The producer of a documentary about marijuana laws has shared the proceeds from the film's Kelowna premiere with families struggling to pay for medical cannabis. Adam Scorgie presented Kyla Williams, her mother Courtney Williams and grandfather Chris Nuessler with a cheque for $3,500 from the proceeds of the premiere of The Culture High. The 2 1/2-year-old Summerland girl suffers from a severe seizure disorder, but has shown a dramatic improvement since the initiation a few months ago of treatment with cannabis oil. [continues 237 words]
One drug-dependent baby is born every hour in the USA, researchers say. They are the tiniest victims of the nation's opioid epidemic, born into agony -- trembling, sweating and crying inconsolably from the pain of drug withdrawal. And as their numbers soar, doctors, health officials and drug-control professionals are pushing to screen all pregnant women for substance abuse. "When a child's first days in this world are in agony, that certainly should be a concern to all of us," said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. "We need to do all we can to prevent this." [continues 598 words]
Well, once again Stephen Harper has shown another way to measure his lack of judgment and another opportunity to make Canada, thus Canadians, look foolish in the eyes of the world. In this case it is a lack of understanding of language. While the whole country is saying there should be an inquiry into the deaths and disappearance of many aboriginal women, Stephen Harper says it is a matter of crime, not sociology. Although some of us have our thinking coloured by other languages, it should be clear that this is an issue of sociology. Because crime is, itself, a reflection of the sociology of a country. [continues 159 words]
A Winnipeg woman tearfully begged a judge for a longer sentence Thursday, saying she needs extensive help to get her troubled life back on track. Kayla Allen, 28, pleaded guilty to a residential break-and-enter that occurred in 2008. She cut herself during the incident, leaving a trail of blood behind that allowed police to submit for DNA analysis. It took four years for the forensic lab in Regina to get the result back to Winnipeg police, then another two years before investigators finally got around to arresting Allen. [continues 367 words]
She Protests Weekly for Changes in the State's Medical- Marijuana Program. Two high-placed advisers to Gov. Christie recently met with a pediatric nurse who has been staging weekly rallies at the statehouse this summer to protest the rules in the medical-marijuana program that she says hurt the patients, including her severely ill 15- year- old son. Jennie Stormes, of Hope, Warren County, has held demonstrations every Thursday since July 10, saying the restrictions make it difficult for her son, Jackson, a marijuana cardholder with epilepsy, to get the relief that cannabis can provide for his life-threatening and frequent seizures. [continues 879 words]
The two-year-old Summerland, B.C., girl whose family is feeding her illegal cannabis oil has had a dramatic improvement in her seizure disorder. Kyla Williams' family says in the past five months the oil given to the girl has greatly reduced the hundreds of seizures she was suffering from daily. "We were astonished and so thankful when Kyla no longer had any seizures or only a very few each day. Her overall condition continues to improve both physically and mentally. Kyla is alert, increasingly socially interactive and loves sucking her thumb," Kyla's mother, Courtney Williams said. [continues 312 words]
PENTICTON - A two-year-old Summerland girl whose family is feeding her illegal cannabis oil has had a dramatic improvement in her seizure disorder. Kyla Williams' family says in the past five months the oil given to the girl has reduced the hundreds of seizures she was suffering daily. "We were astonished and so thankful when Kyla no longer had any seizures or only very few each day. Her overall condition continues to improve both physically and mentally. Kyla is alert, increasingly socially interactive and loves sucking her thumb," Kyla's mother, Courtney Williams said. [continues 305 words]
PENTICTON - A two-year-old Summerland girl whose family is feeding her illegal cannabis oil has had a dramatic improvement in her seizure disorder. Kyla Williams' family says in the past five months the oil given to the girl has greatly reduced the hundreds of seizures she was suffering daily. "We were astonished and so thankful when Kyla no longer had any seizures or only a very few each day," said Kyla's mother, Courtney Williams. "Her overall condition continues to improve both physically and mentally. Kyla is alert, increasingly socially interactive and loves sucking her thumb." [continues 151 words]
MOUNT VERNON -- Chris Marler wasn't prepared for what she found Sept. 5, 2006, in her Marion County home. She planned to have lunch with her youngest son that day, but when she came home both her sons were dead. "My youngest son died at 7:30 in the morning, and he was gone," Marler said. "I'm on the phone with 911, and I go to the other son's bedroom, and he was foaming at the mouth. So I perform CPR, and then you go into shock." [continues 549 words]
PENTICTON, B.C. - The two-year-old Summerland, B.C., girl whose family is feeding her illegal cannabis oil has had a dramatic improvement in her seizure disorder. Kyla Williams' family says in the past five months the oil given to the girl has greatly reduced the hundreds of seizures she was suffering from daily. "We were astonished and so thankful when Kyla no longer had any seizures or only a very few each day. Her overall condition continues to improve both physically and mentally. Kyla is alert, increasingly socially interactive and loves sucking her thumb," Kyla's mother, Courtney Williams said. [continues 297 words]
Drug-Related Crimes in Rural Counties Fuel Increase Last month, Ohio set a record for the number of women behind bars, and drugs are to blame, officials said. State prisons director Gary Mohr said he is alarmed by the increasing number of women in prison, which hit an all-time high the week of July 7 with 4,160 women, eclipsing the record of 4,132 set the week before. The population first crested 4,000 in June 2013 and has typically remained above that number, regularly changing the record high, especially during the past two months. Drug charges in rural counties are fueling the increase, he said. [continues 943 words]
It was a night Vera Rice would rather forget. The cancer survivor, now in her 60s, was pulled over by police heading home to Seal Cove from treatment at the hospital in Baie Verte and brought to the RCMP detachment in Deer Lake for drug testing. Rice is now cancer-free. But the weak bones and treatment from years gone by have also left her with infections. A few years ago she underwent treatment for a serious infection that had gotten into her bones, and in recent weeks, the same type of infection has returned. [continues 871 words]
An American Family Is Upending Their New Start in New Zealand to Chase Cannabis Treatment for Their Young Daughter Josh Fagan Reports. A NORTHLAND family is being torn apart in their bid to give their six-year-old daughter cannabis. Jessika and Brendan Guest moved from America to Whangarei last year but Jessika and their two children Jade, 6, and Ethan, 8, are heading back to Colorado where they can legally source cannabis oil to treat Jade's epilepsy. Jessika said she believed medicinal marijuana was the best option for Jade, whose condition has worsened in recent months, leaving her suffering more than 30 seizures a day. [continues 753 words]
Trained last week, Holly Springs cop saved woman from overdose In the nine months since her daughter's death, Holly Springs Lieutenant Tanya Smith has done more than grieve. Smith was instrumental in the passage of legislation allowing drug overdose kits to be carried by non-medical personnel. Last week her department became the first in the state to carry the naloxone kits and now it has paid off. Sergeant Nathan Ernst used it Wednesday morning to save a 24-year-old woman who was unconscious and experiencing seizures from an overdose. [continues 506 words]
I could barely believe the explanation for why Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz voted against legislation that would restrain the federal government from enforcing laws against medical marijuana in states where it has been legalized. Her communications director said the congresswoman voted against the legislation because "...it is not appropriate to limit the ability of the Executive Branch to enforce federal law at their discretion." Has she not read how the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis praised the "laboratory of the states" in deciding social issues? Or of the Swiss use of referendums to decide social issues? Rep. Wasserman Schultz confuses social policy with criminal justice policy as exactly the kind of thinking that has made our anti-drug policy so destructive. John Chase, Palm Harbor [end]
Attorney: 2010 Raid Mirrors Botched One in Habersham County. Injured Parties in Both Cases Were Not Targets. Like the baby in Habersham County, a woman ended up in intensive care after Clayton County SWAT officers tossed a flash-bang grenade that she contends landed on her as she slept. Treneshia Dukes, now 27, said in an ongoing federal lawsuit that police tossed the grenade through her bedroom window nearly four years ago when executing a "no-knock" search warrant. She spent three days in Grady Memorial Hospital's intensive care burn unit. [continues 389 words]
A drug raid at a Winnipeg home has triggered an unusual lawsuit against RCMP officers after they allegedly removed a woman from a shower and briefly detained her, naked and wet, in her kitchen. The woman, 58, alleges she's suffered major negative effects from the conduct of the six male officers, including post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional trauma and lasting fears of being home alone and showering. She's now suing the RCMP for an undisclosed amount of money, including for lost wages at her job as a medical technician at St. Boniface Hospital. [continues 494 words]
Lydia Schaeffer, the 7-year-old girl with a rare genetic disorder whose plight inspired lawmakers to legalize a marijuana extract to treat her condition despite their opposition to medical marijuana, has died. Lydia's mother, Sally Schaeffer, had been lobbying the state legislature to legalize the drug, an experimental extract from cannabis plants known as Charlotte's Web, for use on children with seizure disorders. The lawmakers moved to pass the law in record time and Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the bill in April. But Lydia, who died in her sleep on Mother's Day, never got a chance to try the treatment because the law's implementation was still being worked out. [end]
Protests Bring Results but 'Still Work to Be Done', Reports Florence Kerr. Legal highs may have been effectively banned by the Government but a Tokoroa woman who started a nationwide campaign against the drugs is not resting. Julie King is short in stature - 1.52m tall - but this Kiwi battler has fought her demons and won. Until May last year the mother of four held herself captive in her bedroom for two years, suffering from bipolar disorder - a condition that causes people to swing between being manic and being depressed. [continues 479 words]
Simple Answer: Amid controversy, sometimes the basic facts of drug addiction get lost. The nation is watching Tennessee for new legislation that would allow women to be criminally charged if they use drugs during pregnancy that harm their newborns. State and national groups have asked Gov. Bill Haslam to veto the bill before Tuesday, saying criminalization isn't the right approach to stem the state's growing numbers of babies born dependent on drugs. This complicated epidemic raises many questions, yielding few simple answers. Here are a few: [continues 596 words]
