A Richland woman died Wednesday in her apartment from a suspected heroin overdose, leaving her 3-year-old son alone in the residence until police found him. The woman was identified as Lauren Wilson, 34, of Thomas Village in the 5600 block of Community Center Drive. Police were called Wednesday afternoon by Ms. Wilson's mother because she was unable to contact her daughter by phone, Northern Regional Police Department Chief T. Robert Amann said today. Police found Ms. Wilson's body and a syringe. [continues 322 words]
Hospital should own its role, and help foot bill, in fallout from faulty drug tests, CAS head says Children's aid societies are calling on the Hospital for Sick Children to "step up" and own the role it played in the Motherisk scandal that saw faulty drug and alcohol hair tests used in thousands of child protection cases. Mary Ballantyne, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS), said Sick Kids, which housed the discredited Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory, should do more to assist in the significant efforts underway to deliver justice to those affected. [continues 867 words]
Kingston woman whose daughter was stuck by needle at city park wants it to be a lesson for all A Kingston business owner, blogger and mother is warning parents to talk to their children about discarded needles after her daughter stuck herself with one earlier this month. "I've anticipated what happens if they fall from a tree and their arm hurts, or if they stepped in glass, I've run through that process in my mind of what I would do I've thought through all the scenarios in my head, but this is one that never occurred to me," Natalie George, mother of four, told the Whig-Standard on Friday morning. [continues 744 words]
Hospital, former lab director point fingers at each other, deny allegations in proposed class action lawsuit The Hospital for Sick Children and the director of its former Motherisk laboratory are now battling each other in court. The two sides have issued cross-claims against each other as part of their statements of defence filed in a proposed class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was launched by parents who claim they lost their children because of faulty drug and alcohol hair tests carried out by Motherisk. [continues 574 words]
Family told airport security in Persian Gulf nation found bag with trace amounts of pot A Hamilton mother is asking Canadians to put pressure on local MPs in support of her daughter, a 27-year-old teacher imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates. "All I want is for her to be supported," said Joanne Augustyn, mother of Heather Augustyn, who was imprisoned in the UAE on Aug. 26 after a random search by airport security. She was returning to teach elementary school at the Abu Dhabi International Private School, where she had started working a year ago after graduating from Western University. [continues 397 words]
As Californians get ready to vote Nov. 8 on whether to legalize recreational marijuana, there are broader public health questions to consider. A pregnant woman has morning sickness so severe she can't keep food down, so she stirs some cannabis-infused oil into her morning tea to regain her appetite. An elderly man has chronic pain that keeps him up at night, so he smokes marijuana most nights before he and his wife go to bed. There's a growing body of research that suggests marijuana can help with conditions such as nausea and pain while posing only modest health risks for adults. But as Californians get ready to vote Nov. 8 on whether to legalize recreational marijuana, there are broader public health questions to consider, from whether it affects developing fetuses to the impacts of secondhand smoke. [continues 882 words]
A Napanee-area marijuana facility is now able to sell its medical product to patients in need, and a mother says her son is benefitting from the development. Six-year-old Gage is able to sit up by himself, playing with a few coloured balls and his iPad while his mother, Kelly, shares their story. Gage has lissencephaly type 1, a rare and incurable neurological disorder, as well as having a severe, rare, yet unnamed, form of epilepsy. "They can't even give it a name because he has so many characteristics from other syndromes of epilepsy," Kelly, whose last name is not being released to protect Gage's privacy, said. "And he currently takes cannabis." [continues 641 words]
The War on Drugs fueled the modern-day prison industrial complex for decades, and many politicians now agree that it was a misguided federal policy that resulted in the needless incarceration of millions of Americans - particularly Black and Latino folks. From 1990 to 2010, the amount of people in state prisons for drug offenses increased by 52 percent according to the American Civil Liberties Union. These arrests for non-violent crimes tore apart communities of color nationwide, separating families and saddling the loved ones of incarcerated individuals with financial burdens - from legal costs to drastic reductions to their household incomes. [continues 198 words]
Cbd Oil Dispensed in Several US States but No Doctor Here Will Prescribe It Cork Mother Made Plea to Minister for Health but Says His Hands Tied by Law The mother of a six-year-old girl with a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy fears her daughter will die unless a consultant goes out on a limb and prescribes cannabis oil to lessen her seizures. Ava Barry from Aghabullogue in Co Cork endures hundreds of seizures every year. Her mother, Vera Twomey, fears her daughter's life will be cut prematurely short unless a doctor prescribes cannabis oil which has been known to control the severity and number of seizures. [continues 541 words]
Women launch court challenge, saying commission meant to help them has shut them out of process Three mothers who claim that their children were removed from their care as a result of faulty drug and alcohol hair tests at Hospital for Sick Children's Motherisk laboratory have gone to court to call out what they see as a lack of transparency at the commission set up to review their cases. The very people the commission was established to help want to see everything the commission has seen when looking at their story. [continues 1237 words]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection will pay $475,000 to a New Mexico woman who accused agents in Texas of forcing her to undergo illegal body-cavity probes. The woman was at an El Paso port of entry when a drug-sniffing dog jumped on her, according to court filings. The American Civil Liberties Union in Texas and New Mexico announced the settlement Thursday. Customs and Border Protection officers will also be required to undergo additional training. A lawsuit filed in 2013 said the woman - a 54-year-old U.S. citizen referred to only as Jane Doe - was "brutally" searched by customs agents in December 2012. [continues 72 words]
Female Entrepreneurs Aim to Lead in Medical Cannabis The burgeoning sisterhood of Maryland's marijuana entrepreneurs gathered in the back room of a Columbia chain restaurant recently, swapping business ideas over chicken wings and cheese cubes. Maryland's long-promised medical marijuana industry doesn't exist yet, and that's precisely why more than 60 women, mostly dressed like a PTA crowd, banded together there - to rise to the top before anyone gets in their way. "How vital are women to the success of the cannabis business in Maryland? If you're asking, I probably don't want to talk to you," said Megan Rogers, a co-founder of the Baltimore chapter of Women Grow and an applicant to open a dispensary. "We're here to ensure that the cannabis industry has no glass ceiling." [continues 1173 words]
In October 2014, Ashley Cervantes crossed from Nogales, Arizona, to Nogales, Sonora, to have breakfast at one of her favorite restaurants. But on the way back home, the U.S. citizen was confronted at a port of entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who accused her of carrying drugs. Over the next seven hours while in custody of CBP officers, she was handcuffed to a chair, checked by drug-sniffing dogs, asked to squat so a female investigator could visually inspect her, and then taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where a male physician probed her vagina and anus for drugs as part of an unwarranted body-cavity search, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on June 8. [continues 713 words]
A new Edmonton professional group wants to help local women rise high in the blossoming Canadian cannabis industry. While mention of someone working in the pot field might bring up images of stoners selling dime bags, Women Grow Edmonton chair Alison McMahon says the city has medical marijuana clinics, smoke stores, hemp shops and the headquarters of Alberta's only licensed grower, Aurora Cannabis Enterprises Inc. "This is an industry that's changing so rapidly and becoming mainstream quickly," she says. [continues 402 words]
Appeals Court Says Charter Violations Necessitated a Verdict of Not Guilty For the second time in less than two weeks, Ontario's top court has overturned a drug conviction after concluding Ottawa police officers seriously violated the rights of a suspect. Eneida Pino was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking after Ottawa police seized 50 marijuana plants from the trunk of her car following a dramatic takedown in June 2010. The officers had been following Pino, a 43-year-old cleaning lady, after watching her leave a house on St. Claire Avenue that they suspected to be a marijuana grow operation. [continues 552 words]
One local woman is working to get an involuntary drug rehabilitation law passed in Alabama. The law, which JoAnn Hendrix is calling Jamie's Law, would provide a means for families to petition the court to order their loved one with a drug problem to be placed in an involuntary drug rehabilitation treatment program. In a paper outlining the objective of Jamie's Law that Hendrix sent to the Governor's office, she describes it as a law that would provide a means of intervening with someone who is unable to recognize their need for treatment due to substance-abuse impairment of their mind. This would be similar to Casey's Law, also known as the Matthew Casey Wethington Act for Substance Abuse Intervention, in Kentucky. [continues 410 words]
INDONESIAN police have set up "several" firing squads ready for deployment to a notorious prison island as the country finalises preparations for a fresh wave of executions of drug smugglers. Two British death row inmates, including grandmother Lindsay Sandiford (59), could be among the next batch of prisoners tied to a stake and executed. Commander Aloys Darmanto, the Central Java police spokesman, said yesterday the provincial mobile brigade unit has established several firing squads to be sent when needed to Nusakambangan prison island. [continues 241 words]
Motivated by love and desperation, an area mother is fighting an uphill battle to treat her daughter's chronic illness with a special cannabis oil. The establishment, predictably, is against her: the doctors aren't keen; the child-welfare authorities aren't amused; her ex-husband, the child's father, called the cops. Still, she soldiers on, with the dedication a mother feels deepest, determined to alleviate her child's chronic respiratory condition. "I'm trying my damnedest to help my daughter and to fight for other parents who just want to help their kids," she told the Citizen. "Nothing else has ever worked." [continues 889 words]
Nearly four years after her daughter died of an opioid overdose, Donna May will share her story of loss and learning at the United Nations. Ms. May's daughter Jac, 35, died on Aug. 21, 2012, after overdosing on pain medication prescribed to help her cope with a flesh-eating disease she'd contracted after years of addiction and life on the streets =2E "From the time she passed away until [now], all I've done is advocate for drug policy reform and to have other people receive the education I was given so they don't face the situation the same way I did. And that's my daughter's legacy," Ms. May said in an interview from Mississauga. [continues 299 words]
While medical marijuana has been passed in Pennsylvania after lengthy deliberation it may be too early for celebration based on the opinions of some of the advocates close to the passage of the bill. "This is a great step forward, but there's still a ways to go," said Karen Diller, of Chambersburg, who became an advocate for medical marijuana after her daughter Karly found significant relief in a medical marijuana study. Senate Bill No. 3, the medical marijuana bill that was signed into law Sunday by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, will allow people to seek medical marijuana for diseases that range from severe gastrointestinal problems to some of the diseases more traditionally treated with medical marijuana such as cancer or HIV/AIDS. [continues 471 words]
