Public health is urging anyone who uses drugs to get a free naloxone kit. The call comes after Owen Sound police announced Friday that the highly potent opioid carfentanil was confirmed in a pair of investigations in the city. "All drugs are dangerous and we don't know oftentimes what is in other drugs. So you could be getting what you think is one drug when, in fact, there could be something else in it," public health nurse Lindsay Cook said Monday in an interview. [continues 351 words]
During my life time, I have always taken politics with a grain of salt; I never took it too seriously as Canada's voting system gave me the opportunity to exercise my rights every four years with my personal vote to effect change. Since Pierre Trudeau's time as prime minister of Canada, things have changed noticeably but not always for the better. For example, during the past decades, the Indigenous social issues have been kicked down the road like a tin can with no evidence of concrete changes for the people. Many [Indigenous people] continue to live on far northern inaccessible reserves with overall sub-standard living conditions, drinking water and sewage disposal challenges. [continues 377 words]
Grey-Bruce task force expands mandate from mostly meth to other drugs, substances The Grey Bruce Task Force on Crystal Meth and Other Drugs is expanding its mandate. As part of the expansion, the group, which involves a network of over 30 local partners, has changed its name to the Community Drug and Alcohol Strategy. "We recognize there continues to be crystal met husein the community, so we are not saying we have solved the problem and it is time to move on to something else," Alison Govier, coordinator of the Community Drug and Alcohol Strategy said Friday. "But we are also seeing a trend in polysubstance use -- dependence on more than one substance at a time -- so we feel as a community our efforts are better spent to expand the mandate to include all substances." [continues 610 words]
Ontario is in the middle of an opioid crisis, Grey Bruce Health Unit program director Lynda Bumstead and Hope Grey Bruce member Dave Roy told Brockton council. Bumstead said one person dies every 10 hours in Ontario from an opioid overdose. In 2016, there were eight deaths in Grey Bruce linked to opioid overdose. "There are many, many more individuals suffering from overdoses and addictions every day in Grey and Bruce," Bumstead told council last week. Overdoses due to opioids killed more people in 2014 than car accidents, and the number of deaths due to opioid overdose continues to rise. [continues 550 words]
Many Canadians can hardly wait for the day that the recreational use of marijuana becomes legal. As a doctor, I'm far less enthusiastic. I worry about two things: the experimental nature of marijuana in medical practice, and the public health consequences of legalized marijuana. Before you write me off as overly prudish or an anti-marijuana conservative, let me say that I'm not opposed to legalized marijuana in principle. I'm just paying attention to the evidence, or rather, the lack of it. My concern is that as marijuana becomes more easily available, Canadians may become more inclined to self-medicate with this drug. [continues 427 words]
This is looking after our own people here as well as the public." Doug Barfoot, fire chief Owen Sound firefighters will soon have a new tool at their disposal that could potentially save lives. Fire Chief Doug Barfoot said within the next month or so, Owen Sound Fire & Emergency Services will begin carrying naloxone - the highly effective drug that can temporarily reverse an overdose by fentanyl or other opioids - on their main truck. "We're trying to be proactive here," he said in an interview. [continues 658 words]
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making a huge mistake legalizing marijuana for everyday use. He promised his electors in the past election. What was he thinking? Votes? Taxes? Why does he want to create a bigger problem than it already is? The legal age for purchase is going to be 19. Does he not realize children (15+) will be smoking marijuana? It's been impossible to prevent them from smoking cigarettes, even with all the packaging and cigarettes hidden away in stores. They'll be walking around at school 'high'. And what about those developing brains? Medical marijuana is easily accessible for those that need it. Why do we have to create a society of "legal stoners"? Judy Riseborough Owen Sound [end]
What is our city going to look like when Trudeau legalizes marijuana? Has he and his caucus smoked today's marijuana? It is so potent and gives one a four hour high with little capability of functioning. I can't imagine even getting into a vehicle to drive. And what measures are in place to prevent marijuana use and driving? I realize it was part of Justin Trudeau's platform promises in the last election; however he is a little immature when it comes to being life smart. [continues 58 words]
When it comes to my son's possible future use of marijuana, I'm not sure if "It's legal, mom!" will have a material impact on my response. I have imagined this conversation, and others like it, about life's many potentially addicting substances and behaviours -- alcohol, prescription and other drugs, gambling, speeding, texting and driving, pornography, sugar, etc. -- because I know the kind of world we live in today and that the values of the majority are less and less aligned with the old-fashioned values espoused at my craggy old kitchen table. Even when those values feel like a fruitless cause that might better have been taken up in a cloistered community, I try not to give in to pessimism. There's what happens out there, in the world, and there's what happens in here, within the walls of my home, and I am happy to do my part to contribute to a climate of uncomfortable difference between the two. [continues 750 words]
When I was in high school we had a smoking area. My kids found that hard to believe, given that smoking on school property usually meant a trip to the principal's office today. But it's true. We had a smoking area. And students smoked tobacco and a few other things in the smoking area. Teachers in nearby classrooms complained of second hand smoke. Students snickered when we got a whiff of something, not tobacco, coming from the smoking area. The school office sometimes reeked of marijuana when students were caught and marched down to the principal's office. [continues 418 words]
We're in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis, with fentanyl-related overdoses causing the death of thousands of Canadians. I believe this crisis is due, to a great extent, to the wilful blindness of all levels of government to the inadequate resourcing of mental-health care. Whether due to stigma, poor insight, hopelessness or lack of access to care, many people who are mentally ill suffer in silence, sometimes for years. For some, this leads to a reliance on "self-medication" to cope with their symptoms. This term refers to the use of inappropriate or unhealthy measures to relieve the distress and pain of a mental illness. Self-medication can take many forms: alcohol and cannabis are most common, but other illicit substances, food or other forms of escape are also common. [continues 690 words]
FREDERICTON - The legal age limit for recreational marijuana use in New Brunswick should be set at 19, a provincial working group recommended Wednesday in a report that also calls for sales to be handled by something similar to a Crown corporation. Health Minister Victor Boudreau said the province's Liberal government will consider the recommendation, but he said the actual age limit could be pushed higher. The New Brunswick Medical Society has already recommended the legal age should be at least 21. [continues 409 words]
Every day in the youth program at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre my colleagues and I see young people whose mental illnesses are complicated by the use and abuse of cannabis. We provide these young people and their families with information on the impact of marijuana on the developing brain, including articles and research papers. We often are able to convince young people to decrease their marijuana consumption and, in many cases, to stop using it altogether. Unfortunately, legislators may not be as aware of the risks of cannabis on the developing brain as mental health professionals are. [continues 468 words]
Ronald Reagan once quipped that the government's view of the economy could be summed up as follows: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. For better or for worse, the Canadian government seems to have decided that marijuana has been on the move long enough to start taxing and regulating it. For the uninitiated, legalizing marijuana would mean that the drug would be available for purchase but regulated by the government -- similar to alcohol or tobacco. The difference is that marijuana is far cheaper to produce at scale than either of those two. [continues 431 words]
Ontario Crime Stoppers organizations offering $1,000 for information In an effort to get the deadly opioid fentanyl off the streets, certain Crime Stoppers organizations in Ontario are offering a $1,000 bounty for information that leads to seizure of illicit forms of the drug. Const. Dana Edwards says Durham Regional Crime Stoppers began the program on Wednesday and is offering the reward to anyone whose tips directly result in the seizure of illegal fentanyl, or its derivatives, that is being trafficked. [continues 480 words]
The tide is turning on harm reduction. The reins of a new national drug strategy are squarely in the hands of Health Canada. There are positive signs legislators are abandoning ideology for evidence-based policy, and stonewalling for action. Last year, the opioid crisis claimed 916 lives in B.C. alone. The momentum for supervised injection sites builds on other initiatives, including methadone treatment and a growing network of needle-exchange programs, officially around since 1989. Harm reduction measures help decrease health risks for drug users at all stages of addiction and recovery. Measurable outcomes include reduced transmission of HIV and hepatitis C through needle sharing, fewer overdose deaths and greater access to addiction recovery supports. [continues 454 words]
VANCOUVER - Their position on marijuana is hardly the only difference between Canada's prime minister and the president-elect of the United States. But when Justin Trudeau's government introduces legislation to legalize cannabis this spring, it could spark problems between Canada and the U.S., particularly since Donald Trump has indicated he will keep pot illegal at the federal level. Here's a look at what could change in Canada-U.S. relations once Canadians start lighting up legally. [continues 838 words]
The task force that studied questions raised about regulated legal access to marijuana has a chapter on how medical marijuana use should be treated. It recommends maintaining the current, separate licensing system for possessing marijuana for medical purposes and for growing it, with some changes. It says the federal government should watch closely to ensure CBD-rich strains (as opposed to the high-inducing THC strains) of marijuana are available and reasonably affordable for patients, with regulations to give government teeth to ensure it is. [continues 214 words]
Big difference between healers and dealers, people at weekend event near Meaford hear This was not your ordinary cooking class. Barb Mahy was making her basic "canna chocolates," a simple mix of semi-sweet chocolate, coconut butter and a cannabis tincture mix with glycerine and water which she melted and poured into moulds. About a dozen people sat at tables and chairs to watch the demonstration Saturday upstairs in The Barn, a wellness co-operative in a refurbished barn along Highway 26 between Meaford and Thornbury. Along with 20 vendors and five practitioners, the co-op has an education mandate fulfilled with events like this. [continues 949 words]
Despite a decline in area crystal meth operations the substance continues to arrive from large urban centres in other forms that are part of a larger drug problem. "It's coming in a pill form and it's also coming in and being mixed with other chemicals . . . for example in marijuana," said Barb Fedy, co-chair of the Grey Bruce Task Force on Crystal Meth and Other Drugs during a recent presentation to Bruce County council. "We recognize that we have more than just (crystal) meth to deal with; it's a bigger more complex issue. We're looking at a broader scope, multiple forms of drugs and recognizing that different communities have different forms of problems. But the strategies that we are building we want to use in all communities in Grey and Bruce counties." [continues 417 words]
