Supervised health unit in Lowertown a temporary solution to ongoing problem The Ottawa Board of Health on Monday night unanimously endorsed a plan by the city's top doctor to set up a temporary supervised injection site in Lowertown at a time when more people are overdosing and ending up in hospital emergency rooms. Isra Levy, the medical officer of health, has already started the legwork to get the site ready at 179 Clarence St., which is an Ottawa Public Health facility, in partnership with the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. Health Canada received the application for an interim injection site there last Tuesday. [continues 519 words]
Report puts Brantford at top in province for emergency room visits due to opioid poisoning, A report putting Brantford at the top of the provincial list for emergency room visits due to opioid overdoses is a "wake-up call," says Ruth Gratton. "I think this report validates all of the hard work that is being done in the community and will serve as justification for ramping up those efforts," Gratton, manager of infectious disease at the Brant County Health Unit, said Friday. [continues 1187 words]
Health board approves Lowertown location The Ottawa Board of Health on Monday night unanimously endorsed a plan by the city's top doctor to set up a temporary supervised injection site in Lowertown at a time when more people are overdosing and ending up in hospital emergency rooms. Isra Levy, the medical officer of health, has already started the legwork to get the site ready at 179 Clarence St., which is an Ottawa Public Health facility, in partnership with the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. Health Canada received the application for an interim injection site there last Tuesday. [continues 476 words]
More than a third of respondents plan to use legalized marijuana A new study by Sudbury-based researchers has found that 39 per cent, or 11.5 million adult Canadians intend to be cannabis consumers once the federal government's legalization plan becomes a reality. According to a survey of 5,000 randomly selected Canadians, done in partnership between Oraclepoll Research and cannabis marketing consultant Colin Firth, 57 per cent of Canadians support the federal government's plan to legalize marijuana by July 2018. [continues 1042 words]
NDP leadership candidate Jagmeet Singh's recent promise that, as prime minister, he would move quickly to drop criminal penalties for possession or purchase of small amounts of all drugs will no doubt seem radical to many. Broad-based decriminalization would be a stark reversal after decades of increasingly punitive policies. And this would certainly add a layer of complication to the already-complicated task of legalizing marijuana, which Ottawa and the provinces are struggling to do by next summer. The Trudeau government's current position on decriminalization is understandable: Ottawa already has its hands full with pot. [continues 862 words]
Government, business community and advocacy groups have varied opinions As the deadline for the federal government's move to legalize marijuana in July 2018 approaches, users, stakeholders, business people and politicians involved in the matter offer a variety of concerns. Hank Merchant, CEO of HBB Medical, a medical marijuana dispensary, welcomes the introduction of guidelines and regulations on the sale of marijuana, "because there are people who have no qualms about operating outside the law." "We, as medical marijuana dispensaries, don't do that," Merchant added. [continues 1044 words]
Harm reduction is one kind of treatment approach for helping people with substance abuse disorders and it can be confusing for people not familiar with it. "Sometimes people think it's abstinence versus harm reduction but that isn't true," said Laura Chapman, health promotion specialist with Mental Health and Addiction Services. "Harm reduction absolutely includes abstinence." Chapman and many other clinical therapists, counsellors and other professionals working directly with people suffering from substance abuse disorders feel harm reduction is an important tool. [continues 244 words]
A federal New Democratic leadership hopeful has pledged to make it party policy to decriminalize petty drug possession if he is elected leader, supporting calls by an increasing number of health officials who say it would help lift the stigma around addiction. Jagmeet Singh made his pledge on Sunday at an NDP leadership debate in Vancouver, a city that had recorded nearly 250 suspected overdose deaths by the end of August. Across British Columbia, 876 people died of illicit-drug overdoses from January through July of this year. [continues 765 words]
There have to be restrictions; there have to be some controls as we navigate this brave new world of legalization. Without question, the Ontario government's plan to regulate marijuana once the drug is legalized makes eminent sense. There's no doubt that Canada is entering uncharted waters; caution should be the watchword. We are, for the first time, legalizing the recreational use of a street drug whose broader long-term impact on the population remains uncertain and the last thing we need is to plunge into this with careless abandon. [continues 543 words]
Without question, the Ontario government's plan to regulate marijuana once the drug is legalized makes eminent sense. There's no doubt that Canada is entering unchartered waters; caution should be the watchword. We are, for the first time, legalizing the recreational use of a street drug whose broader long-term impact on the population remains uncertain and the last thing we need is to plunge into this with careless abandon. No, the provincial Liberals are not taking us back to the 1950s with the measures they have announced to control the sale of cannabis. The government is simply taking it one step at a time, and it is the right strategy. [continues 459 words]
Without question, the Ontario government's plan to regulate marijuana once the drug is legalized makes eminent sense. There's no doubt that Canada is entering unchartered waters; caution should be the watchword. We are, for the first time, legalizing the recreational use of a street drug whose broader long-term impact on the population remains uncertain and the last thing we need is to plunge into this with careless abandon. No, the provincial Liberals are not taking us back to the 1950s with the measures they have announced to control the sale of cannabis. The government is simply taking it one step at a time, and it is the right strategy. [continues 502 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]
Government-controlled outlets, website only place weed will be bought legally Premier Kathleen Wynne is cornering Ontario's recreational marijuana market by restricting sales to 150 LCBO-run stores. The stand-alone cannabis outlets, separate from provincially owned liquor stores, and a government-controlled website will be the only place weed can lawfully be sold after Ottawa legalizes it on July 1. In a move that will close scores of illegal "dispensaries" that now dot Ontario cities, the LCBO will get its product from the medical marijuana producers licenced by Health Canada. [continues 492 words]
Government union says public sales model best bet for health and safety CANADA'S most populous province has announced a plan to sell legal marijuana through a publicly owned system, which is music to the ears of the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union. MGEU president Michelle Gawronsky said she hopes Ontario's plan to sell cannabis separately from alcohol in publicly owned, stand-alone stores will set an example for Manitoba. A public sales model operated by Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation would be the best possible option from a public health and safety perspective, she argued. [continues 1189 words]
The Ontario government is going to pot. The province announced Wednesday it plans to replace drug dealers and dispensaries next year when recreational marijuana use is set to be legalized in Canada. Legislation will be introduced at Queen's Park later in the fall that will make the government the only legal retail distributor for cannabis in Ontario. The stores will be under the purview of the LCBO. However, alcohol and marijuana will not be sold side by side. "We are committed to getting this transition right," Charles Sousa, Ontario's minister of finance, said in a news release announcing the policy. "When it comes to retail distribution, the LCBO has the expertise, experience and insight to ensure careful control of cannabis, helping us to discourage illicit market activity and see that illegal dispensaries are shut down." [continues 386 words]
The LCBO model works. It's proven and we feel strongly that it's the way to go. A new arm of the LCBO will sell recreational marijuana in Ontario, the province announced Friday morning, with the goal being to keep people from buying it. "We've heard people across Ontario are anxious about the federal legalization of cannabis," Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said, setting the tone. "The province is moving forward with a safe and sensible approach to legalization that will ensure we can keep our communities and roads safe, promote public health and harm reduction, and protect Ontario's young people." [continues 1029 words]
B.C.'s first minister of mental health and addictions says she will take an "all-ministry" approach to the overdose crisis, influenced in part by Portugal's renowned policy for druguse and addiction. Minister Judy Darcy met with Dr. Joao Goulao, Portugal's national drug co-ordinator, at this week's Recovery Capital Conference of Canada in New Westminster. In 1998, Goulao was part of a committee that developed policy to deal with a deadly drug crisis in his country, during which one per cent of the population was addicted. [continues 564 words]
Canada should declare opioid crisis: Doctor The head of Portugal's addictions directorate is urging Canada to declare the opioid overdose crisis a national health emergency. On a tour of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the innercity neighbourhood home to many people who struggle with addictions and mental health, Dr. Joao Goulao said the sheer number of deaths caused by the tainted supply of illicit drugs warrants the declaration. Portugal is often held up as a model of progressive drug reform. Policy changes started in the late 1990s in that country included decriminalizing drugs, something many public health advocates are now advocating for Canada as the only truly effective way to remove the risk of ingesting illicit drugs tainted with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. [continues 243 words]
Niagara needs a multi-pronged approach to head off the increasing number of people overdosing on opioids like fentanyl, said associate medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji. As part of that approach, members of Niagara's public health committee voted Tuesday to hire additional staff to implement an enhanced provincial government program that includes outreach services to assist people dealing with opioid addictions, opioid use surveillance, and increased distribution of naloxone kits, paid for with $250,000 in provincial funding. [continues 592 words]
Earlier this month, people in Canada witnessed the importance of community resistance and activism on issues of drugpolicy reform. Vancouver's lead organizers and front-line workers in Toronto pushed Health Canada to do what is right and necessary in order to effectively respond to the overdose crisis. A community of care, driven to save the lives of friends, family and neighbours, set up two white tents in Toronto's Moss Park. Inside, volunteers at this pop-up "overdose prevention site" supervise drug use and save lives - something the federal government should have been doing long ago, when communities across Canada first began sounding the alarm. I visited the site last week and was moved by the commitment and compassion of the volunteers who were valiantly saving lives, day after day. [continues 639 words]
