ANTIGONISH, N.S.--The federal minister of health says he cancelled a planned funding announcement at the International AIDS Conference because overwrought delegates were making it impossible to have a "rational discussion." During a visit to Nova Scotia yesterday, Tony Clement said activists and "so-called experts" had started to skew the dialogue toward grandstanding. "That conference, in our view, was becoming a place where you couldn't have a rational discussion," he said. "It wasn't only the Canadian context. There was a delegate who demanded the resignation of the South African health minister. It was really becoming a very politicized conference." Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who came under attack for not attending, made the same criticism Wednesday. [end]
CIBOLA COUNTY - More than 50 city, village and county officials attended and several testified at a methamphetamine awareness discussion in early August at Grants City Hall. Facilitated by U.S. Representative Steve Pearce, R-Dist. 2, the discussion resulted in unofficial plans to combat methamphetamine abuse through local ordinances, training, law enforcement and drug treatment. Pearce said he expects to have an official report for Cibola officials this fall, so that officials can determine which programs they need to start or expand. [continues 188 words]
Franklin County narcotics officers are working with federal agents in an attempt to track down the source of a powerful drug linked to at least 15 overdoses in Franklin County in the last few months. Six Overdose "We're experiencing a rash of possible heroin overdoses," Grellner said. However, in many of those cases, investigators suspect that the drug Fentanyl, synthetic morphine, is involved. It is said to be about 80 times more potent than morphine. A 41-year-old Labadie man who died May 31 is the only confirmed death linked to the recent overdose cases. He was a known heroin user, Grellner said. [continues 220 words]
ONE BABY LIVED and one baby died. They were related not by blood but by circumstances. They were victims of their mothers' heroin addiction. And both illustrate the need for more addiction treatment in our area and the understanding that anyone's son or daughter, no matter how good the family or upbringing, can become a drug user. We first met little Kayla Leo in a story published in March. Before Kayla's birth, her mother had been a heroin addict for about eight years. Roslyn Leo put her parents through hell. At one point, the former Wyoming Area cheerleader and overachiever lived in a car in Philadelphia and used water from public toilets to inject heroin. [continues 357 words]
Real-estate agent Theodore B. Ebeyer has publicly criticized what he sees as lax drug enforcement by police. Thursday night, Greenwood Police narcotic detectives arrested Ebeyer, 51, on an allegation of aiding in dealing cocaine. Other allegations against Ebeyer include possession of cocaine and neglect of a dependant. He was being held this afternoon at the Johnson County Jail on $122,000 bail. He lives in the 1700 block of Woodcroft Court. Two police informants assisted in the probe. Greenwood Police Chief Joe Pitcher said Ebeyer began bombarding the police department with email and telephone tips about drug dealers soon after he became chief in February 2005. [continues 358 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia The latest chapter in America's long war on drugs - a six-year, $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia's coca crop - has left the price, quality and availability of cocaine on American streets virtually unchanged. The effort, begun in 2000 and known as Plan Colombia, had a specific goal of halving this country's coca crop in five years. That has not happened. Instead, drug policy experts say, coca, the essential ingredient for cocaine, has been redistributed to smaller and harder-to-reach plots, adding to the cost and difficulty of the drug war. [continues 2465 words]
Breaking promises to help people afflicted with HIV/AIDS is genocide, the president-elect of the International AIDS Society says. "If you have evidence your inaction is responsible for millions of deaths, you promise to correct that equation, then you fail to deliver, what do you call that?" Dr. Julio Montaner said. "It's not just ignorance. It's not mere negligence. It's more than a crime against humanity. It can only be characterized as genocide," he charged. Montaner's salvo is consistent with the shrill, impassioned talk that has flowed from the 16th International AIDS Conference, which concluded in Toronto yesterday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been savaged for not attending. [continues 215 words]
Ottawa Leaves 'Sour Taste' Aug. 18. The only people who politicized the AIDS conference were the organizers and Stephen Lewis. The Prime Minister of Canada had made a decision not to attend. The Governor General, the head of state, was there, as were representatives from the federal government. I guess this was not enough for Lewis et al. Shame on them. This is a serious disease that needs serious discussion. However, it turned into a three-ring circus thanks to Lewis's political posturing and the attention paid to celebrity guests. Mervin Hollingsworth Saskatoon, Sask. [end]
'Abstinence Does Not Work: People Lie,' Scientist Says TORONTO - About midway through the International AIDS Conference, Dr. Mark Wainberg, the bookish-looking AIDS scientist from Montreal and the meeting's co-chair, found himself in the thick of a chanting demonstration of prostitutes. As the sex workers and their supporters, including a statuesque Indian transvestite, shouted out for legalization, Dr. Wainberg shouted along. As they punched the air in defiance, the respected microbiologist punched, too. At this massive and extraordinary conference, supporting such causes is almost compulsory. As is speaking out for the rights of injection drug addicts, lamenting the plight of the overlooked transsexual and tolerating promiscuity, so long as that multiple-partner sex involves condoms. [continues 950 words]
