Federal Minister of Health Tony Clement promised a bevy of new health-related federal initiatives in an address to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) annual General Council in Vancouver Aug. 20, including a crackdown on illicit drug use, a renewed tobacco-control strategy aimed at reducing national smoking rates to 12% from 19% by 2011 and more stringent regulations to prevent the import of counterfeit or contaminated food, drugs and consumer products. Clement was most emphatic about the need for a tough new national strategy to prevent illicit drug use, indicating that the government is determined to redress the long-standing absence of a "significant anti-drug campaign," a condition that he asserted has led to Canada having the highest percentage of marijuana users (16.8%) in the industrial world. [continues 205 words]
Rejecting the findings of a Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) review that indicated needle-exchange programs for injection drug users in prisons reduce the need for health care interventions, the Conservative government says sterile syringes aren't needed to control the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C in cellblocks. Although a Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP) has long been advocated as a means of reducing the spiraling incidence and cost of treating infectious diseases within the prison population, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has decided a needle-exchange program is fiscally unjustified. [continues 390 words]
A Toronto man is flying high after a judge ruled that it was unconstitutional for police to deprive him of the right to cultivate, possess, and smoke marijuana to alleviate the symptoms of epilepsy. "I'm sort of overawed by the decision. It hasn't sunk in yet", said an elated Terry Parker on Dec 10. Ontario provincialcourt judge Patrick Sheppard ruled that sections of the Controlled Drug and Substance Act were unconstitutional because they deprive Parker of his "right to life, liberty and security of the person" under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "Health is fundamental to the life and security of each person", wrote Sheppard. "It does not accord with fundamental justice to criminalize a person suffering a serious chronic medical disability for possessing a vitally helpful substance not legally available to him." [continues 144 words]
