Most Albertans support the provincial government's proposed regulations for legalized marijuana, according to a new Insights West poll. Almost two-thirds of respondents to the online poll agree with the decision to prevent pot stores from selling alcohol, tobacco or pharmaceuticals, while 77 per cent favour setting 18 as the legal age for buying marijuana. While 60 per cent of Albertans support legalization, up five percentage points since a national poll done in October 2016, the poll found a split along party lines. [continues 310 words]
Albertans high on province's marijuana plans: Poll Most Albertans support the provincial government's proposed regulations for legalized marijuana, according to a new Insights West poll. Almost two-thirds of respondents to the online poll agree with the decision to prevent pot stores from selling alcohol, tobacco or pharmaceuticals, while 77 per cent favour setting 18 as the legal age for buying marijuana. While 60 per cent of Albertans support legalization, up five percentage points since a national poll done in October 2016, the poll found a split along party lines. [continues 171 words]
No one forced Junior Hernandez to swallow the fentanyl, his grieving partner says, but did he understand it could kill him? Part Four in a series of profiles about the escalating opioid crisis in Quebec. Before his partner Junior Hernandez died of a fentanyl-related overdose, Christophe Cote says he didn't know much about the drug. Just before dawn, Junior Hernandez and his sky-is-the-limit friends spilled out of a downtown bar. They were heading to a friend's place to continue the revelry - drinking, doing coke and ecstasy. Once the drugs ran out, they called a dealer, hopping a taxi to his place. There, they found a stash of tiny, unfamiliar pills called fentanyl. The party ended hours later with Hernandez, 35, lying on a cold slab in a Montreal morgue. Hernandez didn't see the end coming. Neither did his friends. [continues 1346 words]
When Anne Arundel police seized 158 grams of kratom, a plant from Southeast Asia used medicinally for centuries, it was the first time it was seized in a county investigation, according to police. Officers arrested Michaela Elizabeth Gran, 21, and Chase Seven Gran, 23, both of Glen Burnie, on Tuesday after they said the two were found with small amounts of narcotics as well as the 158 grams of kratom. Its seizure caused some confusion, as the drug is legal in Maryland and can be bought for $1 for a pill-sized capsule in local smoke shops. That, and how many people have ever heard of kratom? [continues 644 words]
A union that represents 3,000 oilsands workers at Suncor Energy sites i n northeastern Alberta has won a court injunction against random drug testing. Unifor Local 707- A had argued that random testing would be a violation of workers' rights and privacy. Calgary-based Suncor has said random tests are needed to bolster safety and wanted to start the program this month. In his ruling, Queen's Bench Justice Paul Belzil said the privacy rights of employees are just as important as safety. "In my view the balance of convenience favours granting the injunction," Belzil said in a written judgment released Thursday. [continues 388 words]
For someone caught up in the heat of the moment at a local dance club or rave scene, taking ecstasy may not seem like a life-changing event. But as studies have shown, this decision may indeed be life-altering. A frequent consequence of taking ecstasy is a trip to the hospital. This is because the short-term effects of ecstasy can produce life-threatening increases in temperature and heart rate, and hallucinations. Stuart Collins is a PhD student in the neurosciences and neurological disorders at the University of Toledo college of medicine. [continues 559 words]
First co-ordinator of drugs strategy says community role key to success As the first co-ordinator of a plan to address local drug use, Lacey DaSilva knows she has been handed a weighty task. The Brantford-Brant Community Drugs Strategy, officially launched earlier this month, sets out goals to delay or prevent substance abuse and keep those already using safe and healthy. It also aims to ensure residents have timely access to services and to reframe addiction from an issue of criminal justice to one of public health. [continues 701 words]
Vancouver comic Mark Hughes interviews fentanyl dealer as part of recently launched podcast Death has been a constant in Kyle's life for 25 years. It's a narrative that goes hand in hand with his lifestyle, and shows no signs of abating. Kyle - not his real name - is a fentanyl dealer. He says he's killed people with his own hands, and by extension, through his line of work. Kyle spoke to Vancouver comedian Mark Hughes as part of Hughes' recently-launched podcast called Pulling the Trigger. The Courier attempted to speak with Kyle, but he declined on more than one occasion. [continues 806 words]
Four students share their stories of drug use on campus Illicit drug use among university students might be more common than our parents would like to think. According to the Canadian Tobacco Alcohol and Drugs Survey published by Health Canada in 2015, 11 per cent of 20-24 year-old respondents reported doing cocaine, five said they do speed, meth or other amphetamines, 15 per cent took ecstasy and 16 per cent reported taking hallucinogens. Despite being illegal, marijuana, opiates, amphetamines and stimulants are a very real part of student culture on campus. Although a large majority of students might never encounter them, these drugs exist within social circles across university campuses. [continues 1252 words]
In July, the Food and Drug Administration took the important step of approving two final-phase clinical trials to determine whether a party drug that has long been on the Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule I list of banned substances could be used to treat a psychiatric condition that afflicts millions. The drug is MDMA, a psychedelic commonly known as Ecstasy, previously deemed to have "no currently accepted medical use." The trials aim to determine whether the drug is, as earlier trials have suggested, a safe and effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, when combined with psychotherapy. [continues 869 words]
A 22-year-old Sudbury man will learn Dec. 6 how long he is going to jail, if at all, for selling a drug that contributed to another man's death. "Given the uniqueness of the case, it isn't possible for me to do this (give a sentencing decision) today," Ontario Court Justice Randall Lalande said about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday after a multi-hour sentencing hearing for David Mealey. Mealey pleaded guilty back on July 11 to a charge of trafficking MDA, a derivative of the Ecstasy drug. A pre-sentence report was ordered. [continues 1123 words]
Students to learn to detect overdoses and reverse them using naloxone kits The University of B.C.'s Alma Mater Society is organizing mass training events to teach students to recognize and reverse drug overdoses amid a devastating provincial health emergency that shows no sign of slowing down. Organizers say 120 students are registered for a two-hour training session Thursday in the student union building at UBC's Vancouver campus, where they'll learn the signs of an overdose, how to use a naloxone kit and the role stigma-free language plays in improving the lives of people who use drugs. [continues 547 words]
Clinical coordinator at Vancouver's largest supervised injection site says P.A. should open similar facility Prince Albert should open a safe injection site before a bad situation gets worse, says a senior staff member from Canada's first legal facility for injecting drugs. Tim Gauthier, clinical coordinator at Vancouver's Insite, was the keynote speaker at the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region's HIV Education for Change event on Wednesday. He said he was shocked when he heard how many drug users in the Prince Albert area are contracting HIV through needles. The numbers convinced him that the city needs to expand its harm reduction programs. [continues 1807 words]
Content Warning: drug use and overdose Last week, public health officials in Montreal warned of an imminent fentanyl crisis that poses a serious risk to the city's drug users. Fentanyl is an opioid prescribed to relieve chronic pain, but its intensity is 40 times that of heroin, and its toxicity 100 times that of morphine. Fentanyl can be found in opiates, as well as party drugs such as cocaine, PCP, and MDMA. Because it's often present without the consumer's knowledge, it can easily cause a fatal overdose. In British Columbia, 706 overdose deaths from January to July 2017 involved fentanyl. In Montreal, there have been 24 confirmed drug overdose cases since the beginning of August 2017. Faced with this growing public health crisis, the McGill community must waste no time in supplying the tools and information necessary to keep students safe. [continues 426 words]
A teenage law student from Britain died while on holiday in Ibiza after five bags of ecstasy exploded in her stomach, an inquest heard. Rebecca Brock, 18, was discovered with a pool of blood next to her head in a hotel room after traveling to the party island for a friend's birthday. Nottingham Coroners' Court heard staff found the "academically gifted" student unresponsive in her room at the Hotel Marco Polo on Sept. 28, 2015. Spanish police began an investigation after the amount of the class-A drug in her system was "double the level" of a normal fatal dose. [continues 691 words]
The Food and Drug Administration has determined that illicit drug ecstasy is a "breakthrough therapy" for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly referred to as ecstasy, could now have a faster pathway to pharmaceutical approval in the US, reports Science Alert. The goal of these trials is to determine how effectively the drug treatment can be for those suffering from PTSD. The PSTD research trials will include 200 to 300 participants, and the first trial will begin to accept subjects in 2018. [continues 53 words]
Alberta's justice minister says the province's law enforcement communities are having to "constantly" adapt in their efforts to combat the evolving methods of illicit drug manufacturers. Following news that health workers have found possible fentanyl-laced stickers in Calgary and Edmonton, Kathleen Ganley told reporters that police are doing a "very good job" of staying on top of emerging drug trends. That vigilance on the part of authorities is key, Ganley says. "It's like this with most types of drugs, they're sort of constantly adapting to continue to try to keep those hidden and we're having to constantly adapt to continue to try to find those. We'll continue to use intelligence to move forward." [continues 213 words]
Psst. Pass the word along. Much like the warning at the '60s Woodstock concert to avoid the brown acid, authorities are warning today's recreational drug users to carry naloxone kits in case their drugs are laced with fentanyl. "We're alerting recreational drug users that the MDMA (ecstasy) or cocaine they're taking could be tainted with fentanyl," said Janice Greco, manager of injury and substance misuse prevention at the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU). Greco is sounding the alarm after the health unit was warned of a spike in overdoses between Aug. 9 and Aug. 13 by its surveillance program at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH). [continues 582 words]
One of the Trudeau government's stated policy goals for ending marijuana prohibition is to divert the profits reaped by gangsters toward legitimate shareholders. But an investigation by Greg McArthur and Molly Hayes offers a glimpse into the insidious nature of organized crime, finding that criminal groups easily exploited loopholes in the federal government's old medical-marijuana licensing regimes In the late afternoon of March 14 in the Toronto suburb of Woodbridge, a masked gunman jumped out of the passenger side of a black Jeep Cherokee, darted across a snow-dusted parking lot and unleashed a flurry of bullets into a black BMW. Thirty seconds later, he was back in the car, leaving Saverio Serrano - the son of a notorious Canadian Mafia figure and cocaine importer - wounded, and Mr. Serrano's 28-year-old girlfriend dead. [continues 3221 words]
Decriminalize or legalize crack and that will reduce the opioid crisis and save lives? The hare-brained idea from Toronto that the country should consider decriminalizing or legalizing illicit drugs because current policy has failed is not just "crazy," it is insane. It would be laughable if the issue weren't so deadly serious. The worst of it is that Ottawa's medical officer of health, Dr. Isra Levy, supports this, saying Ottawa Public Health backs "new evidence-based approaches" on fighting drug addiction, including decriminalization. Also on side is the councillor for Ottawa-Vanier, Mathieu Fleury. "It's a crazy thought, but it is a crazy thought that might actually have some merit," he said. [continues 597 words]
