WINKLER'S mayor vows that until the smoke clears on pot legalization, his community won't vote to allow retailers to sell recreational pot. Mayor Martin Harder says his council recently decided to ignore the province's Dec. 22 deadline to vote on the issue. "Our biggest issue is the rules keep changing," Harder said on Monday. "They said you have to vote by Dec. 22 and then the next one says you can have four years to have a plebiscite. We don't want to do that. [continues 443 words]
Real estate agents are worried about damage to home interiors with the proliferation of legal medical marijuana grow-ops in residences, even before marijuana is legalized in Canada. Peter Squire, vice-president of the Winnipeg Realtors Association, said members of the Canadian Real Estate Association were in Ottawa last week to meet with federal MPs. One of the chief topics discussed was Bill C-45, the law to make cannabis legal across Canada in July. "(The association) does have several concerns about the implications and consequences of personal cultivation for homes and homeowners," he said, noting damage from mould is a major issue. [continues 472 words]
WINNIPEG police officers will soon join fire and paramedic emergency workers in carrying the antidote to fentanyl overdoses. Deputy police chief Danny Smyth confirmed to the Winnipeg Police Board Friday they are working with health officials on how officers can carry doses of Naloxone and administer it. Smyth said one concern is the lifesaving drug can't be used in temperatures lower than 4 C. According to various pharmaceutical websites, the drug works at temperatures up to 25 C. "We will have to figure out how officers will carry the drug," he said. [continues 277 words]
Locally owned pot shop set to open here July 1 MEDICAL marijuana users will soon have a local joint to buy their weed. Your Medical Cannabis Headquarters, a marijuana dispensary, is set to open officially at 1404 Main St., on July 1. It's the former home of Vapes on Main, a medical marijuana cafe. Owner Glenn Price, a medical marijuana user himself, said he has been open with both the city and the province about the nature of the business he is opening. [continues 262 words]
A Winnipeg police crackdown on local head shops has claimed its first store. Roman Panchyshyn, owner of the decades-old Wild Planet on Osborne Street, said he has put the building up for sale. "I don't have the fight in me," Panchyshyn said Thursday. "I don't want to waste five years of my life fighting this. I don't want to be arrested. I've been in business for 34 years and I know Wild Planet makes people happy. I probably have dozens of cancer patients coming here. [continues 453 words]
A local head shop owner says he believes Winnipeg police have launched a new way of making businesses like his go up in smoke - financially starve them out of business. Jeremy Loewen, owner of the shuttered Hemp Haven at 496 Larsen Ave. in Elmwood, said Tuesday that's what's happening to him and fellow head shop owners after he was arrested by police last week and had numerous items seized after selling a water pipe to "a 40-year-old couple." [continues 458 words]
Company President Blames Uncertainty Over Expansion Plans Flin Flon is gone from pot. Citing failed negotiations with Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, Prairie Plant Systems, the growers of medicinal marijuana in an underground mine for Health Canada have pulled up stakes and moved the operation elsewhere. Brent Zettl, president of the Saskatoon-based biotechnology company, said it was trying to negotiate increasing the capacity of the Flin Flon facility and long-term access to the mine. The mine is scheduled to be closed in 2012 or possibly earlier. [continues 416 words]
CRIMINALS may be off the street and in Stony Mountain Institution, but that doesn't mean they no longer want illegal drugs. In the last two weeks, the prison's correctional officers, drug detector dog team, and security intelligence office have been credited with making two drug seizures from visitors coming to the facility before they meet with inmates. "We've become very good at what we do in finding drugs," said Aimee Fortier, a Stony Mountain spokeswoman. "The Correctional Service of Canada has a zero tolerance for the use and trafficking of drugs in the institutions." [continues 259 words]
A Winnipeg senior convicted of selling crack cocaine out of his North End apartment suite will spend the next two years confined to his residence. Provincial court Judge Sid Lerner told Mervyn Yule, 68, that only his age and ill health spared him from spending his sentence in jail. The man has suffered heart attacks, back surgeries, and has Type 2 diabetes. But Lerner sternly warned Yule -- who throughout the sentencing was hunched over holding his back -- that if he breached one of his conditions he could serve the rest of his time in jail. [continues 148 words]
A less than 10-minute guest appearance in a massive drug bust of the Hells Angels by Winnipeg police and the RCMP has cost a man several months of his life. Sam Thorsteinson, 42, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to trafficking 275 grams of cocaine. He was arrested with 12 others last year as part of the joint police operation dubbed Project Defense. In accepting a plea bargain, Madam Justice Brenda Keyser of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench agreed that Thorsteinson only has to serve six more months in jail because he had already spent the equivalent of two and a half years in custody. [continues 174 words]
Tab Can Hit Up To $300,000 For Wannabes YOU too can be a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club -- as long as you have upwards of $300,000. Almost akin to a bizarre franchise fee, that's how much an expert in the Hells Angels told jurors at a trial of a club member it is estimated to cost an individual to go through the roughly five-year period from the time they say they want to join the club as a "friend" to the point they become a "full patch member." [continues 443 words]
Pastor Took On West End's Ills, Dedicated His Life To Curing Them REV. HARRY LEHOTSKY grew up worshipping in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, but it was in Winnipeg's West End that he found his heavenly calling. Surrounded by family, Lehotsky died early Saturday of the terminal pancreatic cancer he had been battling since he was diagnosed in May. He was 49. Lehotsky, a pastor and a founding member of New Life Ministries at 514 Maryland St., champion of Winnipeg's poor and advocate for inner-city renewal, was remembered Saturday by friends, politicians, community leaders and people he had helped. [continues 656 words]
A former federal Canadian Alliance candidate and local school trustee didn't know her son had hidden more than $50,000 worth of crack cocaine in her laundry room. For the crime, Matthew Granger, the 21-year-old son of Betty Granger, was sentenced yesterday to a total of five-and-a-half years in prison for drug offences. Mr. Justice Nate Nurgitz, of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench, said Granger only has to serve three years of his sentence because he has already been locked up for the equivalent of 30 months awaiting sentencing. [continues 196 words]
Pharmacists' Group OK's Anti-Meth Move STEPS to restrict access to remedies that spell cold and flu relief for adults and children will now give headaches to illegal crystal meth drug manufacturers. Manitoba's pharmacists voted unanimously at a special meeting on Wednesday night to agree to the provincial government's strategy of restricting the sale of 17 single-source pseudoephedrine products by putting them behind the counter at pharmacies. The pharmacists also voted to restrict the amount sold at any one time to 3,600 milligrams, or an average of about 60 tablets. [continues 516 words]
MANITOBA is the only province in the country that didn't see a jump in the number of people reporting using marijuana, a Statistics Canada survey has found. And on the same day the survey reported the number of Canadians aged 15 and older who admitted using cannabis has nearly doubled in the last 13 years, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced the federal government is still committed to marijuana decriminalization and will reintroduce the proposed law to Parliament. "The legislation on marijuana -- the decriminalization of minor quantities of marijuana -- that legislation will be introduced," Martin told reporters. [continues 434 words]
Pot May Not Benefit Everyone, MD Tells Conference ALTHOUGH marijuana may do nothing for many cancer patients, significant numbers of Winnipeggers who are battling the disease are still willing to smoke up. Winnipeg oncologist Dr. Paul Daeninck, the incoming president of the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians, said about 10 per cent of his patients have asked about it, and another 10 per cent have tried it and found some benefit. Daeninck said tests have shown that cannabinoids -- compounds of marijuana, or cannabis -- can help in the treatment of some symptoms, but it's not clear that cannabis in its smokable form is as effective. [continues 477 words]
New Grow Options 'Tip Of Iceberg' With the future of the federal medicinal marijuana program potentially in doubt, the company chosen to grow the crop underground in a Flin Flon mine shaft is exploring what other crops it could produce there. Phil Robinson, president of the Flin Flon and Area Chamber of Commerce, says Prairie Plant Systems is looking into growing genetically-modified crops and pharmaceuticals. "It makes sense," Robinson said yesterday. "We see this as the tip of the iceberg to see the mine be developed even further. We see it as a much larger operation." [continues 505 words]
The federal government has given more than $350,000 to Winnipeg's Centre for Substance Use in Sport and Health to help spread its anti-doping message to athletes and other Canadians. Denis Coderre, federal secretary of state for amateur sport, said Friday it's the government's duty to do all it can to protect the integrity of sport and athletes' health. "Drug-free sport remains a priority of the government of Canada, both domestically and internationally," said Coderre, who is also an executive member of the World Anti-Doping Association, during the announcement at St. Boniface General Hospital. [continues 160 words]
