Every day, hundreds of discarded needles are picked up from Whalley streets, many of them just steps from City Hall. Now, a downtown business group is offering up fresh solutions. On one side of the street, children glide up and down on their skateboards at Chuck Bailey skate park. Their laughter fills the air. On the other side of 107A Avenue, not far away, a homeless man named Robert sits on the ground behind a tree, shrieking while feverishly clapping his hands. His belongings, including a handful of needles, are strewn about on a damp, dirty piece of carpet. [continues 1390 words]
CAMP DANGWA, LA TRINIDAD: Of the six Cordillera provinces, Abra has the worst problem on illegal drugs, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-Cordillera Autonomous Region). PDEA-CAR spokesman Joseph Calulut said about 136 villages out of 1,176 in the region are being monitored for the narcotics trade. Among the provinces, Abra has the highest number of drug-affected barangays, followed by Baguio City. The same report revealed that Benguet, Ifugao and Kalinga have 17 drug-affected barangays each; Apayao has 13, while Mountain Province has only four villages found with illegal drugs users. [continues 455 words]
President Duterte will give members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) police powers to enable them to fully operate against lawless elements and major crime syndicates in the country. AFP chief Gen. Ricardo Visaya revealed in yesterday's command conference that Duterte would issue executive orders for this purpose. Duterte has tapped the military, along with the Philippine National Police ( PNP), for the launch of a massive anticriminality campaign to rid the country of lawless elements and illegal drugs. [continues 732 words]
More Drug Users, Pushers Give Up on Eve of Duterte's Oath-Taking SAN AGUSTIN, Isabela -This town became witness yesterday to the latest in a string of surrenders of drug suspects that is being linked to a brutal campaign against drug trafficking that the incoming Duterte administration plans to carry out as soon as it assumes office today. Two days before incoming President Rodrigo Duterte takes his oath of office as the country's 16th President, 43 drug peddlers and abusers turned themselves in to the town police force. [continues 628 words]
The Supreme Court just gave police sweeping new powers to rummage through people's pockets The Supreme Court threw out more than a half century of precedent this week when it ruled that evidence gathered after an illegal stop can be used in criminal prosecutions if the person searched has an outstanding warrant. In a 5-3 ruling, the justices substantially weakened the longstanding exclusionary rule that generally makes such evidence inadmissible in court. The court's action threatens Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and represents a dangerous departure from settled law that prevented police from randomly stopping and questioning people on the streets. [continues 540 words]
Some policemen may be killing their accomplices in drug trafficking to ensure they will not be implicated in the criminal activities. President-elect Rodrigo Duterte himself conceded this possibility yesterday even as he vowed to help police officers who may face criminal charges for killing drug suspects. "I will take care of you, I will protect you," Duterte said in a speech delivered before local officials in Sarangani. "If you kill 1,000, tell them it was ordered by Duterte. Period. I will deal with everybody," he added. [continues 953 words]
There's An Antidote for Heroin Overdose, and a Former Addict Is Among Those Working to Spread It Far and Wide Joshua Livernois woke up hazy, sick and splashed with Dr. Pepper in a hospital bed in Salinas, California. He couldn't piece together the events of the previous day or so, and he's still not even sure which year it was, probably 2005 or '06. He'd been using heroin off and on for about 10 years and almost daily for five. [continues 2388 words]
Board of Health Nearly Unanimous in Its Support for Supervised Facilities Ottawa's board of health voted 10-1 Monday night to encourage supervised-injection sites to open in the city. "Listen to, more than anything, the people who live this," Capital Coun. David Chernushenko told skeptics. He'd come into the health-board meeting not knowing how much he didn't know about addiction, and treatment, and what it's like to be a drug addict, he said. The board heard from several, all begging the board to say it supports the notion of opening supervised facilities where addicts can inject drugs in the presence of nurses who can rescue them from overdoses. [continues 809 words]
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, said such searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment when the warrant is valid and unconnected to the conduct that prompted the stop. Justice Thomas's opinion drew a fiery dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said that "it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny." [continues 664 words]
City establishes rules for clinics prescribing marijuana Calgary has now begun regulating marijuana counselling services, sparking debate over fears of what the pot-peddling establishments could become. Medical marijuana counselling services are now required to apply for a building permit and ensure they're not within 300 meters of one another, while also not being within 150 metres of a school. These measures were introduced in hopes of getting ahead of what some, including mayor Naheed Nenshi, fear could be a crowding out of businesses and the tarnishing of neighbourhoods with pot leaves. [continues 267 words]
After last week's pot raids, experts talk about restraint, acceptance of the controversial drug Everybody seems to be talking about marijuana these days. Impending legalization has prompted a many-faceted debate about how our society should incorporate the greenery, even as dispensaries selling cannabis and related goods are popping up like, well, weeds. The sprouting conversation involves many people with divergent perspectives and interests in the marijuana regime of tomorrow. Let's listen to some of them. The casual toker [continues 1946 words]
While marijuana dispensaries proliferate and engage in a game of legally-grey chicken with authorities in some Canadian cities, Winnipeg police say the same simply isn't happening locally. "There are a few people that have tried to open up and we enforced the laws as we know them right away," said Winnipeg Police Service Grow Operations Unit member, Sgt. Carrol MacDonald. "To my knowledge there has only been a handful, it's not as bad as Toronto or Vancouver." 'Look what happened' [continues 869 words]
Editor's note: This is day two of a four-day series that examines the impact heroin is having on the community through the eyes of the addicts, their families, law enforcement and the groups that provide treatment. DECATUR The scars on Lori Caldwell's arms are still there, though they've begun to lighten. Caldwell wishes she could say the same for her mental and emotional scars. Caldwell's voice becomes a whisper as she tries to talk through her tears while recounting her plunge into addictions to heroin and crack cocaine. [continues 2706 words]
There's never a good time to have a pointless case brought before the courts, but doing so in the midst of an acute judge shortage seems rather foolish and counterproductive. Already this year in Alberta, three sexual assault trials have been delayed until 2017 because there are no judges available to hear them. Despite the already considerable strain on the system, though, Vancouver pot activist Dana Larsen is being prosecuted for the apparently heinous crime of giving away marijuana seeds. [continues 581 words]
Marijuana Is the Trendy Herb for Those Who Want to Get Baked During Dinner As Matt Doherty wrapped up his cooking demonstration, a woman in the audience raised her hand to ask a question: How long would the cannabis-infused butter he had shown them how to make keep in the fridge? "I've never had it go bad," replied Doherty, the manager of a Capitol Hill hydroponic supply store. He paused. "It doesn't last long in my house." The audience at the cannabis food festival "Blazed and Glazed" giggled a little too hard at the joke. Many of the onlookers had arrived at culinary incubator Mess Hall as baked as a tray of the green herb that Doherty had put in the oven. [continues 1439 words]
Nashville - North Carolina's Nashville, 45 miles east of Raleigh - has a police chief who is changing the way law enforcement deals with drug addicts, who might ordinarily be arrested and put away. Chief Thomas Bashore has seen the consequences of drug abuse, and he's come to see that conventional law enforcement solutions, meaning arrest and imprisonment, don't seem to come to a constructive end. Addicts go in for a while, come out, get reacquainted with drugs, go back in. [continues 288 words]
Orlando on Monday became the latest Florida municipality and the first city in Central Florida to effectively decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, passing an ordinance that will allow officers to issue citations rather than make arrests. The controversial measure, which was supported by Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orlando police Chief John Mina, was approved by the City Council on a 4-3 vote. It will take effect Oct. 1. The measure was opposed by the two former police officers on the council, Tony Ortiz and Samuel Ings, as well as Commissioner Jim Gray. The ordinance passed both public readings by the same slim margin. [continues 711 words]
Regarding "Safe injection center or harm reduction folly" (April 8), once again Debra J. Saunders gets it wrong. There's overwhelming evidence demonstrating that safe injection facilities are an effective intervention proven to reduce harm to both the drug user and the community. We need safe injection facilities, and San Francisco should be the first. We need a common sense, public health solution to the legitimate health and safety concerns that arise from people injecting in non-sterile, public places (syringe litter, overdose, disease transmission, etc.). [continues 126 words]
UKIAH - Mendocino County's needle exchange is reached off Highway 101 after winding through verdant hills and past multimillion-dollar wineries. It's a simple two-story bungalow with white lace curtains on a Ukiah street where, on a recent sunny afternoon, several drug addicts waited to exchange used syringes. Operated as part of the Mendocino County AIDS/Viral Hepatitis Network, it collected and redistributed about 127,000 needles last year over the course of 6,259 visits, said Libby Guthrie, the network's executive director. [continues 876 words]
Pending final approval from Health Canada, Mark McCaul plans to sell medical marijuana in downtown Prince Albert as soon as possible. His intent is to expand his "unorthodox medicinal supply shop," The Hum (62 13th St. W.), into the property next-door once all of his legal ducks are in a row. But first, he has some misconceptions to dispel; an effort he's been striving to accomplish through his own actions as a medical marijuana advocate. Surrounded by bongs and other paraphernalia associated with marijuana in his shop, McCaul admits that a common assumption is that he's some "major stoner." [continues 397 words]
