BESSEMER - An autopsy has found that an 18-year-old Brighton woman died in the Bessemer City Jail after a drug overdose. Sheneque Proctor was found dead Nov. 2, less than 24 hours after being arrested on disorderly conduct and other charges after a disturbance at a Bessemer motel. Authorities have said that Proctor struggled with police during the arrest, and that officers used pepper spray on her. Al.com reports that the Jefferson County Coroner's Office found that the cause of her death was complications of overdosing on a combination of drugs. The autopsy states that tests found cocaine, methadone and alprazolam in her system. Alprazolam is used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and anxiety caused by depression. The coroner's report lists the manner of death as accidental. [end]
Top court denies appeal of verdict in grow-op case The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that returned a home used as a marijuana grow op to its owner after it was seized by the Crown. The nation's top court announced the decision to deny leave of appeal to Alberta Justice and Solicitor General on its website Thursday and awarded legal costs to Heng Kiet Kouch, whose home was seized under the province's civil forfeiture legislation. [continues 499 words]
She Provided 70 Clean Urine Samples, Yet Her Girls Were Taken From Her at Birth Because of Controversial Hair Test The last time Christine Rupert saw her daughters was in a dingy church basement in Kitchener, surrounded by awkward and emotional reunions between other parents and their kids. It was September 2008. Molly, an 18month-old with fine brown hair and wide eyes, sat as if glued to her mom's lap. Emily, 6 months, mainly snoozed in her car seat. [continues 2905 words]
Ontario's Child Advocate Lauds Review Of Five Years' Worth Of Lab Tests At Sick Kids Ontario's child advocate is praising Queen's Park's decision to probe the reliability of hair drug tests performed at the Hospital for Sick Children, used in child protection and criminal cases. "I welcome the move," Irwin Elman, provincial advocate for children and youth, told reporters Friday. "The move to be more transparent, to look into it, is important. I couldn't presuppose what the inquiry will find, but it's a positive step." [continues 285 words]
Medical Marijuana in US Is Giving 7- Year- Old Kiwi Better Seizure Control and Motor Skills, Says Her Mother Hannah Norton For the first time in seven years, Jessika Guest feels like she is getting to know her daughter Jade. Since trialling medical marijuana in Colorado, seven-year-old Jade's seizures have dropped from 30 to 40 a day to five or less, and from 30 seconds each time to three or five seconds. "[ It] has been a big success," Mrs Guest said. [continues 437 words]
NEW YORK (AP) - A woman who was in custody on a drug-related arrest died after suffering an apparent seizure while she was being processed, according to the New York Police Department. Authorities say 22-yearold Jasmine Lawrence of the Bronx had been arrested around 8 p.m. Saturday on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn on charges of criminal sale of marijuana and unlawful possession of marijuana. She was put into a holding cell at the 79th precinct around 10 p.m. as her arrest was processed. Police said shortly before midnight she had an apparent seizure in the cell area. Emergency medical personnel arrived minutes later. She was taken to the hospital at 12:44 a.m. Sunday, and pronounced dead a short time later. The medical examiner will determine cause of death. [end]
In response to Dr. Mike's Jordan's guest column opposing legalizing medical grade marijuana: How naive, as a medical practitioner, to downplay serious medical ailments such as "back pain, headaches, and anxiety." Are you not obligated to patients to find the best, most authentic cure for any of their conditions? Yes, cancer and seizures are devastatingly painful for millions of Americans. These diseases must be treated with optimal attention and care. We must keep fighting for cures, and in the meantime, afflicted individuals should receive appropriate pain treatment. [continues 233 words]
Regarding 'Science wins:' Al Byrne uses the work of Melanie Dreher to support his view that marijuana is harmless, indeed even helpful, to pregnant women and their babies. Unfortunately, this work is only one work carried out on a very small sample of 33 users and 27 non-users in the early 1980s. Although this work is important, subsequent studies have disproved much of her work. In addition, today's marijuana is not your mother's marijuana. It is a much more potent form. [continues 257 words]
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]
