BRACEBRIDGE - A Bracebridge resident and OPP police officer found guilty of violating orders from his superiors not to attend a conference that discussed the legalization of marijuana has received his punishment. Sgt. Dan Mulligan, who is a member of the Ontario Provincial Police's Aviation Services Section/Helicopter Unit, faced one count of discreditable conduct and two counts of insubordination during a Police Services Act tribunal in late November at the OPP's general headquarters in Orillia. Adjudicator Superintendent Greg Walton last week found Mulligan guilty of discreditable conduct and one count of insubordination, but not guilty on the second count of insubordination. [continues 414 words]
The cost of prohibition is prohibitive. Abuse of drugs, whether they be cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana, is a health issue in our country. This is a matter of concern for all Muskokans, and in our (admittedly unscientific) poll 62 per cent advocated for legalization of marijuana. And when we asked community members their opinion they were also for legalization. Certainly there are social problems that go along with the abuse of any drug, whether it's vodka or marijuana, but criminalizing the huge number of Canadians who want to smoke some herb doesn't help solve those problems. Making headway with drug abuse will only happen when it's treated as a health issue, rather than a legal one. [continues 297 words]
DEAR EDITOR - Re: The debate on the illicit drug known as pot, In my view, Muskokaregion.com, Sept. 4. You (columnist Ken Black) have waded into the cannabis debate, portending a benevolent agenda of protecting the populace against misinformation, yet that is all you provided. You state, "Worth noting that the debate on the effectiveness of marijuana for medical purposes is still underway, and evidence to prove its effectiveness is scarce." If you are referring to Big Pharma's attempt to synthesize the active components in cannabis, you are right, there is little evidence of any medical benefit. However, if you had the decency to simply Google medical benefits of cannabis, you would discover that it is the most medicinally active plant on the face of the planet. [continues 324 words]
Re: Liberals get it right with promise to legalize marijuana (Bracebridge Examiner, Feb. 1, 2012) As someone who has been up to his eyeballs in pot activism for nine years, I would classify this Liberal vote to legalize pot as nothing more than a bamboozle. The delegates did the right thing, but the party will not. Not one single Liberal candidate has the intelligence or the guts to campaign on this issue, because not one single Liberal candidate has the intelligence or the guts to explain to a voter what, exactly, "marijuana legalization" would even look like. [continues 217 words]
As a currently serving police officer, I must preface the following commentary with the proviso that the opinions expressed below are simply my own personal opinions and do not represent the position/thoughts/policy of my employer. They say politics is the art of the possible. Had someone suggested to me three months ago that a 35-plus-year Progressive Conservative would've switched federal political stripes at my age (and profession) I undoubtedly would've laughed it off. The hook was a proposed policy resolution (#117) brought forward to the Liberal Party of Canada's biennial convention in Ottawa recently. [continues 393 words]
A sentencing hearing last week in a Bracebridge courtroom turned into a debate on the pro and cons of marijuana use. In the end, Judge George Beatty denied the Crown attorney's request for a six-month prison sentence, instead giving a suspended sentence to Michel Ethier for possession of marijuana. The 53-year-old Sturgeon Falls man claims he is a reverend in the Church of the Universe, which views the smoking of marijuana as a religious sacrament. On Aug. 10, 2008, Ethier was pulled over by police for erratic driving on Highway 11 in Bracebridge, near the Cedar Lane exit. Police said they found 376 grams of marijuana, along with eight marijuana cigarettes, in Ethier's car. [continues 582 words]
Re: 'Reverend' continues appeal of marijuana possession charge (Feb. 17) Looks like a so-called reporter, Matthew Sitler, doesn't realize that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, in the case of Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem [2004] 2 S.C.R. 551 that if an individual feels that a religious practice is connected to his religion, it is allowed. I'm looking forward to some better reporting on the case of Rev. Michel Ethier who is being persecuted for his quite valid religious beliefs. T.J. Meehan Kingston [end]
Once Bracebridge's new methadone clinic gets going, it could cater to about 250 individuals on a regular basis, says Dr. Jeff Daiter, executive director of Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres (OATC), which runs the clinic. Speaking at an information session at Riverwalk Restaurant Thursday evening, Daiter outlined his new clinic's operation and touched on the user groups who are benefiting from its services. He stressed the urgent need for methadone treatment in the local community. He said many people using methadone "are really the drug addicted." [continues 715 words]
A lifelong struggle with addiction spiralled into homelessness for Tom Regehr, who spoke recently at a Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) seminar on teen drug use behaviour. "Several times I was so close to death it was scary," said Regehr during the talk on Nov. 18 at Rene M. Caisse Theatre in Bracebridge. More than 100 people gathered for the forum. When Regehr was 28 years old, he was a successful landscaping consultant and doing well financially and professionally, he explained. [continues 593 words]
Re: $27 million in marijuana seized across the region, Oct. 14 So what if members of the OPP's Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau Team 3 Central North Drug Unit "were able to locate and eradicate 50 marijuana plots." What difference will it make? Last year's police harvest didn't stop this year's crop and this year's police harvest won't stop next year's crop. The recent outdoor "marijuana eradication" efforts by the police are glaring examples of the futility of prohibition. [continues 237 words]
It's getting worse, but no worse than in other rural areas. Muskoka is on par with similar geographic locations when it comes to the proliferation of outdoor marijuana grow-ops, said Det. Const. John Sheridan with the OPP's Central North Drug Enforcement Unit. The OPP recently issued a press release trumpeting the seizure of $27 million in marijuana plants from throughout Muskoka, Simcoe, Dufferin and Peel between June and October. The seizure represents a 200 per cent increase over 2008. [continues 487 words]
Is a methadone clinic about to open in Bracebridge? Speculation is mounting that a site currently under construction in the mall located on Highway 118 West in the Bracebridge flats may contain a methadone clinic, a treatment centre that helps wean people off opiate addictions for drugs like OxyContin. A Bracebridge methadone clinic location is listed on the website of Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres, an organization that runs numerous methadone clinics in Ontario. So far, however, calls by the Bracebridge Examiner to OATC have gone unreturned. [continues 712 words]
You could call him a 'holy roller.' On Monday, a Bracebridge court judge granted Sturgeon Falls resident Michel Ethier, 52, until Feb. 11, 2010 to prepare his defence against a pot possession charge he received in Muskoka in the summer of 2008. Ethier is a reverend with the so-called Church of the Universe, an organization that believes marijuana is a religious sacrament. But rather than deal with the charge at hand, Ethier told Justice Robert Weekes that he also now wants his case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. [continues 525 words]
MP Was Acting On His 'Obligation' To Speak Out Against 'Wrong-Headed' Public Policy The word count for Muskoka-Parry Sound MP and federal health minister Tony Clement's annual speech to the Canadian Medical Association on Aug.18 was just under 3,500. Most of those words were used by the health minister to describe his problems with Insite - Vancouver's safe injection site for drug users - - from a public policy, scientific and ethical point of view. In the week that has followed Clement's address at the CMA's annual conference, numerous articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the national media both supporting and opposing his message and tactics, an outcome Clement is very happy with. [continues 730 words]
Minister of Health Tony Clement has appealed a judge's ruling giving Vancouver's Insite facility a permanent constitutional exemption from federal drug laws. Open 18 hours a day and the only facility of its kind in North America, Insite is a place where public health workers provide drug addicts with clean needles as well as counselling and support in case of an overdose. "I spoke to the standing committee on health at Parliament and announced that we would be appealing the ruling," Clement told this newspaper on Thursday. "It will go on to the justice minister in order to launch the appeal. While the science is mixed, the public policy is clear. [continues 860 words]
Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement says there is not a lot of sympathy in his riding for Vancouver's Insite facility to receive an extended exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The only one of its kind in North America, Insite is a facility where public health workers provide drug addicts with clean needles as well as support in case of an overdose. The injection site was established by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) in partnership with the Portland Hotel Community Services Society in the fall of 2003 as a pilot project in attempt to address the increasingly risky and open drug scene in Vancouver's downtown east side. [continues 893 words]
Two teenage girls face drug-trafficking charges for selling ecstasy to other Bracebridge youth at private homes, on the street and at Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. Bracebridge Ontario Provincial Police officers arrested the two girls, aged 14 and 16, last week following an investigation that started in late March. According to OPP reports, the 16-year-old had been selling the drug to at least six other students aged 14 and 15 and one 19-year-old man between January and March, with some sales as far back as September. The drug deals took place in private homes, at a Bracebridge plaza, on Bracebridge streets and at BMLSS, according to reports. [continues 385 words]
How big a problem? The appearance of eight bodies in a field near Shedden, we are told, left the 300 or so residents of the area "shocked," "stunned," and "reeling." At least that is the reaction the several hundred journalists in the area seem to be expecting from a place that is inevitably described as a "sleepy rural crossroads." If we know anything about rural residents, it seems more likely that the good folk of Shedden are frustrated that bikers have chosen their area as a handy place to dump bodies, and tired of being interviewed about it. [continues 382 words]
Police are warning residents to be on the lookout for ecstasy, a drug marketed to youth. Police arrested two teens suspected of using the drug on December 28. The pair were found in downtown Bracebridge just before 3 a.m. One, a 19-year-old Gravenhurst man, had the drug in his possession and was charged, according to Bracebridge OPP. The other, a 15-year-old from Bracebridge, was warned and taken home to his parents. The drug, also known as E, Adam and 'the love drug' is usually peddled to youth, according to Bracebridge OPP Constable Ted Smith. [continues 522 words]
Student suspensions in Trillium Lakelands District schools are 4 per cent higher than the provincial average, figures show. Administrators say the numbers are the result of a new provincial crackdown to improve safety, not rising student problems. Numbers released by the Ontario Ministry of Education on November 23 show steady increases in the number of students sent home from the province's schools since the Safe Schools Act took effect in 2000. Across the province, 5.3 per cent of students were suspended in 2000-01. That number rose to 7.2 per cent last year. [continues 496 words]
