Health officials say crisis worsening despite bid to end it Island Health was the only health authority in B.C. to see an increase in overdose deaths in June, according to statistics released Friday. At least 23 people on Vancouver Island died from an illicit-drug overdose in June, up from 11 in May, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. This brings the total to 123 deaths in the first half of this year. The total for all of 2016 was 160. [continues 554 words]
Vancouver Coastal Health will open the doors to Vancouver's newest supervised injection site on Friday in the Downtown Eastside. The Powell Street Getaway, located near Oppenheimer Park at 528 Powell St., will be the third such facility in Vancouver. The Dr. Peter Centre, an HIV-AIDS clinic, has offered supervised injection along with other services in Vancouver's West End since 2002, while the Downtown Eastside's Insite facility was the first sanctioned supervised injection site in North America when it opened in 2003. [continues 304 words]
Medical marijuana/medical cannabis has shown both anecdotal and clinical evidence that it can be used to manage and or alleviate symptoms of many illnesses, such as neuropathic pain, arthritis pain, multiple sclerosis, HIV, bone or inflammatory cancer pain, fibromyalgia, Crohn's disease, colitis, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, insomnia and headaches. There are others. There should be no problem with this as long as its use is managed by your doctor or pharmacist. Now, recreational marijuana could certainly create problems, especially when people are permitted to smoke it. The smoke will bother other human beings, especially the elderly and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or any respiratory disease, and heart disease patients. Recreational purposes are just a means for people to have a high. There will be more crime and loss of life if this is legalized. It should not be OK for the government to OK this problem, and not in workplaces either. Lydia Parsons St. John's [end]
Vancouver drug users' support group spearheaded first safe-injection site in North America A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms graces a wall around the corner from where a woman lies on the floor as a needle full of heroin is injected into her neck. She rises quickly, sweeps her long brown hair over one shoulder and sits on a chair as a man is handed a needle by another woman also wanting his help at an overdose prevention site located at the office of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. [continues 886 words]
Thirty-eight percent of the 17,591 patients registered in Hawaii's medical marijuana program were located on the Big Island. Recently released data by the state Department of Health indicates the trend of medical marijuana patients in Hawaii is changing. Thirty-eight percent of the 17,591 patients registered in Hawaii's medical marijuana program were located on Hawaii Island, according to the data released Friday. That's down from 40 percent in March and 42 percent in December. Meanwhile, the percentage of patients hailing from Oahu has jumped from 25 percent in December to 29 percent last month, a more than 1,300-patient increase. The Big Island's patient count increased by about 300 people in that same time, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported. [continues 278 words]
LOWELL, Mass. -- They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass. They wash into rivers and float downstream to land on beaches. They pepper baseball dugouts, sidewalks and streets. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. In March alone, San Francisco collected more than 13,000 syringes, compared with only about 2,900 in the same month in 2016. [continues 709 words]
Efforts underway to establish a new needle exchange site in the city The North Parry Sound District Health Unit indicated in a release Friday that harm reduction services, including the needle exchange program, continue to operate in the community and that work is underway to find ways to further increase access. The release comes ahead of the closure at the end of the month of a key needle exchange site located at the Nipissing Detoxification and Substance Abuse Program on King Street. It's one of three exchange sites in the city. [continues 391 words]
A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms graces a wall around the corner from where a woman lies on the floor as a needle full of heroin is injected into her neck. She rises quickly, sweeps her long brown hair over one shoulder and sits on a chair as a man is handed a needle by another woman also wanting his help at an overdose prevention site located at the office of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. [continues 720 words]
Medical-cannabis patients who use illegal cannabis dispensaries instead of turning to other legal and black-market sources do so because they feel safe at these shops and like that they have reliable supplies of the specific strains they want, according to new research from the University of British Columbia. Rielle Capler, a PhD student and the study's lead author, said the results can help give Ottawa and provincial governments an idea of what consumers want as they look toward legalizing the drug some time next year. [continues 564 words]
Life for the police in North Bay is going to become at least a little more difficult. The city is going to lose its primary needle exchange program. Police Chief Shawn Devine has warned that this will put the public and others at risk. The Nipissing Detoxification and Substance Abuse Program is slated to close in September. The North Bay Regional Health Centre is cutting the program. The report carried some alarming or amazing statistics about needle exchanges. The ordinary citizen may wonder where or who are the people using all these needles. [continues 280 words]
In the years when hundreds of British Columbians were dying from AIDS, we would have been hard-pressed to imagine a worse health crisis. We know otherwise now. With deaths from illicit drug overdoses killing an average of four British Columbians a day, we're in the midst of a crisis that's claiming more than three times the lives lost to HIV/AIDS in the peak years of the early 1990s. Our province is in unprecedented territory, grappling with a per-capita overdose rate that's double the Canadian average and increasing dramatically with each passing year. [continues 719 words]
Losing needle exchange program will be 'devastating' Losing the city's largest needle exchange program will put the public and police at risk, North Bay Police Chief Shawn Devine said Tuesday at the monthly police board meeting. Devine said the closure of the Nipissing Detoxification and Substance Abuse Program on King Street July 31, as it prepares to shut down in September, will impact community safety and well-being on many levels. "Losing the services is going to be devastating and will only lead to unsafe situations for the general public and our front-line officers," he said in his report to the board. [continues 240 words]
The medical marijuana industry officially has its guidelines with the passage of a bill out of the Florida Legislature on the last day of a three-day special session. The votes were 29-6 in the Senate and 103-9 in the House. The few no votes were mostly Democrats who wanted fewer restrictions in the bill, but also a few Republicans who remain against the idea of medical marijuana on principle. Gov. Rick Scott said he "absolutely" will sign the bill. That means big changes for patients, caregivers, doctors and growers, compared with the far more limited medical marijuana law passed by the Legislature in 2014, which resulted in seven grower/dispensers in the state. [continues 906 words]
TEMPLE TERRACE -- Dropping a giant joint in favor of the "USS Maryjane" seemed to smooth the waters for a pro-marijuana entry in this year's Temple Terrace Fourth of July Parade. The new float designed by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws featured the flag-festooned ship crewed by some military veterans and painted with the slogan, "Hemp for Victory." The theme plays off a World War II film from the Department of Agriculture that praised the nation's hemp farmers for their work in creating strong ropes from the stalks of marijuana plants for the armed forces. [continues 227 words]
Walk into a medical marijuana dispensary in New Jersey and the first thing to hit you is the stink. Weed's scent is a sour blast that seems to reek of citrus, diesel, and skunk. At the Garden State Dispensary in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, charcoal air purifiers -- encased in gleaming steel and larger than jet engines -- are strategically placed through the facility. It's hard to say whether their presence tempers the odor, which is generated by thousands of cannabis plants growing under lights in the same building. [continues 707 words]
Seven deaths recorded in Victoria in May, bringing total to at least 41 this year Seven people died from illicit-drug overdoses in Victoria in May, in a year that is already on track to surpass 2016 for deaths, according to statistics from the B.C. Coroners Service. In the first five months of 2017, at least 41 Victorians died from overdoses. In all of 2016, the year overdoses were declared a public health emergency, 68 people died in the city. [continues 484 words]
Some local residents against proposed facility, fear impact on property values Maintenance staff and volunteers at First Baptist have gotten used to finding needles and other drug paraphernalia while tidying the flower beds belonging to the historic Beltline church. "All the time. We have a lot of needles. Now we've got special devices to pick them up because it's not safe," said Jose Gongora, head of maintenance for the church. "Our volunteers are very worried and concerned because these guys use needles and just drop it everywhere." [continues 688 words]
A renowned HIV/AIDS clinic in Vancouver that helped pave the way in harm reduction by first offering supervised-injection service 14 years ago now wants to treat opioid addiction with injectable drugs. Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care in March to offer injectable opioid-assisted treatment at its facility in Vancouver's downtown West End neighbourhood, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under Freedom of Information legislation. [continues 541 words]
