Quebec's proposed legislation regarding the regulation of marijuana-set to be legalized federally on July 1, 2018-will likely be the harshest in the country, amassing much criticism since it was tabled on Nov. 16. On one side, the Quebec Liberal Party has come under attack from news sites, such as Vice, and marijuana activists for being too strict; on the other, opposing parties, like the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), have called Bill 157 too permissive. Yet, as they stand, Quebec's proposed weed laws strike an advantageous balance between mitigating the potentially dangerous aftershocks of marijuana legalization-like a spike in youth consumption and DUIs-and being liberal enough to accommodate for responsible consumers and decrease the incentive for the retention of a significant black market. Bill 157 is strict, but not without reason. [continues 603 words]
One of Justin Trudeau's flashiest policies has been his promise to legalize marijuana. Taking advantage of 4/20 this past April, his government announced that it will be instated in the spring of 2017-only one year later. We're halfway through that time, and his policy remains vague and shallow. Trudeau is waiting on results from the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation, but the lack of information this close to its proposed implementation is unsettling. One of the most glaring gaps is that the Liberal government's website doesn't explain how it plans to keep the drug out of the hands of youth-it offers no details, and only asks for a signature in support. When discussing how legalization should be accomplished, Trudeau must clarify how he intends to protect youth from excessive marijuana use and be committed to educating them on the adverse health effects and safety risks. [continues 668 words]
Focuses on addiction and economic impacts On Jan. 27, students discussed cannabis legalization at an open forum held at the Yellow Door, led by the McGill chapter of the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP). Their goal as an organization, according to their website, is to discuss the negative impacts of drug policies on individuals and communities. The forum began with a video showing an interview with two professors from McGill University, Dr. Mark Ware, a director of clinical research at McGill University Health Centre and Dr. Ken Lester, a professor of Finance in the Desautels Faculty of Management. Ware started the video by disproving the widely held assumption that the effects of cannabis are worse than tobacco. [continues 543 words]
After nearly 25 years of suffering from debilitating cluster headaches - commonly referred to as "suicide headaches" because of their length and intensity - Bob Wold was faced with a difficult - and unusual - decision: get brain surgery or take a tab of LSD. Six years ago, his clusters became nearly unbearable. Wold was scheduled for several surgeries when he learned that acid, though controversial, was a known cure for clusters. After a year of research, he decided to give LSD a try, and took a small dose - roughly a quarter of what is used for recreational purposes. [continues 2127 words]
When it comes to the law, things tend to be black and white: guilty or innocent, prosecution or defence, criminal or victim. But we all know that in reality some people are a little bit guilty, while others are guilty as hell. Whether you believe Marc Emery is "a little bit guilty" or "guilty as hell" is as good a test of your socio-political views as anything. Emery, popularly know by his self-coined moniker "the Prince of Pot," is set to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges next week in a Seattle courtroom. It's expected that he will be sentenced to between five and 20 years in prison. [continues 551 words]
When I was 12 years old, my dad took me for a walk through the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. I think he was trying to scare me away from ever taking hard drugs - as if the Tamagotchi-toting preteen me needed any such urging - by showing me the worst examples of addiction. It worked - I was horrified. The Downtown Eastside is brutal. Take a five-minute walk east from the steam clock (a popular tourist trap in the chic Gastown district) and the patio dining and designer boutiques of the city The Economist called "the most livable in the world" give way to an open drug market where alleys double as public restrooms and thousands of the city's homeless wander the streets. [continues 2093 words]
Any non-team sport needs a dominant figurehead or two to help drive it forward. At the end of last summer, it seemed as though swimming had found its ambassador in Michael Phelps. A record eight gold medals won by a good looking, hard working, young American? He's too good to be true! Not so fast. One series of interviews and a Saturday Night Live hosting gig later, Phelps proved himself to be a jejune, inarticulate simpleton, whose shallowness lies in stark contrast to the pools he swims in every day. I rooted for his every stroke, I smiled each time he won, but I never once wanted to be him. [continues 527 words]
The Difference Between Chemical And Mental Addiction Is Small This week, from November 16 to 23, is Alcoholism Awareness Week. But while alcoholism is a well known addiction, many others warrant the same attention. There is a support group for nearly every addiction possible, but the level of seriousness of addiction varies. A student with a morning coffee habit is not equivalent to a cocaine addict looking for a fix-in any discussion of addiction, it's important to distinguish between addiction and addictive-type behaviour. [continues 756 words]
The War on Drugs has received four more troops in recent weeks, in the unlikely guise of The Rolling Stones. At the premiere of Martin Scorsese's new Stones flick Shine A Light, heroin-haggard Keith Richards and Mick Jagger spoke of their concern over Amy Winehouse's substance abuse and warned young musicians to not use drugs. Catching a whiff of their hypocrisy, they used ignorance to cover their trail: "When we were experimenting with drugs, little was known about the effects," Jagger said. [continues 545 words]
Political opposition to drug harm reduction centres is nothing new. Insite-a supervised injection site located in the downtown eastside of Vancouver has encountered nothing but disdain from Stephen Harper's federal government, while the UN's International Narcotics Control Board routinely condemns various harm reduction centres abroad for violating international treaties concerning narcotic drugs. The U.S. government has also been an outspoken global critic of harm reduction projects that provide legal exemptions for drug use ever since Richard Nixon coined the term "war on drugs." Therefore, it should come as no surprise that early efforts by the San Francisco Department of Public Health to open America's first legal safe-injection site have been met by political stonewalling and moral indignation. [continues 812 words]
With Full Status, Group Promotes Drug Safety Conceived at the beginning of the year, the Students' Society's Harm Reduction Centre aimed to ensure the safe use of drugs and alcohol among students. Named an official SSMU service in November 2006, the centre is now aiming to promote more awareness of its budding services by spreading word-of-mouth and maintaining regular office hours. Although originally conceived as a club, SSMU Vice-President Clubs and Services Floh Herra-Vega decided that the HRC should be developed into a service. [continues 507 words]
The academic year is back in full swing, and Students' Society executives are for the first time facing oversight of their actions from SSMU Council. Two notable summer projects have come up so far, the Harm Reduction Centre (HRC) and the Flying Squad. Both are still in the larvae stage, and there are many details that remain to be worked out concerning their structures before they can be given full approval. The Harm Reduction Centre deserves a chance to work out its kinks. The Flying Squad does not. [continues 633 words]
New Campus Service For Safer Drug Use The Students' Society has developed a new service to provide resources for drug and alcohol education as well as activism on drug policy. SSMU's Harm Reduction Centre aims primarily at ensuring the safe use of drugs and alcohol among McGill students, said Floh Hera-Vega, vice president clubs and services. This will include hard drugs, such as heroine and crack cocaine, as well as marijuana and alcohol.? HRC is based on the premise that "if people are going to do something, one should give them the tools to do so safely," Herra-Vega said. [continues 670 words]
Student Drug Activism Makes For Higher Education McGill students can now brag to their friends at UBC about a new top-ten ranking, but its not one that university administrators will be talking about. In the October issue of cannabis magazine High Times, McGill has been ranked as the number eight counterculture school in North America. This year marks the first time any Canadian school has made the list. The rankings are based on the level of student activism concerning marijuana law reform. The number one position is awarded to the school with the strongest student activism. McGill was awarded the number eight position for having the most active student drug-policy-reform group in Canada. The first official Canadian chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy was brought about by the National Reefer Association of McGill. McGill SSDP is now working toward forming a nationwide Canada SSDP organization. [continues 289 words]
Advocating a continued ban on marijuana, as Genevieve Jenkins did in the pages of this paper last week, is completely off base for a number of reasons. She says that it can't be argued that pot should be legalized because alcohol and tobacco are equally bad yet already legal, but she's wrong. The reason those things are legal, despite their ill effects, is that society accepts them as such. Marijuana has now reached essentially the same stage. Like it or not, a lot of people are smoking pot these days, and our anti-marijuana laws are no longer in line with the will of the people. [continues 437 words]
There are the traditional anti-legalization claims: pot is a gateway drug; pot makes you less intelligent; legalizing the drug would lead to increased crime rates; more people would have easy access to it; like tobacco, cannabis causes lung cancer and has other negative effects on health. All of these are easily remedied with the age-old argument that alcohol and cigarettes do the same things and have been legal for a long time. You can argue that marijuana isn't any worse than alcohol or cigarettes until you're blue in the face. The fact of the matter is, all three of the things are horrible for you and should probably all be made illegal; the argument certainly doesn't provide a reason to legalize pot. [continues 438 words]
Whether to drug or not to drug is your decision, but if you decide to experiment, please make sure you're informed. Research and compare sources-don't rely on others' experiences. If you do, you may end up dead, annoying, or like my friend's old neighbours, who evidently misunderstood some slang and spent an afternoon puking after trying to smoke their front lawn. Here are three Web sites dedicated to all things drug-related that give you the facts-without the bullshit. [continues 353 words]
Drugs live in an unstable universe all their own. No, not prescription drugs, which we may take to cure disease, alleviate pain or help us function in some other way; this universe is limited to those psychoactives classified illegal by those in power-depending on where you live-and most often considered "taboo" by the bulk of society. Each individual drug, of course, is precariously viewed in its own way. Smoking pot, for example, often brings friends together for nights of laughter and Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream, while admitting to heroin use might result in a kicking-and-screaming drag to rehab. It doesn't take masochistically repeated viewings of Requiem for a Dream to understand the difference. [continues 920 words]
By the time this hits newsstands, the majority of Parti Quebecois party members will have voted for their choice to succeed Bernard Landry as leader of the PQ, and it has been widely forecast that Andre Boisclair, a 39-year-old former PQ cabinet minister in Lucien Bouchard's government, will win a plurality of his party's support. Boisclair is young, vibrant and personable, and he could be a valuable resource for the PQ, a party that has long attempted to break through to younger voters and ethnic communities. [continues 350 words]
Study looks into safety of medicinal marijuana The McGill University Health Centre is participating in a pioneering scientific study on the effects of medical marijuana use. Since 2001, the Canadian Medical Marijuana Access Regulations have granted patients with severe pain and certain other symptoms access to cannabis for medical purposes. Today, 10 to 15 per cent of Canadians suffering from chronic pain legally use cannabis as an analgesic. However, the medical community knows little about the possible long-term effects that regular cannabis use might have on patients with pain. For instance, these patients often take other medications such as pain relievers and antidepressants, but the interaction between those drugs and marijuana has not yet been scientifically investigated. [continues 512 words]
