Cannabis Clubs of Canada to be community focused hub for marijuana users Since the Liberal's announcement of marijuana legislation, the media has been in an absolute frenzy, attempting to answer the question of what regulation in Canada will look like. In this pot-centric media storm no one has really approached the question of how recreational use will happen in a community setting. Enter the Cannabis Clubs of Canada. Much like Spain's underground cannabis club scene, these collective hubs will allow people to consume marijuana on club property without worry. [continues 497 words]
Peace, hope, love, goodwill, light in the darkness-they're what every winter solstice holiday has ever been about, but also sadly sometimes as elusive as a hungry child's faith in Santa. Elusive because the world can be harsh, and because we too often don't register the dissonance inherent in riding to elaborate diamond-studded holiday celebrations in plush chariots to celebrate giving and goodwill while taking from those with less so we can have more. It's an age-old thing, the dark quicksand that power becomes, and it has mostly determined who eats well and who doesn't, and which freedoms and rights and medicines we have access to and which we don't. But hope and light and goodwill are age-old, buoyant and resistant too, and so we kiss under the mistletoe that is now a plastic relic of what was once a valued medicine. North American mistletoe and mistletoe berries are poisonous, but the leaves of other varieties have historically been used to ease anxiety and headache, and to promote sleep and stimulate the immune system-uses which science supports; in Europe mistletoe extract injections are used as a cancer treatment. [continues 507 words]
The week of November 16 is National Addictions Awareness Week, and we're in sore need of awareness to not only the heartbreak of debilitating addiction and the homeless, but also to the infinitely more common and closeted addictions of those checking our groceries, cutting our hair and writing our prescriptions. Functional addicts to legal, illegal, hard and soft drugs fill our suburbs and office towers, and they're finding willpower alone-and often willpower together with all the available psychological supports-to be insufficient to help them walk away. [continues 608 words]
On my mind this week, in the wake of Stephen Harper's re-election, are the realities facing some of those most marginalized among us--the drug addicted, to be specific. We now have a model of an effective approach to reducing harm among addicts--Vancouver's safe injection program, InSite. But the Harper government has repeatedly tried to shut it down, and Minister of Health Tony Clement has called it an abomination. They believe harm reduction strategies to be a misallocation of tax dollars. [continues 613 words]
Tony Clement is a vile monster who campaigns on the backs of sick and dying people in order to pander to the Tories' mean-spirited, myopic, punishment-happy voter base ("Blinded by the right," Aug 21 - Aug 27, 2008). Never mind that junk food kills many times more Canadians than all illegal drugs combined, and that alcohol and tobacco kill in similar numbers. Ignore the fact that it is the prohibitionist mindset of punishment-happy sickos like Harper and Clement that caused this mess in the first place. Forget that there are only enough treatment beds for a tiny fraction of the people afflicted. [continues 114 words]
Tony Clement's recent comments questioning the ethics of doctors who support drug-harm-reduction initiatives like Vancouver's Insite is yet another example of a disturbing aspect of the Conservative (though not necessarily conservative) ideology. I mean, besides the aspect that has them picking on some of Canadian society's weakest members for political gain. No, the specific aspect I'm referring to is the Tories' neoconservative tendency to ignore things like experts and statistical evidence that disagree with their misguidedly moralistic ideology. In Conservative minds, the fact that 79 per cent of Canadian physicians support harm-reduction measures is not an indication of their efficacy or importance, but that four-fifths of Canada's MDs are morally bankrupt. [continues 239 words]
Our government has been busy ramping up its health and safety efforts in recent months, proposing changes to food and drug safety laws (now thankfully on pause), and passing new impaired-driving laws. I'm all for successfully keeping those who still think it's OK to drive drunk off the road, but I'm not sure the new wider net that has been cast will be strong enough to stand up in court, big enough to fully address impaired driving or porous enough to avoid being a catch-all for things not relevant. [continues 655 words]
Mental Illness Medications Go To Pot Why do we sneeze at herbal and vitamin solutions to what ails us and tend not to fear synthetic medicines, even though the latter cause more injuries every year by far? The mentally ill die an average of 25 years earlier than the rest of us, but most of us quickly dismiss this disparity as something to do with their mental illness rather something to do with, say, the medications they are being treated with-even though these medications are in many cases are known to cause, among other things, obesity and diabetes. I'm not urging those suffering from mental illnesses to go off medication that is working well, but I am advocating looking beyond developing yet another new drug to addressing this problem. [continues 544 words]
Investigators have confirmed that Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey, the brothers-in-law charged this week with four counts each of first degree murder in the deaths of four RCMP constables on a farm near Mayerthorpe in March of 2005, did not fire the bullets that killed the Constable Anthony Gordon, Constable Leo Johnston, Constable Brock Myrol and Constable Peter Schiemann. Nor were they present--or, in all likelihood, even remotely nearby--when James Roszko shot the officers and himself dead at his farm on the morning of Mar 3. [continues 338 words]
News that medical marijuana user and activist Grant Krieger has been sent to prison on a trafficking charge is no real surprise, but it is profoundly disappointing. Krieger has a marijuana licence for his multiple sclerosis (MS), and in March of this year the judge had ruled his sentence be delayed until details around access to his medicine behind bars was ironed out. But as of last week, Alberta's solicitor has general turned down the judge's earlier request that Krieger have access to marijuana while serving his sentence, even though he has legal permission to use pot as medicine. [continues 664 words]
After doing independent research on marijuana 15-year-old Saskatchewan Grade 10 student Kieran King told his friends that, in his opinion, marijuana was less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco. Expressing this opinion, unfortunately, put him at odds with his principal-who, King alleges, threatened to call the police if he discussed marijuana again. When King protested, he was suspended from school for three days. Even more ridiculous than punishing a 15-year-old for voicing such an opinion-one backed up by an avalanche of scientific research and a Canadian Senate Committee-is some of the debate that has erupted in the wake of the incident. [continues 261 words]
You have to hand it to the City of Lethbridge and brave, morally upright civic politicians like Mayor Bob Tarleck. According to Tarleck, city hall was flooded with angry phone calls after a January performance at the city's arena by California-based gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg at which the D-O-double-G and a good portion of the crowd were--gasp!--smokin' the reefer. "The entertainers were smoking marijuana on stage and encouraging the audience to do the same," Tarleck reported with disgust as he proudly announced new rules that will force concert promoters in the small southern city to consult police before booking an act, researching the artists' past behaviour and consulting venues in other cities that have booked them in the past. Performers deemed troublesome will have to post a "behaviour bond" of several thousand dollars before hitting the stage, money they will only get back if their performance stays within the bounds of decency. [continues 247 words]
Sick Canadians who get their certified medicinal marijuana from Health Canada might want to consider finding a new dealer. According to documents obtained by the Canadian Press under the federal Access to Information Act, Health Canada pays its sole marijuana supplier, Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems, $328.75 a kg for cannabis grown by the company in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon, MB. The pot is then sold to authorized users for $150 (not including GST, of course) per 30-gram bag. This works out to about $5 000 a kg, which is a mark-up of over 1 500 per cent. [continues 115 words]
Decriminalization Remains A Pipe Dream In Current Political Climate It was the subject of international hype a few years ago: the great liberal northern bastion of Canada was planning to decriminalize marijuana, snubbing its nose at its neo-conservative southern neighbour's War on Drugs. But the Liberal government that introduced the proposed decriminalization law let it die, and its Conservative successor has promised not to revive it. Nonetheless, marijuana advocates can still see the criminal prohibition of pot being chiseled away through court cases, economic changes and the simple on-the-ground reality. [continues 1175 words]
If you notice a bit of a common thread running through this week's edition of Vue, try not to freak out, as it's entirely intentional. You are not high. Well, actually, chances are you might be, which is kind of the point. Based on information both official and anecdotal, it's clear that drugs are, well, everywhere these days. Whether you blame it on the we' ve-got-money-to-burn, work-hard-and-play-harder attitude pervasive in our currently booming economy or on increasing social acceptance of and openness about recreational drug use, the fact is that more and more people are smoking, snorting or popping all kinds of things for fun in this town, but thanks to the (admittedly dissipating, but still very pervasive) social stigma surrounding the consumption of illicit substances-not to mention the fact that most are still very much illegal in this country-there is a severe lack of frank, dispassionate information available about all of these assorted smokables and snortables and what have you. [continues 288 words]
The list of chemicals anti-doping officials look for when testing high-performance athletes is long and varied. Substances ranging from potent illegal steroids to many common cold medications are banned, and athletes found with even minute levels of these drugs in their systems face incredibly harsh penalties, including suspension, punishment and the revoking of medals and titles, not to mention the damage done to the reputation of an athlete who is branded as a drug cheat. This uncompromising punitive approach is justified by the noble goal of protecting the purity of sport and preventing the cheats from gaining an advantage over athletes that follow the rules and remain clean. Few athletes, officials or spectators would ever argue that competitors trying to gain an edge by using illegal and potentially dangerous steroids or other capability-increasing drugs ought not be exposed and severely punished. [continues 408 words]
It's Not Harmful To Share A Hit Of Drugs On Film, And Everyone Is Doing It Is film the most potent art for relaying drug experiences? Its hypnotic, fluid, unprecedented fusion of sound, image, movement and forced perspective certainly feels aligned to some essence of the stream of consciousness, even to dreaming. But where drugs are concerned, I have to wonder if movies don't get closer to the heart of the matter when they show restraint in how they use their multiform tools and effects. [continues 1318 words]
'Fucking rock 'n' roll and drugs go hand in hand, period," states Hugh Dillon-current leader of the Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir and former singer for the Headstones-matter-of-factly over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. "I hate sounding like an old man, because if somebody told me, 'well, you shouldn't ... '-fuck it, I loved it. At the time, rock 'n' roll worked with drugs." It's true that rock 'n' roll has a long and sordid past that is intertwined with the use of intoxicating substances-just look at Guns N' Roses or the Rolling Stones or even Elvis Presley-and there are plenty of great rock 'n' roll albums that were created under the influence of all manner of illicit substances. [continues 1012 words]
When I was in the clink, I had to trade favours. It doesn't matter now what I wanted-but let me tell you, minimum security is still prison. Some of those embezzlement bitches formed tough cliques around the gazebo in the exercise yard. Since people knew who I was, they came to me with questions. I could usually refer them to the issue of my award-winning magazine in which they could find the techniques I taught. In return, I learned about certain ingredients I didn't employ when I started my catering company in Connecticut. And let me tell you, these additions are a damn good thing. [continues 1126 words]
Dyer Straight Barry Cooper's new DVD, Never Get Busted Again, which went on sale over the internet late last year, will probably not sell very well outside the United States, because in most other countries the possession of marijuana for personal use is treated as a misdemeanour or simply ignored by the police. But it will sell very well in the US, where many thousands of casual marijuana users are hit with savage jail terms every year in a nationwide game of Russian roulette in which most people indulge their habit unharmed while a few unfortunates have their lives ruined. [continues 843 words]
