Preventing, treating are our only hopes to stem drug abuse, says Margret Kopala. The deadline for the City of Ottawa's supervised injection site consultations was Monday, but Ottawans may be forgiven for finding the whole exercise moot. With drug abuse reaching epidemic proportions in our cities, injection facilities, whatever their merits, are a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed. Even British Columbia, devoted to harm reduction protocols and, since 2003, the home of Canada's first injection site, Insite, is worried. According to the Coroners Service of British Columbia, illicit-drug overdose deaths have increased from 200 in 2007 to a projected 800 in 2016. The introduction of the designer drug fentanyl isn't solely to blame. Heroin overdoses - on their own or laced with fentanyl - are a major factor. [continues 524 words]
Re: Tories Mull Ticketing For Pot Possession, March 4. Ticketing those possessing small amounts of cannabis is an idea whose time has come, particularly if it were combined with a few lessons in the dangers of its use. For instance, Robin Murray, a British psychiatrist and expert on mental health and cannabis use, says one in four people carries the gene that predisposes him or her to psychosis induced by high-potency marijuana. A "three tokes" law is what is needed. First offence, you get a ticket and you go to "dope school;" if you are a minor, your parents accompany you. Second offence, you are ticketed and fined. Third offence means criminal charges. Margret Kopala, Ottawa. [end]
Last summer's New Yorker piece entitled "Dr. Kush" describes how medical marijuana is transforming America's pot industry. In the land where referendums are authorizing the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes, author David Samuels describes how 200,000 physician-sanctioned California pot users are serviced by a robust subculture of growers, dispensers, brokers, and doctors. All bring a certain sophistication to their trade. Typical is dispensary owner Cindy99, who grew up in B.C. She likes helping sick people, though she suspects there's little seriously wrong with the young guys buying an eighth of L.A. Confidential. Best of all, she is really up on her pot strains. "These two have sativa in them," she says. "They're really good for daytime use." Purple Urkel is better for alleviating pain but, she admits, "the percentages are abitrary because of all the cross-breeding. You take a Blueberry and you cross it with a Kush and you get back into Trainwreck, and how do you get a percentage from that?" [continues 603 words]
The RCMP has its problems but nothing justifies cowering before special interest groups. This time, it's E Division that's under fire from the Pivot Legal Society in a Vancouver battleground where electoral politics has nothing on the politics of supervised drug injection. The Downtown Eastside's Insite is on the brink of becoming Canada's worst public policy disaster, yet last week the Pivot Legal Society called for Canada's auditor general to investigate the RCMP's authority to commission research into the facility's effects on crime and associated issues. [continues 616 words]
Signs are surfacing that new kinds of vested interests are seizing the drug control agenda. There has been little mention in this election campaign of the most pernicious evil of our time. Yet recent reports from a UN agency leave little doubt that the war against drugs is being won and that, with full engagement, victory is if not possible, then very nearly possible. The World Drug Report 2008 launched in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reveals how opium and cocoa cultivation, whose heroin and cocaine extractions are the scourge of Canada's inner cities, are now largely confined to rebel-held areas in Aghanistan and Columbia. [continues 641 words]
There has been little mention in this election campaign of the most pernicious evil of our time. Yet recent reports from a UN agency leave little doubt that the war against drugs is being won and that, with full engagement, victory is if not possible, then very nearly possible. The World Drug Report 2008 launched in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reveals how opium and cocoa cultivation, whose heroin and cocaine extractions are the scourge of Canada's inner cities, are now largely confined to rebel-held areas in Aghanistan and Colombia. It also reveals how worldwide deaths from illicit drugs at around 200,000 a year pale in comparison to deaths from legal substances such as cigarettes (five million a year), and alcohol (2.5 million). "The drug problem was dramatically reduced over the past century," says UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa, "and has stabilized over the past 10 years." [continues 548 words]
Health Minister Tony Clement announced new funding for drug treatment facilities in Vancouver but, understandably, he didn't comment on Insite because its future is now before the courts. Hearings over jurisdiction of Vancouver's safe injection facility concluded in a B.C. Supreme Court on May 7 and though a judgment is due in early June, appeals are probable, as is an injunction to keep the facility open past June 30 when its exemption under federal drug laws expires. Certainly, the plaintiffs are well prepared. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, an association of heroin and cocaine users, and the Portland Hotel Society, a Downtown Eastside residents group that helps run Insite, are largely funded through B.C.'s health ministry by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority which in turn runs Insite. Experienced advocates and demonstrators all, the purposes of these convoluted funding arrangements aren't clear but it wouldn't be the first time the courts were used to advance an agenda with camouflaged taxpayer dollars footing the bill. [continues 568 words]
The First Step to Cleaning Up Canada's Worst Neighbourhood Is to Scrap Its Abhorrent Safe Injection Site Don't call Al Arsenault unless you are prepared to interrupt an awards ceremony. I recently tried but the retired constable was in Victoria receiving two meritorious service awards from British Columbia's lieutenant governor. The first was awarded to Sgt. Toby Hinton, Sgt. Tim Shields (RCMP) and Arsenault for a short documentary about car theft. The second recognized Arsenault's work as a decoy in capturing thugs beating up the elderly and helpless in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Barely a month earlier, their company, Odd Squad Productions, had won the Excellence in Cinema for a Feature Film award at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival, this time for their most recent production, Tears For April: Beyond the Blue Lens. [continues 1257 words]
Studies have suggested that as many as 1 in 4 cannabis users may be genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. Now, a new study reveals all users are at risk.[1] Given recent United Nations' statistics citing Canada as the industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this news should set alarm bells ringing. After all, a leading role in cannabis consumption sets the stage for a leading role in psychotic disorders. Instead, Canada's mainstream media responded in chorus from The Happy Hippy Hymn Book, failing to notice that it is 10 years out of date. [continues 667 words]
Studies have suggested that as many as 1 in 4 cannabis users may be genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. Now, a new study reveals all users are at risk.1 Given recent United Nations' statistics citing Canada as the industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this news should set alarm bells ringing. After all, a leading role in cannabis consumption sets the stage for a leading role in psychotic disorders. Instead, Canada's mainstream media responded in chorus from The Happy Hippy Hymn Book, failing to notice that it is 10 years out of date. [continues 560 words]
Cannabis Policy Ignores Effect of Potent Pot on Schizophrenia Scientific developments have established that as many as one in four cannabis users is genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. Given recent statistics from the United Nations citing Canada as the industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this information should set alarm bells ringing. Instead, Canada's mainstream media responded as if someone had passed out The Happy Hippie Hymn Book that no one noticed is 10 years out of date. [continues 658 words]
Scientific developments have established that as many as one in four cannabis users is genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. Given recent statistics from the United Nations citing Canada as the industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this information should set alarm bells ringing. Instead, Canada's mainstream media responded as if someone had passed out The Happy Hippy Hymn Book that no one noticed is 10 years out of date. "Legalizing pot makes sense," intoned a National Post editorial. Comparing cannabis with alcohol and tobacco, it asked where's the "health footprint of our love for the weed?" A Globe and Mail article titled "The True North Stoned and Free" giggled about Canada's "little pot habit." Then there were the columnists. Suffice to say, only one mentioned the word "psychosis" and that, only in passing. [continues 663 words]
Not a minute too soon, Mayor Bob Chiarelli is providing a much needed wake-up call about the problem of marijuana use in high schools. Forty to 60 per cent of Ottawa students may use the drug during the school day, he says. From parents to policy and opinion makers, research in this area is routinely ignored, but believing cannabis is harmless is no longer acceptable. A study by two British Columbia universities documents rising cannabis use among adolescents while another from Australia confirms an association between adolescent cannabis use and early adulthood psychosis. Considered together (both papers are available online), they, like Chiarelli, set alarm bells ringing. [continues 574 words]
Addiction, on the Other Hand Is Not, an Author Argues Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't attend the AIDS conference and so far he's declined a visit to North America's first safe-injection site. Located in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the scientific research pilot project known as Insite will close on Sept. 12 if its mandate isn't extended. More important than Harper's absence will be the lack, in either locale, of discussion about human agency or personal responsibility. These, finally, may be humanity's best hopes in the wars against an AIDS virus and substance-abuse problem whose capacity to mutate, replicate and find new markets knows no bounds. [continues 629 words]
Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew recently bemoaned Justice Minister Irwin Cotler's failure to speak up on behalf of Marc Emery, British Columbia's "Prince of Pot" and self-described benefactor-cum-martyr to the cause of marijuana legalization. Mr. Emery is facing charges in the U.S. for alleged money laundering and marijuana-related conspiracies. Worse, during a press conference, it appeared the minister was disavowing Bill C17, which will see tickets issued for simple possession of marijuana. "Anyone who thought this former law professor was going to usher in an era of reform in the criminal prohibition against pot should read the writing on the wall," Mr. Mulgrew lamented. [continues 629 words]
RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli retracted his statement that the Mayerthorpe tragedy was about marijuana, but the sad reality is that he may have been right the first time. Caution is necessary before interpreting behaviour described in the media, but reports about James Roszko, 46, suggest pathologies consistent with psychosis -- a condition that scientific studies increasingly connect to early use of marijuana. Speaking with the CBC in Calgary, family members said Mr. Roszko started using drugs early in life. His parents divorced when he was 12, and soon after he became involved in petty crime, assault and possibly pedophilia, too. This resulted in some prison time, numerous subsequent brushes with the law and, ultimately, the death of four RCMP officers. [continues 614 words]
