A Carlington pot shop won't reopen after a fire now being probed by arson investigators, says a city councillor who's long been opposed to the illicit enterprise. The owners of Ottawa Cannabis Dispensary did not respond to an interview request but Coun. Riley Brockington said that they told him Friday that the Laperriere Avenue shop had closed before it was gutted by an early morning fire and they are no longer in the business. Brockington is disappointed that arson is suspected in the fire, which was near homes and across the street from a Montessori school. Nearby businesses include an auto body shop with a stack of tires, and a chip truck out front with a large propane tank. [continues 409 words]
MORE than 21 per cent of adult Manitobans used cannabis in the past year and another 21.1 per cent may try it after legalization, new data from the Liquor and Gaming Authority of Manitoba suggests. The figures come from an anonymous phone survey of 1,201 adults in September. The alcohol and gambling regulator, whose mandate will include marijuana, says its sample is "quasi-representative" of the province's adult population. The survey found 55.2 per cent of Manitobans have used cannabis, with 16 being the most common age of initiation. [continues 282 words]
On July 1, 2018, marijuana is going to be legalized in Canada. However, there is no need to fear. In fact, Canadians should feel more at ease as July 1 approaches. Legalization means many things for Canadians. Once a substance is legalized, it directly and aggressively hemorrhages revenue from the black market. When criminal organizations lose money, they lose power. When they lose power, they lose their ability to negatively affect society. This will be akin to what occurred when prohibition ceased in the United States. All these criminal organizations lost their power and wealth once alcohol was relegalized. Legalization, in turn, made society at large safer and more hospitable. [continues 105 words]
Legalized marijuana will 'enslave our youth" and turn the federal government into "the new pusher on the block," a Chatham politician says - drawing a rebuke from the community's top publichealth official. Dave Van Kesteren said that nothing about the federal government's Cannabis Act is good, but he's particularly concerned about how it allows youth ages 11 to 17 to carry up to five grams of cannabis. "Doctors have been saying, psychiatrists have been saying, that because the brain is still forming and is not fully formed by the time somebody is 25, somebody below that age should certainly not be using it," the Conservative member said in an interview. [continues 426 words]
A SLIGHT majority of Manitobans disagree with Premier Brian Pallister's calls to delay federal legalization of cannabis in Canada, according to a new online poll from the Angus Reid Institute. Fifty-eight per cent of Manitoba respondents say, "The timeline should not be changed." Nationwide, 53 per cent of all respondents agree. The Angus Reid Institute's online poll used a sample of 1,510 Canadians who were randomly selected members of the pollster's proprietary Angus Reid Forum, which the website describes as a representative panel of "almost 130,000 Canadian households." The poll, conducted Nov. 14 to 20, includes a sample of 101 Manitobans. [continues 450 words]
Why is Canada being changed for the worse? For example, young peoples' brains are definitely adversely affected by THC in marijuana and yet we are legalizing this garbage? We, soon, will be a nation of idiots. Why is it that our judiciary is letting a convicted murderers out on un-escorted passes i.e. Melissa Todorovic and Tara Sanderson. Are the victims granted life again? NO, but the murderers are not punished. They just get a slap on the wrist and their lives go on. Why is it that I think that Canada's judicial system is a joke? Our bending over backwards to be oh-so accommodating is turning logic and common sense upside-down. Where is this "Oh aren't we so tolerant and accommodating" going to end? We have to get back to logic and common sense. J.R. Baldwin Omemee [end]
Absolutely everybody in sight has had a go at Ronald Orr this week. Which, just as a polite heads-up to the man's friends and family, is not going to stop me from joining in. Orr is the Alberta MLA who rose in the provincial legislature on Wednesday to discuss his fears about the "social and economic experiment" of marijuana legalization. This happened during the debate on Alberta's bill making arrangements to meet the federal government's legalization deadline. Orr, a religious minister and former construction contractor, attracted national attention because he started gibbering about Chinese history, the Opium Wars, and the Cultural Revolution. The Vietnam War found its way in there, somehow. The fella jumped around quite a bit. [continues 635 words]
A group of Alberta's future doctors are calling on the provincial government to use cannabis tax revenue to fund mental health initiatives for youth. At least, that will be the pitch when 40 medical students from the University of Alberta and University of Calgary get together Monday with MLAs from various parties. The Alberta Medical Students' Association has previously used its annual meeting at the legislature to push for investments in mental health, but this time the group wants funding for young adults and children at risk of adverse childhood experience. They are also calling for the formation of a cannabis and youth advisory board to work on future prevention, education and intervention efforts. [continues 289 words]
Alberta cities want to hash out details on dealing with fallout from legalized marijuana Who's going to do what, who's going to pay for what?" Barry Morishita, Alberta Urban Municipalities Association The newly elected president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, Barry Morishita, said the NDP government has been good at keeping municipalities in the loop as it works through cannabis legalization. But the Brooks mayor said municipalities are still looking for answers in some areas as the July 1, 2018, deadline for legalization moves ever closer. [continues 627 words]
Grey-Bruce task force expands mandate from mostly meth to other drugs, substances The Grey Bruce Task Force on Crystal Meth and Other Drugs is expanding its mandate. As part of the expansion, the group, which involves a network of over 30 local partners, has changed its name to the Community Drug and Alcohol Strategy. "We recognize there continues to be crystal met husein the community, so we are not saying we have solved the problem and it is time to move on to something else," Alison Govier, coordinator of the Community Drug and Alcohol Strategy said Friday. "But we are also seeing a trend in polysubstance use -- dependence on more than one substance at a time -- so we feel as a community our efforts are better spent to expand the mandate to include all substances." [continues 610 words]
Top grower says science convinced him despite his initial reluctance Jim Hole is getting into the commercial cannabis game and he couldn't be happier. In fact, the St. Albert greenhouse owner who has dedicated a lifetime to horticulture can't remember the last time he was this excited about growing a plant. This week, Hole's Greenhouses and Atlas Growers, an Alberta-based medicinal and recreational cannabis producer, joined forces to create a partnership that they hope will produce the very best commercial quality harvest of legal marijuana in the industry. [continues 331 words]
On Monday, Nov. 27, The Cannabis Act passed third reading. This was the last vote in the House of Commons before the legislation goes to the Senate for review and approval. The government's plan is to have marijuana on the market for recreational use starting July 1, 2018. I voted "no" to this legislation. Here's why: The Liberal government has been told by numerous authorities, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, to slow down. There's no reason the legislation needs to come into effect on July 1, 2018 and law enforcement agents have warned the government of the negative impact its rushed time frame will have on officers and the safety of Canadians. [continues 782 words]
The proliferation of personal yet industrial-scale marijuana farms, licensed and shielded by health privacy laws, has created a shadow market in which individual patients are collectively churning out as much marijuana as some commercial producers - with none of the scrutiny. Although they operate under the guise of legitimacy, a Globe and Mail investigation has found that these personal grow-ops are prime targets for robberies and abuse by organized crime. As the federal government edges closer to scrapping Canada's longstanding prohibition against the sale of recreational marijuana, the country's two-tiered medical marijuanaregime serves as a major obstacle to one of Ottawa's frequently stated legalization goals: the elimination of gangsters from a legal marketplace. [continues 3069 words]
It will become legal next year, but the local health unit is grappling with what role it will play in dealing with recreational cannabis. The federal government has laid out the legal framework to legalize recreational cannabis use by June, and the province has already set out how it plans to regulate use throughout Ontario. The sale of marijuana will only be allowed through government-regulated stores overseen by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and the proposed minimum age to use, purchase and possess will be 19. [continues 475 words]
CALGARY - It looks like Canadian Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Ross Rebagliati may have been right all along. Rebagliati, the first Olympic gold medalist for Men's Snowboarding at the 1998 Winter Olympics, was initially disqualified after THC, the main ingredient in marijuana, was found in his system in a drug test. The decision was eventually overturned since cannabis wasn't a banned substance but Rebagliati maintained the positive drug test was the result of second-hand smoke. Now a study from the Cummings School of Medicine at the University of Calgary seems to support his claim. [continues 358 words]
There's a reason provincial governments in this country are freaking out about having to meet next summer's deadline for legalizing pot: They're finding it a complete and utter nightmare. There's so much to consider. Who can grow it? How will it be retailed and marketed? What level of taxation will be applied? How will new laws associated with a million and one different aspects of legalization be enforced? Who covers those costs? What happens when someone's dog dies after eating a neighbour's marijuana plant? And that barely scratches the surface. "The scope of it is unbelievable," B.C. Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth said in a recent interview. [continues 664 words]
Turns out, this bud isn't just for you. True Leaf Medicine International Ltd., a small Canadian company operating in the country's fast-emerging marijuana industry, plans to sell dog chews containing cannabis extracts. True Leaf already makes hemp-seed infused products for dogs to ease joint pain, anxiety and inflammation. It intends to raise C$10 million ($7.8 million) through an equity crowdfunding in the U.S. to build a marijuana production facility in British Columbia, eventually allowing it to extract cannabidiol -- a cannabis compound without psychoactive properties -- to treat medical conditions in both humans and animals. [continues 216 words]
Province sets 19 as minimum age to buy pot You'll have to be 19 to buy recreational marijuana in Manitoba and only eligible medicinal users will be able to grow weed at home. If provincial legislation introduced Tuesday passes as is, the minimum purchase and possession age for recreational cannabis will be one year older than both the federally required minimum and Manitoba's legal drinking age. The feds are set to legalize recreational pot on July 1, 2018. The province says setting a higher-than-required minimum consumption age will help keep marijuana out of schools and out of the hands of kids. [continues 825 words]
Re: Marijuana legalization I agree with the letter to the editor from Rita Dillon. Don't we have enough situations that degrade we Canadians at this time? Do we have to have marijuana for entertainment purposes? Is there not enough sickness around that cannot be controlled? One day the use or possession of marijuana is against the law of the land, then it's encouraged to be used. Talk about sick. Maybe some of our politicians need a good looking at, starting from the top. Norphy Rosetto Niagara-on-the-Lake [end]
For the owner of Uncle Ike's, one of the biggest marijuana shops in Seattle, the teenagers who come through his legal storefront to score weed are some of the clearest indicators the black market is on the wane. "Underage kids try to sneak into our store with fake IDs from the local high schools," says Ian Eisenberg. "Because there is no pot being sold at the local high schools anymore." Stamping out the illicit market is one of Ottawa's major goals as the country approaches a July 2018 deadline for the legalization of recreational marijuana - leaving politicians little time to lay out exactly how to sell, price and tax cannabis. [continues 789 words]
