Iam increasingly concerned with the inadequacy of our approach to the opioid crisis, both as a society and in the field of public health. There is no question that when people are dying in large numbers, we have to respond, and that has been happening. Safe injection sites, the distribution of naloxone kits and similar efforts are important. But this response is sadly inadequate. It repeats the "upstream" story that I told in the first column I wrote, in December 2014, one that is fundamental to the public health approach. In essence, villagers living on the banks of a river are so busy rescuing drowning people that nobody has time to go upstream to learn how they are ending up in the river and stop them being pushed in. [continues 602 words]
Trying not to be too cynical about all the reporting, discussions, debates and business preparations on Trudeau's "wrath of pot" legalization predications, with the lame duck excuse that the crooks are making too much money on its sales, I'm sorry! The recent news of the inherent benefit of marijuana has been blown right out of the water by a recent group of very prominent world scientists. They have reported that there is absolutely no shred of evidence whatsoever of its benefit for health and pain relief, because of the availability of hundreds of pharmaceuticals that do not have negative health aftereffects like brain damage, in addition to dangerous driving which puts the very heavy load on our police forces that still do not have equipment to test for drug impairment. [continues 147 words]
St. Catharines council is unanimously supporting the creation of a temporary supervised injection site in the city to help deal with the opioid crisis. "It is pure harm reduction. It is stopping people from dying," said Sandi Tantardini of Niagara Area Moms Ending Stigma, speaking in support of the site at Monday night's council meeting. Tantardini and Jennifer Johnston founded the group of moms, families and friends of people who have been lost to or are struggling with addiction. "When we're talking about the effects of the opioid crisis, our group and its representatives and our families, we're the faces of it," said Johnston, whose son Jonathan, a chef who trained at Niagara College, died of a fentanyl overdose in Toronto. [continues 328 words]
Structural changes are required to clamp down on the unregulated private lending networks that drug traffickers are using to launder their illicit gains, a Simon Fraser University criminologist says. A recent Globe and Mail investigation identified people connected to the local fentanyl trade who are also private lenders, using Vancouver-area real estate to clean their cash. Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at SFU, said the complexity of these private lending networks and similar white-collar crimes make them notoriously hard to prosecute. [continues 640 words]
Brighton - People consume marijuana because it relaxes them but the prospect of its recreational use becoming legal is making police anxious. "Anticipated issues" include "easier access for the youth population," impaired operation of vehicles, and the "facilitation of trafficking," OPP Detective-Sergeant Rick Dupuis said in a presentation to Brighton council on the implications of the federal law that is to take effect sometime after July 1. "The provincial and federal governments indicate that this act was introduced to minimize or mitigate accessibility to our young population but in my professional opinion I believe that is ... counterintuitive," he told council Feb. 20. "It's going to make it much easier." [continues 690 words]
Victims of bad science at Motherisk Return their children. That's what they want - the parents who saw their kids ripped away based on flawed alcohol and drug hair tests from the now shuttered Motherisk lab at the famous Sick Children's hospital. A report tabled this week examined 1,270 cases handled by the lab going back more than two decades and found 56 clear cases where Motherisk's flawed test results had a "substantial impact" on the decision to remove children - - though critics argue there are far more. [continues 651 words]
Recommendations too late for many families 'broken apart' by flawed drug and alcohol tests The Ontario Motherisk Commission's two-year effort to repair the damage to families ripped apart by flawed drug and alcohol testing has produced sweeping recommendations aimed at preventing a similar tragedy, but in only a handful of cases has it reunited parents with their lost children. Alice, a Hamilton mother whose daughter was apprehended in 2011 after hair testing from Motherisk purported to show she was a heavy drinker, is among the lucky few. [continues 2231 words]
Emergency services responded to 16 cases on Friday and 42 since Feb. 19 Lethbridge had the single biggest spike of overdoses in a 24-hour period during the ongoing opioid crisis this past weekend, with 16 cases being responded to by local emergency services personnel on Friday alone. "What we have seen over this past weekend is a dramatic increase in the number of overdoses that our staff at Lethbridge Fire and EMS have responded to," said deputy chief of support services Dana Terry, at a hastily arranged press conference Monday morning. "Specifically with overdoses where Narcan was administered." [continues 392 words]
Realtors and condo boards scramble to find solutions Realtors and condo boards are sparking up conversations about pot as legalization looms. Anand Sharma, president and condominium manager with the Northern Alberta Chapter of the Canadian Condominium Institute, said condo corporations should start revising their rules if they haven't already to prevent sticky situations when tenants start lighting up legally. "The bottom line is people are going to have to seek legal counsel to tighten up their bylaws or address some of these issues in their bylaws," Sharma said. [continues 428 words]
Cities across Canada are struggling to contain gang violence. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has convened a summit on gun violence in Canada to find the best way to deal with the growing problems linked to criminal gangs and the illegal drug trade. Last November, Mr. Goodale announced $328-million in new funding over five years as part of efforts to reduce gun crime across Canada, with the federal contribution growing to $100-million a year in following years. Scheduled for March 7 in Ottawa, the Criminal Guns and Gangs Summit will aim to get all levels of government to agree on priorities for dealing with growing rates of violence involving firearms and organized crime. [continues 391 words]
With some marijuana dispensaries still open in spite of repeated warnings, the Regina Police Service is now taking its campaign to the shops' landlords. About two weeks ago, police sent letters to property owners informing them that their pot-shop tenants are committing a criminal offence. Selling cannabis out of storefronts remains illegal. According to police spokesperson Les Parker, the letters also conveyed that the properties "may be subject to forfeiture" if sales continue. He cited a provision of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that allows courts to order the seizure of "offence-related property." [continues 248 words]
Less than two months out from this year's rally, it appears the vast majority of the end costs will again be passed on to taxpayers While they still can't find consensus on a location, it does appear all parties with a stake in the 4/20 smoke-out at Sunset Beach seem to agree on this: organizers will have to foot little, if any, of what could be a six-figure, post-event price tag. Less than two months out from one of the city's largest and polarizing public events, the Courier reached out the Vancouver Park Board, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department and rally organizers to assess where the annual April 20 gathering is at in terms of planning, lessons learned and the mechanics involved in the cost-recovery process. [continues 631 words]
As Canada is poised to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, readers might wonder how schools will handle the change. Will kids be legally toking up on school grounds? Will skunky smells be wafting down the halls? Definitely not. First off, it's important to note that when the recreational use of marijuana is legalized, probably later this year, it will still be illegal for minors to use or possess pot. In that regard, things won't change in schools. [continues 680 words]
There seems to be a general euphoria with the upcoming legalization of marijuana, while at the same time there is silence from the large proportion of Canadians who oppose legalization. Perhaps one should look at why marijuana was made illegal in the first place. For many, it was a case of, "We have enough problems with alcohol. If marijuana is legal, we'll have twice as many drug problems." For others, they didn't want to live in a nation of zombies where people are walking around stoned all day. [continues 132 words]
Pot courses sprouting at Ontario colleges Puff, puff, pass will take on a new meaning when recreational cannabis becomes legal in Canada later this year. And not just in the way you might think. Some Canadian colleges and universities are preparing people for the thousands of potential new jobs expected to be created as the country's booming weed industry - valued at $23 billion by accounting firm Deloitte - transitions from the black market to a legal one with an estimated 5 million existing customers across the country. [continues 668 words]
Re. "Man charged in 2016 fentanyl death pleads guilty in unrelated drug case," Feb. 21 The war on drugs, which is really a war on the people who use drugs, has failed. The people who sell drugs at the street level are very often in the grips of addiction themselves. This was the case for Jordan Yarmey, and so many others like him. The people who buy drugs are exposed to the possibility of accidental death by fentanyl poisoning, which was the case for Szymon Kalich. This tragic situation draws attention to the need for drug policy reform. The decriminalization of small amounts of drugs for personal use, and access to drug testing is one way to end the opioid overdose crisis that is devastating families across our country. Lorna Thomas, Edmonton [end]
As a national opioid crisis wages on, Toronto police have decided to equip their downtown frontline officers with the opioid antidote naloxone. "This is about life and death, and that's what we signed up to do," Chief Mark Saunders told the Toronto Police Services Board at their meeting Thursday. Chief Saunders was tasked last year with submitting a report to the board on how the service might go about deploying the antidote, which can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. [continues 571 words]
Re: Opioid vending machines won't help B.C.'s addicts. Jeremy Devine, Feb. 14 This piece, written by my classmate, Jeremy Devine, contains misinformation and stigma. I felt compelled to write a response because his views do not reflect mine or those of many of our fellow medical school classmates at the University of Toronto. The article suggests that British Columbia's harm reduction approach is some ill-conceived mistake that jeopardizes the lives of people who use drugs. In fact, Mr. Devine's ideological stance is not based on evidence, and if enacted, could endanger countless lives. [continues 208 words]
Re: This is your brain on pot, Douglas Todd column, Feb. 17. Again, kudos to The Vancouver Sun for Douglas Todd's column on the potential health risks of marijuana. Educators have been warning about this for a long time, but the negative effects on adolescents has been blanked out by politicians looking for easy tax dollars. Just wait for the weeping and wailing that will follow the legalization of marijuana as youth damage their brains while participating in what they see as a rite of passage to adulthood. Ted Cooper, Powell River [end]
Inside Canada
