It'll be months before London finds out if it gets the go-ahead and funding for supervised drug injection sites, but it appears key players already are walking in unison to support the sites, but restrict where they can locate.

The area's medical officer of health, a key city planner and an advocate for the downtrodden all express some confidence there will be suitable sites sufficiently far from schools and other places frequented by children.

"I completely understand why the city and stakeholders would want to limit where it goes," said Chris Mackie, the head of public health in London and Middlesex County. "I definitely think it will be possible to find one or two locations that will work."

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Consumer advocacy group concerned marijuana treated differently than booze

A consumer choice advocacy group has condemned the Manitoba government's plan to ban homegrown marijuana when it becomes legal in the country next year.

David Clement, the North American affairs manager for the Consumer Choice Centre, an independent entity that aims to promote more choice and freedom for consumers, says the decision to ban the growing of pot in homes is "silly" questions why the ability

Clement said the reason the CCC has spoken out is two-fold.

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In October, marijuana industry heavy hitter Aurora Cannabis Inc. spent $3.85-million to acquire BC Northern Lights Enterprises Ltd., a Vancouver-based company that manufactures refrigerator-sized "grow boxes." The miniature nurseries, loaded up with high-powered lights, ventilation systems and hydroponics equipment, are designed to hold four to 18 marijuana plants and made specifically for the home-growing market.

BCNL, which has been around for nearly two decades, has been selling boxes to medical-marijuana users since limited home growing became legal in 2001 for patients with government-approved growing licences. With the federal government legalizing recreational cannabis use this coming summer, BCNL's chief executive officer, Tarren Wolfe, is expecting an avalanche of new customers. "I believe [the number of home growers] is at least going to double when the doors open," he said. That could mean tens of thousands of new hobby horticulturalists looking for an easy way to cultivate.

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You may think that you will be able to buy marijuana legally as of July 1. You should think again. Conservative senators are threatening to hold up passage of the two bills that would legalize cannabis consumption and toughen rules against abuse. Unless these senators yield, the bills are unlikely to become law in time for the Canada Day deadline.

"I think we have to do our job properly, and that means months," Conservative Senator Claude Carignan, the lead opposition critic on the legislation, said when asked in an interview how long he thought it would take the Senate to pass the bills. How many months?

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Ontario adolescents are drinking, smoking and using cannabis and other recreational drugs at the lowest rates since the late 1970s, suggests a biennial survey of Grade 7 to 12 students by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

But the 2017 survey released Thursday turned up a disturbing finding: almost one per cent of respondents in Grades 9 to 12 reported having taken illicit fentanyl in the previous year, raising a red flag given the opioid's involvement in hundreds of overdose deaths across the country.

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"You've come a long way, baby."

This is the famous slogan of the Virginia Slims brand - a long, slim cigarette marketed to women as a sign of the progress of feminism and freedom for their gender.

Society has also come a long way in its thinking around the marketing of products like tobacco, and campaigns that make it seem glamorous.

We have learned that slick marketing images that ran through previous decades did not just influence adults. The Marlboro Man and images like it captured the imagination of kids, romanticizing smoking for another generation.

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Marijuana is a social evil. Legalizing it will encourage naive people to use it. That, in turn, increases the number of potheads and the long list of problems they create.

The government should hold a referendum on marijuana so people of sense can confirm the need for penalties. It isn't harmless.

Regardless what the government does, don't be a dope. Don't use dope.

John Cleghorn, Sechelt

[end]

The latest Corporate Research Associates (CRA) survey this week probably sent chills down the spines of finance ministers and premiers across Atlantic Canada. After returning home from Ottawa earlier in the week with a lucrative tax-sharing deal on the sale of legalized marijuana, visions of windfall revenues were quickly brought back to reality.

The CRA survey suggests that approximately 20 per cent of Atlantic Canadians plan to purchase pot once marijuana becomes legal July 1. That is about the same percentage that uses pot today - illegally.

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Re: PM says sorry for decades of LGBTQ2 bigotry - Nov. 29

I'm convinced that there is now sufficient precedence set by the apologies and compensations to the LGBTQ2 communities and the First Nations communities that will allow a heartfelt apology and due compensation to the marijuana dealers and users community. Indeed, the dealers of marijuana deserve a greater consideration by the Canadian government in view of the fact that it intends to take over the control and distribution of marijuana throughout the Dominion thus depriving the said dealers of their livelihood.

On a note of self-interest, I must state that I, as a good and true capitalist, have profited as a dealer in marijuana on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Joseph Murphy

Kitchener

[end]

Colin Perkel writes the upcoming legalization of marijuana is unlikely to kill Canada's black market - right away, at least

TORONTO - From texting a local dealer to dropping into a neighbourhood dispensary or ordering online, Canada's black market for recreational marijuana has seen significant changes in recent years and, no doubt, will see more as the country hurtles toward a new world of legalization next summer.

What does seem clear, however, is that the illegal market is unlikely to disappear in a puff of smoke come legalization day.

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TORONTO-Communities across Ontario cannot opt out of hosting a government-run pot shop if they are selected for a site, the provincial government said Friday after at least one town expressed resistance to having a cannabis retail location.

If a community is selected to host one of the marijuana shops, it could delay hosting the store but cannot completely opt out of having it, said Ontario's Ministry of Finance.

"As we roll out the next phase of stores, we will continue to engage with municipalities on an ongoing basis including with those municipalities who may not be ready for a store opening in July 2018," said Jessica Martin, spokesperson for Finance Minister Charles Sousa.

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Health officials are disappointed that the province has set the legal age for marijuana consumption at 19 years.

The consensus among provincial and national health organizations is that the minimum age should be 21, and some believe it should be even older, said Dr. Phil Tibbo, director of the Nova Scotia Early Psychosis Program and a psychiatry professor at Dalhousie University.

"Regular cannabis use can actually have a significant impact on brain development up until about your mid-20s," he said in an interview Thursday.

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LCBO advises city that Peterborough will have one of the first 40 marijuana stores to open in Ontario

Peterborough will have a marijuana store by next summer, says the city CAO.

Allan Seabrooke said the store will sell marijuana for recreational use. He said it will be open by July - the same month weed is going to be legalized in Canada.

In an email to The Examiner, Seabrooke wrote that the store will be operated by a subsidiary of the LCBO and will sell only cannabis - not alcohol.

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Unprecedented support shown for drug accused

In an unprecedented show of support for an accused, some 80 people crowded into two Sydney courtrooms Friday to attend a bail hearing for a man charged with drug trafficking.

The crowd left the Sydney Justice Centre cheering and clapping and drove away beeping their horns in showing their extreme pleasure with the decision to grant bail.

Provincial court Judge Peter Ross allowed the release of Donald James Campbell, 38, who is charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, involving marijuana and hashish. He faces an additional drug charge of growing marijuana.

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B.C.'s NDP government is right to get ahead of the curve and establish a framework for distributing and regulating recreational cannabis in advance of the federal government legalizing it next July.

But the plan still has some shortcomings that should be addressed before we legally light up our sativa and enjoy what one vendor described as its spicy, earthy flavours.

B.C. intends to make marijuana available at public and private retail outlets, supplied exclusively by the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch. The government has determined that people age 19 and over will be allowed to buy it.

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The P.E.I. Liquor Control Commission is a good choice for managing Prince Edward Island's new marijuana stores. The LCC is well equipped for developing policy and providing oversight.

It is also good that the provincial government has decided its pot sales will be conducted from different storefronts than its liquor sales.

It just gets the right message out there: If it is not good for the PEILCC to sell liquor and pot from the same premises, it's not good for a consumer to mix liquor and pot.

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Smoke-free means smoke-free at Sault Area Hospital - whether that applies to tobacco fixes or toking up.

Sault Area Hospital currently has a no-cigarette policy that encompasses its entire property, which will apply once recreational pot becomes legal in Canada next summer.

"We have a no-smoking policy, so that would apply to smoking marijuana on our property," SAH president and CEO Ron Gagnon told The Sault Star.

SAH's policy includes all buildings, parking lots, the Hub Trail running along the eastern edge of the hospital grounds, roads encircling the hospital leading to and from both Great Northern Road and Third Line and wooded and grass areas to the south and west of the emergency department and helipad.

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As we stumble down the cobblestones on the uneven and relatively unchartered path to marijuana legalization, we're bound to trip once or twice.

But so far, we have to give props to the provincial government for appearing to get it right.

So far we have agreed with the legal age of 18, we accept the private/public sales model and, for the most part, agree with rules on where you can and can't smoke up.

This week's successful negotiation with the federal government on tax revenue is another case in point.

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Province backtracks on stand that municipalities cannot opt out of cannabis stores

The Ontario government appeared to backtrack late Friday on an earlier statement that municipalities would be unable to opt out of hosting marijuana stores, raising more questions about the province's readiness for the expected pot legalization next summer.

The issue came up earlier this week after a city of Richmond Hill committee unanimously endorsed a statement saying it was not willing to host one of the retail stores.

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Ahead of recreational cannabis use becoming lawful, some observers see parallels with the end of prohibition

The third in a series on the impending legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada.

A notorious 1922 police shooting in southwestern Alberta, and the sensational trial that followed, caused many people to wonder whether enforcing alcohol prohibition was worth the trouble.

Alberta's move to outlaw drinking in 1916 was wildly unpopular in the Crowsnest Pass, a cluster of coal mining towns nestled in the Rocky Mountains, near the B.C. boundary.

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