don't take kindly to it. So far, he's only been threatened, but admits "it's actually pretty stupid of me ... they could have a gun or a knife." But Mark is a stubborn man on a mission -- determined to better his neighbourhood, despite living across from the toughest apartment building in Beasley and near the roughest corner at Robert and John streets, a high traffic area for drugs and prostitutes. [continues 454 words]
Cocaine kingpin Alfredo Malanca was called "a purveyor of misery" and "despicable" before being sentenced to life imprisonment for smuggling more than a quarter tonne of cocaine into Canada. Superior Court Justice Gordon Thomson, in sentencing Malanca, 33, in a Hamilton courtroom yesterday, spoke first of the devastating effect of the cocaine on society, causing misery, suffering and degradation to users and destruction, crime and violence in society as users turn to crime to support their habit and street gang dealers kill each other in turf wars. [continues 471 words]
'Not A High School In North America That Doesn't Have A Drug Problem' Hamilton police and their narcotics dog will walk the halls of city high schools and some middle schools searching for drugs this year. It's the first time police have been asked by Hamilton's separate and public boards to hunt for drugs in their schools. While student drug use doesn't appear to have increased over the past two years, it's still higher than in the 1990s. [continues 450 words]
Halton is spending $40,000 on a needle exchange program for about six addicts. According to documents obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, four injection drug users, from Burlington or Oakville or both, used Peel's exchange program because Halton didn't have one. The documents show Hamilton AIDS Network gets calls from people in Halton seeking a needle exchange. But Hamilton officials know of only two Halton residents who have made use of their program since 1992. In 1999, Hamilton had 745 needle exchanges in a program that costs $50,000 a year. The AIDS network doesn't record how many individuals use the exchange. [continues 801 words]
Drug users in Burlington and other Halton centres are about to get their own free needle exchange program in September. Only a few of the estimated 700 drug users in Halton seek out clean needles from similar programs operated in Hamilton or Mississauga. Drug use and the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C are low compared to urban centres such as Hamilton and Toronto. But health officials say now is the time to stem disease transmission through the use or sharing of dirty needles -- before the problem becomes serious as Halton grows. [continues 542 words]
Halton's medical officer of health says a recent study is proof positive that student drug and alcohol use is an issue in Burlington, Oakville and the rest of Halton Region. Bob Nosal said parents' most common complaint on a regional anti-drug committee was that people didn't think student drug use was a problem. "We're hearing, 'It's like that in Hamilton and in Toronto, but it's not like that in Halton.' What we're saying, is, it is like that in Halton. [continues 433 words]
