Three Supervised Facilities in Toronto, Two in Ottawa Would Be Worth the Money A new study bolsters the case for opening five safe injection sites in Ontario, including three in Toronto, by showing they would be more cost effective than previous research has projected. Because of a recent surge in the cost of treating hepatitis C, there is now a better economic case to be made for preventing the spread of the potentially deadly virus through the sharing of needles, according to a paper published today in the journal Addiction. [continues 796 words]
CITY STAFF concerned for children's safety at Maffeo Sutton Park Twelve drug needles found dumped in Maffeo Sutton Park children's playground this fall was a shock to city horticulturalist Margaret Mills, who says it's a rare find and "very upsetting." But it's nothing new for the downtown community, which is grappling with an uptick in discarded drug paraphernalia. A parent alerted Mills, who maintains the waterfront park, on Oct. 20 that there were 12 needles left in the children's playground. Six were still in a package, while the other half were used. [continues 518 words]
The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a warrantless home search in a drug case, raising concerns among some legal observers that the practice is on the increase. "If police are relying more heavily on exigent circumstances to justify warrantless searches of people's homes, the time may be right for the Supreme Court to look at this matter," said Toronto criminal appeals lawyer Enzo Rondinelli, an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Shae Alexander Hunter of Nanaimo, B.C., was convicted of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking after an authorized search was conducted of his home. However, before the warrant was issued, police conducted a warrantless search to secure the home against the possible destruction of any evidence. [continues 689 words]
Every year, Ottawa emergency rooms on Halloween are a scary sight -- filled with alcohol and drug-related incidents -- and this year doesn't plan on being any different. Ottawa Police and Ottawa Public Health are warning partiers of an alarming trend surfacing in the city, the increase in use of MDMA bath salts and the emergence of "unusually strong" magic mushrooms. "People aren't generally concerned when they drink too much," said Nancy Langdon, supervisor of the substance misuse program at Ottawa Public Health. "But they may also have the opportunity to experiment with an illicit drug that they may or may not have tried before. But even if the person had a reasonable experience before, there's really no guarantee that what they used the last time isn't in any way similar to what they're using this time and that their reaction will be the same." [continues 130 words]
Tune in and turn on: new studies are exploring the benefits of psilocybin and party drugs as possible therapies for addiction, anxiety and depression While pot has attracted most of the headlines on the issue of drugs as medicine, awareness seems to be - shall we say? - mushrooming on the potential healing benefits of psilocybin and similar psychoactive drugs. Experimental research on psilocybin, the active compound responsible for the "magic" in magic mushrooms, suggests it has potential for treating alcohol and tobacco addictions, obsessive-compulsive disorder and end-of-life anxiety. [continues 672 words]
Sick Kids CEO's Apology for Drug Testing Flaws Too Little, Too Late On the face of it, last week's apology from the Hospital for Sick Children for flaws in the hair-strand drug and alcohol testing program at its Motherisk lab may seem laudable. Except for this: Sick Kids spent almost a year denying there were problems at the lab. It did so in the face of an exhaustive investigation by the Star's Rachel Mendleson that cast doubt on the reliability of the lab's drug and alcohol hair tests. And it did so despite protests from many experts who were concerned that parents might be losing custody of their children and others might face criminal convictions based on flawed lab tests. [continues 380 words]
You're in some strange company if you use meth When drug use began to go rampant in the United States, former Harvard psychiatrist Baba Ram Dass countered that former colleague Tim Leary's "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out" with the idea that mankind has an innate drive to "get high" or experience altered states of consciousness. He noted there is some psychoactive product in virtually every culture on the planet except the Inuit, be it alcohol, peyote or others. He went on to state that while drugs can indeed give us a taste of a spiritual experience, they don't provide a map to get there. His answer was to find it through spiritual means. [continues 532 words]
Toronto's Drug Treatment Court has been forced to make budget cuts; the cuts will not save money, and will put lives at risk. The Toronto Drug Treatment Court may be the best thing we do. Through the TDTC, we offer an alternative to jail for those who get nailed on drug or drug-related charges; instead of going to the slammer, men and women get a chance to choose treatment. This is breathtakingly simple, and it achieves several seemingly impossible goals at once: it helps men and women break the cycle of drugs, crime and the law; it saves money by cutting the cost of enforcement; it keeps the city safer by reducing certain kinds of crime; oh, and it saves lives. We should be doubling and redoubling our efforts. [continues 705 words]
Canadian experts want policy-makers to rethink perception of these medications to let research advance, but others urge caution Psychedelic drugs, including LSD and MDMA, could help some patients struggling with addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, according to a new analysis that urges Canadian policy- makers to reconsider their perception of those drugs. The analysis, published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says several small studies show psychedelics may be effective at treating certain patients, but that "popular misconceptions" about the risks of the drugs are hampering research efforts. The authors argue that any novel treatment that may ease the symptoms of PTSD, addiction or anxiety should be explored, especially considering the limitations of available treatments. [continues 584 words]
Province Provides Funding for Pilot Program Aimed at Getting Offenders to Give Up Using Crystal Meth GUELPH - Guelph police and community groups are placing an addictions worker in bail court to help people who are accused of committing crimes related to crystal meth. It's an attempt to tackle rising use of the dangerous drug in the city. The pilot scheme is supported by a $100,000 grant from a provincial program that takes proceeds from crime and channels them back into local initiatives. [continues 455 words]
Many theatre-lovers think Shakespeare is dope. Now it's being suggested that he smoked the stuff. Last month some anthropologists announced that four 17th-century pipes unearthed from Shakespeare's garden contain traces of cannabis. Whoa! Maybe that explains that line from Macbeth: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, Dude?" Who knew that Sir Walter Raleigh brought something wackier than tobacco and rolling papers back from his expeditions to the New World? If the bard were alive, methinks he'd claim those pipes really belonged to his best bud Ben Jonson. [continues 540 words]
Many theatre-lovers think Shakespeare is dope. Now it's being suggested that he smoked the stuff. Last month some anthropologists announced that four 17th century pipes unearthed from Shakespeare's garden contain traces of cannabis. Whoa! Maybe that explains that line from MacBeth: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, Dude?" Who knew that Sir Walter Raleigh brought something wackier than tobacco and rolling papers back from his expeditions to the New World? If the bard were alive, methinks he'd claim those pipes really belonged to his best bud Ben Jonson. [continues 544 words]
Many theatre-lovers think Shakespeare is dope. Now it's being suggested that he smoked the stuff. Last month some anthropologists announced that four 17th century pipes unearthed from Shakespeare's garden contain traces of cannabis. Whoa! Maybe that explains that line from MacBeth: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, Dude?" Who knew that Sir Walter Raleigh brought something wackier than tobacco and rolling papers back from his expeditions to the New World? [continues 563 words]
Proponents of supervised centres move forward with expansion plans even as the issue becomes a political football Supporters of supervised drug-injection sites, such as Vancouver's Insite, are keeping a cautious eye on the federal vote, with Stephen Harper vowing to fight their expansion and questioning their benefits as he looks to highlight his government's tough-on-drugs agenda. The latest challenge, laid out by Mr. Harper during a campaign stop last week in a suburban Toronto riding, comes as Montreal prepares to become, as early as this fall, the second Canadian city to offer a medically supervised setting for injection drug users. It also comes as drug overdoses and deaths linked to fentanyl are making headlines and as groups in Toronto and Ottawa continue to cautiously work to build support for future sites. [continues 875 words]
A recent spike in fentanyl-related deaths highlights need for wider access to naloxone to reverse drug's effects Hugh Lampkin was working late when he heard a knock at the door. "There's a guy down," the stranger said. "He's overdosed, and he's blue." Mr. Lampkin, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, grabbed a nearby supply of naloxone - a medication that can reverse the effects of overdose - and raced down the block to the scene. [continues 732 words]
West Kootenay authorities are grateful that the 18th annual Shambhala Music Festival ended without a single major incident. The festival reported five ambulance transfers to the Trail hospital, which is half the number of last year, and there were no major vehicle accidents. "From a policing and general duty perspective Shambhala was fairly good for us this year," said RCMP Insp. Tom Roy. "We had no major incidents that we're aware of, and though traffic was as busy as expected we didn't have any real problems." [continues 788 words]
Physicians and police urge caution following at least four critical drug overdoses since April Physicians and police are urging the community to think twice when using illicit drugs following at least four critical drug overdose cases in Nelson over the last three months. "This is my third year in Nelson, and I've never seen anything like this," said Dr. Nic Sparrow, emergency department physician at Kootenay Lake Hospital. "I've seen six overdose cases since the end of April, four of them critical, and that's just me. That doesn't include cases that other doctors may have seen." [continues 350 words]
This Week's Topic: Are Safe Injection Sites Like Insite in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Good Public Policy? I have a lot of sympathy for injection drugs users. Addiction consumes mind, body and soul - without treatment, the disease gets progressively worse, leaving only incarceration or death. That is, unless you frequent Insite, the safe-injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. There, the mortal consequences of hardcore drug use are suspended.. At Insite, drug users can inject heroin (40% of injections), powder cocaine (30%) and methamphetamine (5%) - chasing the high all the way to the point of death, with no fear of paying the ultimate price. [continues 315 words]
Aggressively pursuing a mandate the past two years to reduce crime in Kelowna has life harder for local criminals, says the Kelowna RCMP detachment superintendent. Nick Romanchuk gathered the local media Wednesday afternoon at the Doyle Street police headquarters to report that Kelowna's Census Metropolitan Area police-reported crimes ranking, number one for highest crime rate in 2012, now sees the city ranked fourth out of the 33 CMA areas across Canada. In 2013, the city had risen from the worst to number three in the rankings, compiled by Statistics Canada. [continues 752 words]
Every month in Red Deer, the Central Alberta AIDS Network Society gives away an average of 38,000 new needles to individuals who are mostly using drugs that are not prescribed. It raises that bigger question we don't hear very often, perhaps because the helping agencies are just too busy doing the front line work: Why doesn't this city have a residential addictions treatment program? Some of the drugs that people across this region are injecting themselves with include crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and opiate derivatives like heroin. [continues 901 words]
