The Kootenay chapter of Women Grow held an educational evening to 'connect, educate, and inspire the next generation of cannabis industry leaders' The Kootenay chapter of Women Grow, a cannabis advocacy organization already established in Vancouver and Toronto, hosted a well-attended educational evening at the Hume Hotel last week, aiming to "connect, educate,inspire and empower the next generation of cannabis industry leaders." "The war on drugs is ridiculous," keynote speaker Jim Leslie of the Kootenays Medicine Tree dispensary in Nelson told the crowd, which consisted of approximately 150 people. A ten-year veteran of Canada Border Services, he was on the frontlines of drug enforcement and was disillusioned by his time there. [continues 911 words]
On behalf of the Maryland Cannabis Industry Association, I would like thank to Hannah Byron for her leadership of the Natalie M. LaPrade Medical Cannabis Commission ("Byron to resign as head of Maryland cannabis commission," Dec. 2). What is truly remarkable are the strides the Maryland program has made under her leadership over the last year. Many people do not realize that the first medical cannabis bill was introduced in Maryland in 1980 by former state delegate and current Baltimore County Councilman Wade Kach. The journey for Maryland patients began in 1980, but the momentum for getting medicine into the hands of patients really gathered steam in 2014, when Dels. Dan Morhaim and Cheryl Glenn and Sens. Jamie Raskin and Bobby Zirkin won the support of 177 of Maryland's 188 legislators to approve this sensible, compassionate legislation. [continues 139 words]
Court finds woman under duress when she made smuggling attempt An Edmonton grandmother who tried to smuggle drugs inside her vagina into the Edmonton Institution has been found not guilty. Linda Ethal Sheridan, 62, admitted she brought the drugs to the maximum-security prison for her incarcerated son, but argued the offences were committed under duress because she was told her son would be killed if she didn't transport the contraband. "It was a pressure situation, and, you know, I folded to the pressure and I shouldn't have, obviously," Sheridan told a police officer after she was caught. [continues 423 words]
In the last few years, America's out-of-control incarceration boom has finally started to get the sustained public scrutiny, and condemnation, that it deserves. But one key element of the story still receives too little attention: the number of women in the nation's prisons and jails. Men account for more than 90 percent of those behind bars. But the number of female inmates, most of whom are mothers, has been growing at an even faster rate than the overall prison population. In 1980 there were just over 15,000 women in state prisons. By 2010 there were nearly 113,000. When jail inmates are added in, there are about 206,000 women currently serving time - nearly one-third of all female prisoners in the world. [continues 406 words]
A Rehoboth Beach couple - the wife a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, the husband a disabled veteran taking medication for schizophrenia - say Delaware State Police officers beat and used a stun gun on the husband after finding him giving his wife a sponge bath when the family home they were in was raided in a search for drugs in June 2014. The couple, Ruther and Lisa Hayes, allege in a federal lawsuit that police commanders failed to train officers in the "constitutional bounds and limits concerning the use of force," especially when it came to interactions with disabled people. [continues 1431 words]
Son Died of Fentanyl Overdose Clutching a framed photograph of her son, Petra Schulz made a passionate plea before nearly 100 people about the need for policy change on all levels to deal with the fentanyl epidemic in Alberta. Schulz was one of six speakers Monday at the annual International Overdose Awareness Day on the steps of City Hall. Schulz's 25-year-old son Danny Schulz died from an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2014. While the provincial government has spearheaded a one-year pilot program to provide take-home naloxone kits to Albertans who are at high risk of opioid overdose, Schulz said the lifesaving kits need to be more widely available and should be available to people without a prescription, such as a parent who has a child with an addiction. Already there have been 600 emergency department visits related to opioid overdoses in Edmonton this year. [continues 179 words]
Crown Drops Bid to Block Treatment LEDUC - Alberta appears to have stepped back from a fight to stop a four-year-old girl from receiving a marijuana-derived treatment for her seizures. Brian Fish, lawyer for the girl's mother, says the Crown has withdrawn a request for an order that would have forced his client to stop giving her daughter cannabidiol and submit her to conventional treatment. The mother says traditional drugs were ineffective against the girl's seizures and doctors were suggesting brain surgery as an alternative. [continues 191 words]
A drug charge against a local business owner laid in June 2014 was stayed Monday morning in a Brantford courtroom. Cheryl MacLellan, 57, had been charged with producing a Schedule II substance after police responded to an alarm at a Burford building on Rutherland Street. According to a spokesperson from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, the decision to stay or withdraw charges "means they discontinue the prosecution." "In both situations, once your charges are withdrawn or stayed by the Crown, you don't have to go back to court," spokesperson Sujata Raisinghani wrote in an e-mail. [continues 219 words]
A group of mothers who have lost adult children to drug addiction - sometimes by taking just one fentanyl pill - are pushing past their grief to mobilize changes in health policy they say could save many other lives. Moms United and Mandated to Saving the lives of Drug Users, or mumsDU, kicked off a cross-Canada media campaign in Saanich last week, breaking the silence they say surrounds addiction-related deaths, on the rise due to the synthetic painkiller fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. [continues 551 words]
A woman who alleges Harris County sheriff's deputies held her down for a cavity search in a Texaco parking lot contends her rights were violated in a complaint filed Thursday with the sheriff 's office, her attorney said. Charnesia Corley, 21, of Spring, alleges deputies violated her Fourth Amendment protections by conducting a vaginal probe in public without a warrant. In her official complaint, Corley describes the encounter that transpired after she was stopped for a traffic violation around 10:30 p.m. on June 20. [continues 157 words]
Son's Death After Years of Struggle Led to Video Talk SYDNEY - Of all the things she loved about her son, it is his captivating smile that she remembers the most. Vince Keating beamed so brightly he could light up a room, all the while distracting others away from his darkness. "He was a really handsome guy, physically fit; you'd never know he had issues looking at him," said his mother, Debbie Keating. "When he'd talk to you, he'd make you feel like you were the only person in the world. He had this real special way of communicating to people, yet he was hiding it all inside of him." [continues 688 words]
One of the most promising themes in Governor Baker's plan to stem the surge of opiod overdoses is his vow to stop treating addicts like criminals. As Baker noted when he released details of the plan in June, addiction is a disease, and arrest and incarceration are no way to treat substance abuse. A good way for Baker to start putting that sentiment into action would be to end the Commonwealth's practice of sending women with substance abuse problems to a medium-security prison - even when they face no criminal charges. [continues 534 words]
Mary Quinn wants to make one thing perfectly clear - she does not grow pot. The southwest Santa Rosa woman emphasized the point this week when she erected three large white-and-yellow banners in her pasture identifying two neighbors as growers. Quinn said pot gardens near her home off Stony Point Road emit strong odors and attract thieves who have cut her fences to get to them, causing injury to her horses. After living with the smell and the trespassing for more than four years, she said, she got fed up and decided to out her neighbors with the signs. [continues 787 words]
SANTA ROSA (TNS) Mary Quinn wants to make one thing perfectly clear - - she does not grow pot. The southwest Santa Rosa woman emphasized the point last week when she erected three large white-and-yellow banners in her pasture identifying two neighbors as growers. Quinn said pot gardens near her home off Stony Point Road emit strong odors and attract thieves who have cut her fences to get to them, causing injury to her horses. After living with the smell and the trespassing for more than four years, she said, she got fed up and decided to out her neighbors with the signs. [continues 288 words]
State Among 10 Defendants Named in Wrongful Death Complaint SANTA FE - Just shy of the second anniversary of the death of Hannah Bruch, a 14-year-old Santa Fe girl who died after ingesting a hallucinogenic drug while attending a rave concert at Expo New Mexico, a lawsuit alleging negligence was filed against 10 defendants in Santa Fe District Court on Monday. In the wrongful death complaint filed by a representative of Hannah Bruch's estate, the defendants are listed as the state of New Mexico, three companies that co-promoted the event, two security companies, an ambulance company, a hospital, and two paramedics who provided emergency medical care at the show. [continues 751 words]
Two Victor Harbor girls have travelled more than 14,000 kilometres to trial a medical marijuana treatment for the degenerative lung disease they share. Tabetha, 12, and Georgia-Grace Fulton, eight, travelled to Victoria, Canada, to access the politically-controversial cannabis treatment. Their parents, Bobby and Marcus Fulton, believe the treatment may save their daughters' lives. Tabetha and Georgia-Grace live with a degenerative diffuse lung disease, which prevents their cells from absorbing oxygen properly, leaving the girls hooked to oxygen tanks 24 hours a day. [continues 501 words]
Martha Fernback was just 15 when she took the fatal dose of ecstasy that was 91 per cent pure, and her mum Anne-Marie Cockburn believes, had regulations been in place, she might still be alive On a sunny day two years ago Anne-Marie Cockburn's phone rang. At the end of the line was a stranger who told her that her 15-year-old daughter was gravely ill and and they were trying to save her life. Martha had swallowed half a gram of white powder. [continues 935 words]
If you need another reason to legalize marijuana, look no further than a young woman's dreams to volunteer with children and homeless people being quashed because of pot prohibition, despite never being arrested or charged. Kerry Morris's daughter's life is now forever negatively impacted by anti-marijuana laws, far more so than by any alleged marijuana use. Stories like this demonstrate how prohibition harms people and deprives us all of their ability to contribute to society. Prohibition affects millions of Canadians who use marijuana and millions of our fellow citizens have been arrested for it. Millions more have been in the same situation as this young woman. Interaction with police because of the pot laws can follow you forever. This young woman's plight is just one more example of why I and many others campaign for legalization. Anti-marijuana laws do far more damage than marijuana ever has. Jodie Emery, Vancouver [end]
With widespread anticipation that California voters could legalize recreational marijuana use for adults next year, a generation of women growers are poised to shed the term "activist" for "CEO." About two dozen women working in the North Coast's flourishing medical cannabis industry will be rubbing elbows after business hours Thursday in downtown Santa Rosa during a launch party for a local chapter of Women Grow, a for-profit networking company. The women say they aim to break through what some call the "green ceiling" of an industry traditionally run by men, with marketing heavily skewed toward able-bodied heterosexual males. [continues 950 words]
Study Finds New Faces of Addiction Rebecca Kaczynski doesn't fit the traditional image of a heroin addict. The daughter of a bank vice president and an assistant school principal, she grew up in a loving, intact, upper-middle-class family in the Central Massachusetts town of Dudley. The 23-year-old does, however, fit an emerging demographic described in a federal study of substance use trends released Tuesday: Women, people age 18 to 25, and those with higher incomes and private insurance have been increasingly falling victim to the drug. [continues 863 words]
