Couple Discover It's Not Easy to Get Addiction Help Getting clean and sober is a challenge, as one Yellowknife couple discovered during their quest to access treatment for a debilitating crack addiction. When Dawn first discovered her husband Frank (not their real names) was addicted to crack, it came as a surprise. "I didn't know until a year-and-a-half into the relationship," said the 24-year-old. "I had people tell me and I didn't believe them but he took off one time, came back a few days later and that's when I found the (crack) pipe." [continues 564 words]
Injection Sites Needed in Halifax, Health Worker Says A row of gleaming, stainless steel booths sit in a sterile room where addicts can safely inject their drug of choice. This is North America's first legal, supervised injection site. Dr. Michael V. O'Shaughnessy shared slides and stories about the Vancouver facility, Insite, with a small group of health professionals and AIDS activists in Halifax on Monday. "After they inject, they hang around, have a coffee; we have to make sure they come down a bit before they leave," he said in the meeting room at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. [continues 408 words]
TORONTO - Conservative leader John Tory says he smoked marijuana as a high school and university student, once favoured lighter sentences for pot traffickers and even drove while "stoned." The revelations are in a 30-year-old column Tory wrote as a student for the Osgoode Hall Law School newspaper. Tory told the Toronto Sun he was writing honestly about his experiences with weed, but he hasn't used it since those early days, adding he is "30 years older (and ) hopefully a lot wiser." [continues 72 words]
Drug Killings Nearly Doubled in Past Year ZIHUATANEJO, Mexico -- Andres Sauzo collects newspapers, astoundingly grisly newspapers. There's the one with the close-up shot of a severed human head. There's the one with the wide-angle of a man hacked to death with a machete. But the worst in his bulky archive of drug-war gore rolled off the presses the day after someone found pieces of what used to be Sauzo's 24-year-old namesake. A hit man had decapitated Sauzo's son, then chopped off his arms and legs. The killer was so unconcerned about being brought to justice that he scrawled his own name and nickname -- "El Barby" -- on a note left with the mutilated corpse. [continues 1319 words]
LANSING -- A proposal to allow the use of marijuana for medical reasons in Michigan received a rare legislative hearing Tuesday. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. LaMar Lemmons III, of Detroit, would block prosecution of patients with "debilitating medical conditions" who grow or use marijuana for treatment purposes. Eleven states and several cities -- including Detroit and Ann Arbor -- have adopted similar measures in the past decade, usually through ballot proposals approved by voters. The legislation discussed Tuesday in the House Government Operations Committee would protect people who use marijuana to treat cancer, glaucoma, AIDS or other conditions. The patient would need a signed certification from a doctor to allow the marijuana use. [continues 254 words]
Dylan Darling's article, "A dangerous crop," fails to address the role prohibition plays in creating the conditions that put law enforcement officers such as Troy McCoy at risk and allow violent gangs to thrive. We waste billions of taxpayer dollars each year trying to control the supply of marijuana and arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans - -- 88 percent of whom are arrested for possession, not sale or manufacture. Meanwhile, marijuana use increases -- nearly 100 million Americans have used the drug -- and violent criminals enjoy an exclusive franchise on the market. [continues 140 words]
To the Editor, Of course the first part of the editorial is true. Our society needs a real plan, not some last century racist crusader's ill-conceived and hijacked into existence legislation, designed to oppress certain people. The article wanders into well-worn, untrue, prohibitionist rhetoric at the end when the words "mind ravaging drug" are used. There is no evidence that marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol, but safer. The entire eight-decade debacle and growth of organized crime, social disorder and danger to Canadians was due in the first place to the abdication of their duty to the citizens who elected these representatives to make good laws. There was not a word of discussion or debate. It was just a "great political idea" snuck in under the radar screen. Much like Harper's quick end run around the Bloc, it was one person's "great solution" to a non-existent problem. Klaus Kaczor Vancouver [end]
Just a few days ago, three Atlanta police officers shot down and killed a 92 year-old woman in her home while executing a search warrant. The frightened elderly woman lived alone in a high-crime neighborhood and had burglar bars on all her doors and windows. When the officers attempted to batter down her door, she fired on them and was killed when the officers returned fire. What is most disturbing about this is that the officers were apparently following standard procedure, in which the homes of suspected non-violent drug offenders are routinely broken into by armed police officers or SWAT teams without knocking or identifying themselves first. [continues 407 words]
Jack Cole looks like a middle-aged tourist - and last week he was visiting art galleries in Florence. Yesterday, however, he was on some of Glasgow's meaner streets with a Strathclyde police officer and a camera crew. When he takes off his jacket, his T-shirt reveals in eye-catchingly large letters the slogan: "Cops say legalise drugs. Ask me why." Cole is a man on a mission. He spent 12 years of his 26-year career in the New Jersey state police as an undercover narcotics officer, investigating international drug-trafficking organisations, local dealers and low-level users. [continues 1060 words]
Many doctors prescribe methadone to avoid the high caused by other painkillers, but the drug has its own risks. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a strong advisory this week for methadone, a commonly prescribed pain medicine, warning patients and doctors that the drug can kill. The alert was provoked by reports of overdose deaths among patients who took the medicine to combat chronic pain, the FDA release said. In some patients, particularly new users or those switching from another narcotic pain medicine, methadone can slow breathing to a stop. The FDA warned that it also can cause dangerous changes in heartbeat. [continues 397 words]
