While regional councillors have heard bits and pieces about the opioid response in the region, they heard it from the horse's mouth on Tuesday. Members from various regional and community groups spoke before council in a public meeting to encourage a broad understanding of the complex issue. The public meeting was broken down into core areas, such as policing, mental health services and public health services. Bruce Lauckner, CEO of the Waterloo-Wellington Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), said opioids have become similar to cancer, where the general population is impacted by one or two degrees of separation at most. [continues 1113 words]
The B.C. government stepped up its fight against the growing number of drug overdose deaths Friday with the launch of a new emergency response centre that will link to regional and community action teams on Vancouver Island and elsewhere. The emergency centre will have about 10 full- and part-time staff based at Vancouver General Hospital and backed by a team of experts. The centre will analyze data, spot trends and work with new regional teams at Island Health and the other four health authorities to improve front-line services. [continues 632 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]
Packed event featured seven speakers, plenty of questions The fentanyl death toll is rising in B.C., but so is local interest in finding solutions to the crisis. A packed room at the Hume Hotel heard stories and statistics Wednesday evening from a seven-person panel at an event called Growing Hope: A Community Conversation on the Current Fentanyl Crisis, which was put on by Nelson's Fentanyl Task Force. Cheryl Dowden, executive director of ANKORS, co-hosted the evening with Nelson Police Department chief Paul Burkart. The event had been planned to run two hours, but ended up stretching to three as the audience peppered speakers with questions. [continues 600 words]
The anti-narcotics police arrived here in the heart of Colombia's cocaine industry last month to destroy the coca crop. The community was determined to save it. Roughly 1,000 farmers, some armed with clubs, surrounded the hilltop camp that police had set up in a jungle clearing and began closing in on the officers. The police started shooting. When they were done, seven farmers were dead and 21 were wounded. "Several friends and neighbors died on the ground waiting for medical assistance," said Luis Gaitan, 32, who protected himself by hiding behind a tree stump. [continues 1571 words]
An Indiana high school teacher was arrested on drug charges Wednesday after her students said they saw her using cocaine in her classroom. Lake Central High School junior Will Rogers told WGN9 he shot video of the incident through a classroom window. "She's in the corner, hiding with a chair and a book and what appears to be cocaine, putting it into lines," Rogers told the TV station. "When I actually watched the footage again and again and I just realized that my english teacher just did cocaine." [continues 117 words]
An audit released Monday by the Windsor Police Services Board shows the recent handling of evidence in cases involving street drugs has been in compliance and largely free of errors. But the audit performed over two months this summer by Ontario's Ministry of Community, Safety and Correctional Services made 11 recommendations for improvements, and all but one have already been implemented, said Chief Al Frederick. The audit was triggered at the request of Frederick and the police board following questions that were raised over the 2013 disappearance of $25,000 in cocaine from a drug vault under officers' control. [continues 244 words]
Judge blasts Ottawa cops for arresting 'budtenders' while pot shops flourish An Ottawa judge has blasted the police force for failing to shut down the city's illegal marijuana dispensaries. Justice Norman Boxall said Friday he cannot understand why it's so difficult to close shops that operate openly on major streets. "I just don't understand how the police cannot shut down a dispensary where the person has a big sign up, as I drive down Rideau St', that says 'marijuana dispensary.' They brag about it on the Internet that they are selling it. [continues 557 words]
An Ottawa judge has blasted the police force for failing to shut down the city's illegal marijuana dispensaries. Justice Norman Boxall said Friday he can't understand why it's so difficult to close shops that operate openly on major streets. "I just don't understand how the police cannot shut down a dispensary where the person has a big sign up, as I drive down Rideau Street, that says 'marijuana dispensary.' They brag about it on the internet that they are selling it. [continues 431 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]
Federal agents arrested a Philadelphia police officer Tuesday, accusing him of conspiring with officers in Baltimore to sell cocaine and heroin seized from that city's streets. Prosecutors say that Eric Troy Snell, 33, earned thousands of dollars serving as a conduit between corrupt members of a Baltimore police task force who stole the drugs and his brother, who sold them in Philadelphia. Investigators also have accused Snell of threatening the children of a Baltimore officer who pleaded guilty in the case. [continues 362 words]
Charges against two men dismissed over unlawful strip searches by North Bay police Drug charges were dismissed against two men after a Superior Court judge criticized North Bay police officers for their "blatant disregard for Charter rights." Ontario Superior Court Justice Norman Karam presided over the pre-trial application last month that was brought forward by the accused - Ryan Fray and Raymond Oppong. Karam said the accused were unlawfully detained and strip searched, breaching their Charter rights, following an invalid arrest. [continues 810 words]
A Brantford man who has battled drug addiction for more than 40 years hopes the city follows through with safe injection sites as part of its strategy to combat substance abuse. But Randy Roberts, 53, said there is also a need for the treatment of trauma as part of a program to treat substance abuse. "I want people to remember that we're all hurting," he said. "There has been a lot of work done on this and for most addicts the root cause of their addiction is childhood trauma -- physical, psychological, sexual abuse." [continues 701 words]
Dealers who hand out drugs laced with fentanyl could face manslaughter charges if their customers die, B.C. Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said recently. It's a harsh measure, but nothing else seems to stem the waves of poison that are killing people across the province. When even dead customers are not enough to stop a callous retailer, society must put its collective conscience where the dealer's is absent. Farnworth's suggestion is not new. Other jurisdictions, fed up with the senseless deaths, are coming down hard on those who, in the minister's words, are "dealing death." [continues 510 words]
Dealers who hand out drugs laced with fentanyl could face manslaughter charges if their customers die, B.C. Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said recently. It's a harsh measure, but nothing else seems to stem the waves of poison that are killing people across the province. When even dead customers are not enough to stop a callous retailer, society must put its collective conscience where the dealer's is absent. Farnworth's suggestion is not new. Other jurisdictions, fed up with the senseless deaths, are coming down hard on those who, in the minister's words, are "dealing death." [continues 522 words]
As little as five years ago, we imagine most people would have scoffed at the idea of needing a special group to pick up discarded needles in the community. Though the Comox Valley is not as badly affected as others, which are in the middle of a needle epidemic directly related to the opioid crisis that has killed so many across B.C. in the last several years, it isn't immune, either. The provincial statistics for 2017 to date are horrifying. This province has never faced a drug threat like that of fentanyl. [continues 224 words]
Analysis of 50 cases sheds light on how people often suffering from poverty or other disadvantages were tarred by test results indicating that they were drinkers or drug users In an Elliot Lake, Ont., courtroom in 2011, a woman fighting for custody of her step-grandchild tried to convince the judge that Motherisk's results were bogus. The Children's Aid Society of Algoma had submitted Motherisk's tests of the woman's hair, which were positive for cocaine and opioids, as proof she had recently used drugs. The woman, identified by the court as L.G., argued the lab must have miscalculated because she had been clean for several months. The judge was not swayed. [continues 2243 words]
Hair testing by Motherisk was presented as evidence in a murder case. It was deemed not up to forensic standards, tossed out and even mocked by the judge. That was in Colorado - 22 years before the Motherisk scandal blew up Twenty-two years before controversy shuttered the Motherisk lab, before its hair-strand drug tests were deemed unreliable, before the outcomes of thousands of child protection cases were called into question, a Colorado court threw out Motherisk's evidence in a hearing that foretold the crisis that is now playing out across Canada. [continues 2352 words]
Health and legal experts are urging caution about the idea of charging fentanyl dealers with manslaughter, saying such a move would do little to deter sellers and could instead punish those who are already struggling with substance-use disorders. B.C. Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth mentioned the idea to reporters at an unrelated event last week, saying it was raised at a recent meeting of federal and provincial public safety ministers. "We strongly believe that if you're dealing fentanyl, you're dealing death, and you should be facing much more severe penalties such as manslaughter charges," Mr. Farnworth said. [continues 727 words]
