Officials Report Falling Fatalities From PMMA Use The war against a toxic street stimulant that recently killed dozens in western Canada is bearing fruit, say those waging it. Between 2011 and 2012, the ingestion of paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) claimed 27 lives in Alberta and B.C. - 20 of those in Alberta - - an unheard of toll, said Dr. Mark Yarema of Alberta Health Services. "This was an unprecedented outbreak and it required a fairly rapid and multi-disciplinary response," said Yarema, the AHS's medical director of poison and drug information. "If the show Breaking Bad was about methamphetamines, the show about PMMA would be called Breaking Worse." [continues 180 words]
Officials say cheap, long-lasting street drug can be attractive to youth, but its effects are severe GUELPH - The influx of the street drug crystal methamphetamine has authorities concerned as they watch addiction set in and the community afflicted with spinoff effects. "It's a very bad drug," Guelph federal prosecutor David Doney said Monday. "This is a very serious and dangerous drug." He's increasingly encountering it in the justice system. "It seems to be becoming more prevalent," Doney said. [continues 618 words]
Province Launches Review Of Controversial Motherisk Lab Program After Star Stories Queen's Park will probe five years' worth of hair drug tests performed by the Hospital for Sick Children, used in child protection and criminal cases, amid an ongoing Star investigation. Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur said the independent review of Motherisk laboratory program at Sick Kids, led by retired Appeal Court justice Susan Lang, is a "first step" that could spark a much larger inquiry. Lang will specifically examine the "adequacy and reliability" of the hair testing method used by Motherisk between 2005 and 2010 in child protection and criminal proceedings, Meilleur said. [continues 1037 words]
Recommendations aimed at easing the problem of inmate addictions in Ontario's jails The jury has spoken - it's now up to the government to decide whether to adopt recommendations aimed at tackling addictions in Ontario jails to prevent inmate deaths. The 17 recommendations, the result of a two-week inquest into the death of Brantford Jail inmate Robert Clause, are non-binding, which means all or none of them could be implemented. But with another inquest on the horizon into four drug-related deaths at Hamilton's Barton jail the past two years - and another death in the Brantford Jail in recent weeks - it's clear that change is needed. [continues 743 words]
Hair Analysis Technique No Longer Used but Questions Linger After Reversal of Cocaine Convictions The Hospital for Sick Children is defending the reliability of the hair-strand tests performed by the Motherisk program as calls are mounting for government to review the laboratory's analysis, which has had bearing on possibly thousands of child protection cases. In an email Friday, Sick Kids spokeswoman Gwen Burrows said Motherisk no longer uses the technique for cocaine analysis presented in the 2009 trial of Toronto mom Tamara Broomfield. [continues 881 words]
A flood of drug overdoses at Vancouver's supervised injection site is being blamed on fentanyl, a highly dangerous substance that looks like heroin and which is increasingly being sold on the streets. The flurry of nearly 40 incidents since Sunday is underscoring for health officials the need not only for controlled injection sites such as Insite, but also for outreach programs that can deliver naloxone to users, wherever they are. Naloxone is a rapidly acting antidote for opioid drug overdose that users and other volunteers are being trained to administer in a pilot program run by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). [continues 623 words]
Users Urged to Stop. Deaths Elsewhere Should Serve As Warning, Say Top Narcotics Cops Calgary police are reporting a major upswing in seizures of opiates, ecstasy, cocaine and other drugs so far in 2014, but they believe investigative efforts, not a spike in dealers, is likely behind the increase. Seizure files involving meth, and heroin, in particular have nearly doubled from 72 cases to 142 and 25 to 47, said Staff Sgt. Tom Hanson. The data he provided to Metro covered 2014 to the end of July, compared to the same time period in 2013. [continues 228 words]
A Winnipeg woman tearfully begged a judge for a longer sentence Thursday, saying she needs extensive help to get her troubled life back on track. Kayla Allen, 28, pleaded guilty to a residential break-and-enter that occurred in 2008. She cut herself during the incident, leaving a trail of blood behind that allowed police to submit for DNA analysis. It took four years for the forensic lab in Regina to get the result back to Winnipeg police, then another two years before investigators finally got around to arresting Allen. [continues 367 words]
After a rash of deaths across the country at music festivals, health advocates are promoting a harm-reduction approach to help attendees avoid the dire effects of dehydration, tainted drugs and overdoses It's Friday evening at the Shambhala Music Festival, and a young woman in denim cut-offs is using an X-acto knife to separate a small quantity of a white powdered substance into three piles on a large white dinner plate. She watches anxiously as a volunteer in gloves dispenses a drop of fluid onto one of the piles, turning it dark purple and confirming that the substance contains MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy. [continues 1741 words]
Recent deaths prompt calls for harm-reduction policies instead of idea that substances can be banned from music events Two families are gathering for funerals this weekend, mourning after yet another Canadian music festival was hit by tragedy. Willard Amurao, 22, and Annie Truong-Le, 20, both died after taking what police have called "party drugs" at the VELD Music Festival in Downsview Park last weekend. Their deaths are prompting some to ask why festival organizers are so slow to adopt better strategies for preventing such deaths - strategies that focus on harm reduction, rather than acting out the charade they can be a drug-free zone. [continues 796 words]
This letter is in response to Steve Lafleur's letter to the editor - The case to legalize soft drugs - published in the July 10 edition of The Daily Press. The article creatively tries to convince readers "issues of morality should not be legislated." In my opinion morality can and should be legislated. Let's take for example the fines police can give you if you don't use your seatbelt. One can say it is wrong for people to be forced to use a seatbelt because it only impacts the individual. It should be my choice to use the seatbelt, or not. [continues 154 words]
While health units across the province are providing free crack pipes to drug users in an effort to reduce the transmission of hepatitis C, the move is being watched by various police units with guarded apprehension. Elgin St. Thomas Public Health has been conducting, for the past few weeks, a pilot project where they've been handing out safe inhalation equipment to drug users. According to David Smith, Manager of Clinical Services at the health unit, studies show the chances of transmitting blood-borne infectious diseases is greatly reduced when drug users are given sterile crack pipes. [continues 354 words]
Illegal drugs are taking a terrible toll in London and Middlesex County, killing people in such shocking numbers that health officials plan a counterattack. Last year alone, 41 people died of drug overdoses, a death rate double the Ontario average. Put another way, nearly four times as many people died of overdoses as were killed in motor vehicle crashes. The scourge of drugs is clogging emergency rooms, taxing police and paramedics and outpacing services to help addicts, reveals a new report by the Middlesex London Health Unit. [continues 588 words]
VANCOUVER LAWYERS RETURN to court today (June 5) in a case that could see the Conservative government's mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences eventually repealed. Earlier this year, a B.C. provincial court judge ruled unconstitutional an automatic one-year prison term for a person repeatedly convicted of dealing narcotics. Judge Joseph Galati found that a mandatory minimum sentence violates section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that every citizen has the right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. [continues 250 words]
Program lauded for saving tax dollars THE future of Winnipeg's drug treatment court is in jeopardy due to a lack of stable funding and friction over which level of government should control the long-running program, the Free Press has learned. As of May 1, the drug court stopped accepting new applications from offenders because there's no guarantee its annual funding will be there as of April 1, 2015, justice sources confirmed Monday. The federal government is tired of funding the drug court without a commitment by the Manitoba government to take it over in the long term, sources said. [continues 711 words]
As Community Mobilization Prince Albert continues to develop a city-wide alcohol strategy, Carlton Comprehensive Public High School is honing its own approach to youth alcohol and drug use. Rather than a program specifically related to the issue, the school has adopted a comprehensive strategy characterized by a focus on student connectedness and extracurricular activities. The former may be best summarized by the school's ongoing "You Matter" campaign. On the first day of the current school year, staff members all wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "You Matter." [continues 861 words]
Rich Coleman has never been my favourite politician, but every once in a while he does something that is brilliant, takes guts and moves the province in the right direction. Last November, Minister Coleman in charge of BC Housing announced that because of his ministry's preliminary investigation, a full scale audit of the Portland Hotel Society was going to be done. After discovering "irregularities," an accounting firm was brought in to ensure public resources were being spent appropriately. The Portland Hotel Society (PHS) has for more than 20 years been involved with Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, providing services to the addicted and mentally ill. [continues 347 words]
Youth outreach workers and counsellors say they aren't surprised an increasing number of young Albertans are seeking help to overcome addictions related to crystal meth. Data provided by Alberta Health Services shows that 1,116 people between the ages of 12-24 sought treatment for meth-related addictions during the 2012-13 reporting period, a spike of 45 per cent over the four-year average. Calgary police, meanwhile, also encountered meth more often in 2013, with 122 cases involving the drug compared to 90 the year prior. [continues 305 words]
A B.C. Provincial Court judge ruled mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions are unconstitutional and instead handed down a 191-day sentence on top of time served to an offender Wednesday. The controversial one year minimum sentences were part of 2012's federal Safe Streets and Communities Act. Joseph Lloyd was convicted on Sept. 13, 2013 for possession of small amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. Lloyd's lawyer David Fai said Judge Joseph Galati found the minimum sentences were not a reasonable limit to infringements in a free and democratic society. [continues 85 words]
Documents Reveal Details of Police Tactics It is believed to be the largest, most elaborate undercover investigation ever tackled by Winnipeg police. Now details of how officers took down a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking network last week have become public through hundreds of pages of court documents released Tuesday. The affidavits, which were used to obtain arrest warrants for 14 accused, document every step of the nearly two-year-long probe dubbed Project Sideshow. Among the more revealing details: * Police monitored and intercepted more than 300,000 separate communications -- phone calls, texts and emails -- between January and December 2013. Police say this number would have been much higher if not for the fact many of their targets relied on "encrypted communication devices... demonstrating their high level of sophistication." [continues 497 words]
