Veterinarian Katherine Kramer remembers an 18-year-old cat she recommended be put on hemp-based cannabidoil (CBD). "It had heart disease and pancreatitis so painful the traditional amount of pain medication knocked him out and he had no quality of life," says Kramer, a veterinarian at Vancouver Animal Wellness Clinic. "So, I contacted the [medicinal marijuana] Compassion Club." Kramer says with not much to lose, the owner agreed to work together and very soon the cat was eating and playing again. [continues 421 words]
Marijuana Poisoning Common Among Pets A West Point Grey pug with a taste for pot found itself at the Vancouver Animal Emergency Clinic two weeks ago recovering from a high that cost its owner a hefty sum. Chris Duplisea said shortly after she walked Mulligan July 3 at 8 p.m. on the grass and sidewalk adjacent to Steeves Manor next to Jericho Park, the pug began acting strangely. "He was acting silly and started running in circles," said Duplisea. "I didn't think much about it at first because sometimes pugs just act silly. But then he leapt up onto the couch and his eyes bugged out and he started staggering." [continues 429 words]
Representatives of residents and businesses in Strathcona are concerned about a proposal to relocate a methadone clinic and pharmacy to their neighbourhood, one block away from an elementary school and near the future library complex. "The children living in this neighbourhood already have a lot to observe and think about," said Joji Kumagai, executive director of the Strathcona Business Improvement Association. "There'd be more purpose to that space if it could include mixed use for the community." Dr. Gary Horvath with Doc-Side Medical at 125 Main St. has applied to the city to relocate the clinic to 678 East Hastings St. In his letter of application, Horvath said the services offered would include a walk-in clinic, primary care and addiction services, such as counselling and psychiatry, infectious disease care and a small pharmacy. Horvath noted in his letter he will recruit family physicians. Horvath wrote that the clinic doctors and staff will abide by the city's Good Neighbour Conditions, which include minimizing loitering, lineups and congregations of people outside the clinic by offering scheduled appointments. [continues 322 words]
Once a quiet home for seniors and the disabled, Steeves Manor near Jericho Park has become a bedbug infested den of drug use and violence, according to tenants. They blame a government decision to move addicts and dual-diagnosed mentally ill into the facility. Walking down a long hallway on the main floor of Steeves Manor, located on Wallace Street near Jericho Park, the stale stench of marijuana and cigarette smoke is overwhelming. Also noticeable is a trail of brown spots on the tiled floor that begins in the lobby and ends in a pool in the elevator. It appears someone spilled their coffee. "No, it's probably blood," surmises a resident playing tour guide that October day. [continues 1959 words]
Herb Museum included drug-related memorabilia, artifacts No one can accuse local pot activist David Malmo-Levine of being a quitter. Just months after being released from prison for possession of marijuana and magic mushrooms for the purpose of trafficking, Malmo-Levine is organizing a fundraising art auction to resurrect his Herb Museum, formerly housed at 123 East Hastings St. Malmo-Levine said the museum was targeted in a February 2008 raid by the VPD--their target was his Vancouver School of Drug War History and Organic Cultivation, a.k.a. Herb School, which housed the museum. [continues 444 words]
Cosmetic pesticide use was banned in Vancouver Jan. 1, 2007. But the sale of pesticides wasn't banned. So as long as you promise the sales-clerk at your local garden shop or big box store that you're intending to use that bottle or box of chemicals anywhere but in the soon-to-be greenest city in the world, you can make your purchase and leave. That sales-clerk has no way of knowing if you plan to use those pesticides in Vancouver or in a municipality where the toxic chemicals are also banned. It makes me wonder if there would be any repercussions should the purchaser of those chemicals be busted using them illegally and the package was traced back to a Vancouver store. [continues 528 words]
Residents Complain About Lack Of Consultation, Drug Activity, Urine People openly defecating on the street, rat infestations, dogs barking incessantly and so much urine workers have to hose the alleys down at night. Downtown resident Lini Evans describes what's become everyday life in her neighbourhood since no-barrier emergency homeless shelters opened on Granville and Howe streets this past winter. "The city decides to drop two homeless shelters in one block without consulting with the residents?" Evans said. "And six months later they say they still haven't had time to consult with us. We're beyond outraged." [continues 573 words]
Commercial Drive Residents Don't Want Methadone In Backyard Fears of methadone being dispensed from a proposed pharmacy on Commercial Drive drew more than two dozen residents of the Grandview Woodland community to a meeting at the Britannia Community Centre Tuesday night. The city is considering an application for a new small-scale pharmacy for the neighbourhood, but many residents fear it would largely be used to dispense methadone. The residents say that since other similar pharmacies opened in the neighbourhood, crime has increased and dirty hypodermic needles and discarded methadone dispensing cups are being dumped in their yards and on the street. [continues 393 words]
In a city obsessed with the problems of street drugs, white collar drug addicts slip under the radar--at great cost to themselves and their families Gary remembers the day he hit rock bottom. "The lowest point for me was the day I woke up in my car on the side of the highway at UBC and couldn't remember how I got there," he recalls. "The sun was coming up and I was supposed to be at work. I'd had a dream about my [deceased] dad while I was sleeping and he was slapping me in the face. I looked in the [rear-view] mirror and had one of those dramatic movie moments. That was when I called my mom, my brother and my sister-in-law and said, 'I need help.'" [continues 3625 words]
An East Side resident wants the sandbox in his nearby park made safer after his neighbour's baby poked herself with a used hypodermic needle hidden in the sand. Terry Nelson said his neighbour took her 18-month-old child to the tiny Salsbury Park next to the Grace McInnes Co-op on Salsbury Drive a month ago. After doing a visual check of the sandbox, she put her child down to play. Within seconds the child had uprooted a used hypodermic needle and stuck herself twice. Nelson said the mother doesn't want to be identified because though the child has since tested negative for HIV, she's till waiting for the results of a Hepatitis C test. [continues 341 words]
The maintenance supervisor in charge of Jericho Park says the squatters in the park are not homeless people. They are petty criminals and drug addicts. "This is not about the homeless," said Mike Mackintosh, supervisor of maintenance for Queen Elizabeth District. "These camps are all about petty crime and drug use and that is not acceptable under any circumstance." Mackintosh said the squatter camps he sees have an obvious criminal element. During a visit to Jericho Park earlier this week, the Courier saw bolt cutters and numerous bike parts strewn around one deserted camp. A second camp had a suitcase and was carpeted in children's toys. Used hypodermic needles were visible at both camps. [continues 475 words]
If your dog starts drooling, has wobbly legs and tries to eat your cheese doodles, check your pot stash, says a spokesperson for the only poison control hotline in North America dedicated to animals. Dana Farbman, a veterinary technician with the American SPCA's Animal Poison Control Centre, which takes calls from across Canada and the U.S., said pet overdoses of marijuana and other drugs are on the rise. "In the past 12 months we've had 130 cases of marijuana overdoses," said Farbman. "With the bulk coming from California." [continues 429 words]
Fear of dirty needles and unsanitary conditions left by squatters has prompted the Ray Cam Community Centre to pull its summer day camp for kids out of Crab Park. The squatters, who are protesting a lack of affordable housing and the province's two-year cap on welfare, moved into the park in the last week after leaving Victory Square at the request of military veterans and the parks board. Richard Page, a board member with Ray Cam, wouldn't name specific incidents, but said the board decided the park is no longer a place to take children. "We decided it had become a very harmful situation. Normally that park is a very safe place to hold the program." [continues 744 words]
It may come as a surprise to landlords, but Canada's medical marijuana program does not require tenants growing marijuana for personal, medicinal use to ask permission. Jirina Vlk, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, which oversees the Cannabis Medical Access program, says only those authorized to grow medicinal pot for others are required to ask their landlords. "If they are designated to be growing for someone else, or a third party grower, then they must get the landlord's permission in order to be authorized," she said. "Other than that, they don't." [continues 683 words]
An East Side landlord and tenant are locked in a bitter dispute over the tenant's legal marijuana grow operation, which the landlord says has made the building ineligible for fire insurance. Lance Van Den Nieuwendyk received a licence to grow medical marijuana from Health Canada in February 2001 because of advanced HIV. To qualify for the license, he had to obtain a signed note from the landlord stating he had permission to grow pot. Audrey Walker, caretaker for the large Grandview Drive townhouse complex and spokeswoman for landlord Fred Hoy, said Hoy only agreed to let Van Den Nieuwendyk grow marijuana because the latter said he was dying and only had one year to live. More than two years later, Van Den Nieuwendyk is still in the suite. [continues 654 words]
Colourful toys are piled high in the playroom, waiting to comfort children who have witnessed violence and abuse no adult should ever face. Workers push, lift, drag and pull furniture, light fixtures and bedding through bedrooms, sitting rooms and kitchens as they frantically prepare to get a brand-new safe house ready to welcome women and children the next day. Facility coordinator Trudy Shymka says the mild winter meant the St. Elizabeth Home, run by St. James Community Services, came together almost two months sooner than scheduled, so there was a last-minute scramble to purchase and install the furniture. [continues 552 words]
The last criminal act "Josh" did before he was forced into a drug and alcohol treatment program in Calgary five years ago was to break into a designer clothing store with his younger brother and steal several hundred thousand dollars worth of suits. "They were worth four, five, six thousand dollars each. It didn't take long," says Josh, now 21. "That was pretty wild." Addicted to drugs and alcohol, Josh and his brother had been regularly breaking into stores and homes, stealing whatever they could sell for cash or trade for drugs. Both teens were known to Calgary police-in fact, they were registered with the Serious Habitual Offenders Program so officers could keep constant track of their comings and goings. [continues 2647 words]
Kids are more likely to abide by parents' rules if they feel like mom and dad have really listened to them, says a leading North American expert in adolescent drug addiction prevention and treatment. "You have to avoid a power struggle and not freak out when they tell you they've smoked a cigarette, or tried marijuana," said clinical psychologist Dr. Robert Schwebel, who'll speak to parents at Eric Hamber Secondary Nov. 21. Once that dialogue is open, he said, parents can speak to their kids about how often they're using tobacco, drugs or alcohol and how it makes them feel. [continues 343 words]
A new club catering to medical marijuana users is looking for digs in the West End. Kenn Quayle and Brian Mackenzie, co-founders of We Can, a club dedicated to supplying marijuana to people with "legitimate" medical conditions, need to find a space before they officially open. Whether or not pot is actually smoked on site, as it is at other such clubs in North America, will be up to the landlord. "They might be allowed to smoke on site, or maybe just make a purchase," said Quayle, a member of the East Side Compassion Club on Commercial Drive, currently the only such club operating in the city. "We're looking for a friendly landlord and we're very up front about what we're doing." [continues 442 words]
Drug users in the Downtown Eastside are being warned through flyers at shelters and community outreach centres that a large shipment of cocaine cut with fibreglass is on its way to Vancouver streets. Judy McGuire, manager of health outreach services at the Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society, which issued the alert, said the group was tipped off by clients from the street. "Everything that comes in we take seriously and put it out there. It helps people better take care of themselves." [continues 316 words]
