Rally in response to the opioid crisis hears tales of loss and 'burnt out' workers

Kim Pare said his family did everything they could to help their bright and beautiful daughter, but in the end she couldn't fight the illness of addiction.

It's been almost four years since Kaitlyn died, at 24, from a prescription opioid overdose and from her father's perspective nothing has really changed.

"We are losing a generation of people who could be valuable members of our society. We have to help them,' Pare said, speaking to about 30 people at a rally at King and York Sts. Tuesday's event was part of a National Day of Action in response to the opioid and contaminated drug crisis.

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You save by buying bulk - and this law of shopping logic holds for illegal as well as legal products. Which means someone in Cambridge is either a very sharp negotiator, or a pot-smoking liar…

As part of the institutional preparation for the legalization of marijuana, Statistics Canada is currently collecting reams of data on the pot economy.

This is necessary to ensure the reliability of national accounts when legal weed becomes a reality, as sales will otherwise show up as a huge, immediate spike in consumer purchases.

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The AIDS Network is putting itself forward to run Hamilton's first supervised injectionsite at its downtown Effort Square location.

The AIDS service organization is preparing proposals to the provincial and federal governments for a permanent site where people can inject illegal drugs under the watchful eye of trained staff without fear of arrest.

Meanwhile, it is also proposing a smaller temporary overdose prevention site as a stopgap that would allow supervised injection until the permanent location was approved and operating.

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Political manoeuvres in upper house likely to push legalization date into September - well past the Liberals' original July 1 target

If you were hankering for a summer of legalized marijuana in Canada, you can forget it.

And you can thank Canada's newly independent - but unelected - Senate for delays.

There is now a firm deadline for passage, but it wasn't the deadline the Trudeau government, and some provinces, wanted.

If this was a strictly political gambit, there are those who would finger the culprit, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, as the man who directed his Senate caucus to put the brakes on government legislation, choosing partisan battles over sober second thought.

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Watchdog stands firm on requirement it be notified in cases involving the drug

Ontario's police watchdog is pushing back at chiefs for suggesting their officers might hesitate to provide the life-saving drug naloxone out of fear that it could prompt an investigation by the civilian agency.

In a strongly worded letter Thursday, the director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said the agency would not back down on its expectation that it be notified in cases where a civilian is injured or dies after an officer administers naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

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Decriminalization is the right move , say James Hutt and Emilie Taman.

Canada's overdose crisis is getting worse, not better. In 2016, there were 2,861 opioid-related deaths. Last year, there were more than 4,000.

All of them were preventable.

As the NDP gathers in Ottawa this weekend for its national policy convention, many hope that this issue will be front and centre. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has already indicated that he favours the decriminalization of all drugs - not because it's the popular but because it's the right thing to do.

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The ongoing effort in the Senate to derail the passage of the Liberal government's bill to legalize marijuana is not an exercise in sober second thought, as its Conservative proponents claim, but an attempt to obstruct democracy. The Trudeau government should use the tools at its disposal to push this important legislation through the Upper House.

Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, and C-46, which would tighten rules on impaired driving related to marijuana use, have been before the Senate since the Commons passed them in late November. And they may languish there forever if the government does not invoke so-called time allocation, a tool for curtailing debate that the Liberals have largely eschewed.

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Fentanyl. The drug is one that most people never even heard of until a few years ago. Now it strikes fear into the hearts of public health officials, youth workers, parents and others. A few grains of fentanyl, often mixed with another recreational drug without the user's knowledge, can cause death within minutes. It has caused thousands of overdose deaths in Canada and tens of thousands in the U.S., and those numbers are rising rapidly.

How have we dealt with this crisis? The primary strategy has been to supply naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of fentanyl, as widely as possible to police officers, health care providers and others who are likely to encounter people who have overdosed. The use of naloxone is a "harm reduction strategy", intended to reduce the negative consequences of using fentanyl, and it has saved many lives. But it is not enough. Overdose deaths from fentanyl continue to increase even after widespread distribution of naloxone kits. We desperately need another strategy. But what kind of strategy would work?

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Twenty years ago this Sunday, when Ross Rebagliati was told he had tested positive for a banned substance, he didn't have to ask which one.

It was THC, an active ingredient in marijuana, and it was going to cost him the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded in snowboarding.

Three decades later, Rebagliati still has his gold medal, Canada is five months away from fully legalized weed sales, Rebagliati owns his own major medicinal cannabis supply company (the pun-ish Ross' Gold), and snowboarding is a lot more mainstream.

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Municipal governments across Leeds and Grenville have been grappling with the question of whether or not their volunteer firefighters should carry naloxone kits to treat patients who overdose on opioids.

And they have been coming up with different answers.

In the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, for example, the council has voted to supply the lifesaving antidote to its firefighters and have them trained in its use.

Likewise in the Town of Gananoque where both its firefighters and police officers have access to the kits and know how to use them. Mayor Erika Demchuk said her town's police and fire departments have carried the kits for months, both for their own protection and that of the public.

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AKWESASNE - If the community gives the go-ahead, Akwesasne could be the only place with a dispensary for recreational marijuana near Cornwall when it becomes legal this year.

At its monthly meeting in January, a video of which is posted on YouTube, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA) ran the idea past its members looking for feedback. It was made very clear during the presentation the MCA would not pursue the idea if the community is not in favour of it, but Grand Chief Abram Benedict argued the impending legalization of marijuana presents the First Nation with an incredible business opportunity.

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Come as city officials prepare to discuss future of storefronts

Police are cracking down on illegal storefront pot shops across Hamilton even as dispensary advocates prepare for "roundtable" discussions with city officials about their future.

Operators of five MMJ and Pacifico medical marijuana dispensaries - spread across the lower city and on the Mountain - told The Spectator they were raided by police late last week.

Britney Guerra, a vocal dispensary advocate and former owner, said she has heard from four other raided shops - one as recently as Monday - but none of those operators were willing to speak to The Spectator.

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"I believe that nicotine is not addictive."

This was the position the CEOs of the seven largest American tobacco companies staunchly stood by while testifying in front of an infamous 1994 Congressional hearing.

The scientific evidence at the time rendered their ostensible belief a tragic joke - a term that accurately describes the idea that Canadians should blindly trust marijuana producers and distributors to design their own packaging. Ottawa would do well by having health experts take the lead in ensuring marijuana packaging is transparent.

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An Ottawa judge who granted an absolute discharge to a 21-year-old woman working at a marijuana dispensary has made the right call.

Yes, we believe in harsh penalties for criminals. Yes, people should be held accountable for their actions.

But we also believe that the folks working the counter at illegal marijuana dispensaries aren't the real bad guys.

It's the owners of these shops and the traffickers and street-level, gun-toting dealers we're more concerned about: The people who are too often escaping punishment.

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Declaring the government's war on marijuana was over, defence lawyer Nick Cake called for a $10 fine for his client's marijuana possession. Kalan Louis Pereira, 27, of Sarnia pleaded guilty Wednesday in Sarnia court to marijuana possession. "We no longer live in a society that denounces this stuff," said Cake, citing the federal government's move to legalize recreational marijuana use this coming July.

The war on drugs as it relates to marijuana is over, and there is consideration of granting amnesty to those previously convicted of marijuana possession, Cake continued.

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Ontario's attorney general has warned that illegal marijuana dispensaries will be closed across the province, but potpreneurs in Ottawa don't seem to be getting the message.

At least 19 pot shops are still operating in the city, with a couple opening in the past few weeks.

At one of the new stores, Cannada's Culture on Baseline Road, plans are afoot to open a lounge, too, where consumers could smoke or vape weed.

One of the rooms inside is reserved for the lounge, but it's unclear when it will open, said Leanne Wilson. She was working behind a desk in the lobby, screening a steady stream of customers to make sure they were 19 and followed the security rules before entering the locked room where the cannabis is stored. "Cellphones in pocket, ( ball) caps on backwards, please," she called out.

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Most charged in raids were 'budtenders', along with some managers and owners

An Ottawa judge has discharged drug-trafficking charges against a young clerk who worked at a marijuana dispensary but said she didn't realize the business was illegal.

The woman was only 21, had no criminal record, has accepted responsibility and expressed remorse, and is at low risk of reoffending, Justice Norman Boxall said in his sentencing decision.

Selena Holder-Zirbser is one of about 44 people who have been charged in police raids on illegal shops in Ottawa. She says she took the $12-an-hour job because she needed to pay her rent.

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The only thing clear about research into medical cannabis is that more research is needed.

That was a conclusion expressed by many experts who gathered at the first cannabis conference hosted by the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medical Cannabis Research at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton West 5th Campus on the weekend.

"This conference is really the initial offering we have to the scientific community," said McMaster University associate professor Jason Busse, an expert in chronic pain and a co-director of the cannabis centre that opened in October.

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Provincial plan aims to fill gap for communities waiting on permanent services for opioid crisis

A temporary supervised drug use site will open its doors in London, Ont., Monday - the first of what is expected to be many under a new provincial emergency-response program that will fill the gap for communities waiting on permanent sites.

Thousands of people are dying from overdoses every year across Canada. In Ontario alone, there were 336 opioid-related deaths between May and July last year, up 68 per cent from that same period the year before. Fentanyl, a drug so potent that mere grains of it can be lethal, was a factor in 67 per cent of those deaths - up from 41 per cent in 2016, and 19 per cent in 2015.

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The fight by a popular Bank Street marijuana dispensary to stay in business has taken an intriguing twist.

Cannabis Culture closed in December after the frustrated landlord evicted his tenants, who were selling marijuana obtained from the black market.

Now the operators of Cannabis Culture have filed a court application demanding their lease be honoured so they can get back to operating their illegal business. The lawsuit might be an indication that some dispensaries are digging in for a fight with authorities as the country gets closer to the legalization of recreational marijuana, expected this summer. The province has vowed to shut down the dispensaries as it prepares to open legal pot shops run by a subsidiary of the LCBO.

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