AHS: Consider unifying minimum age for cannabis, liquor, tobacco Alberta Health Services says the provincial government should consider a minimum age of 21 for consumption of legal cannabis - and potentially raise the minimum age for smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol to match. In its submission to the NDP government's cannabis secretariat, the provincial health authority also says the government should be in control of distribution and retail of marijuana when it becomes legal next year and calls for bans on public smoking and promotion of cannabis use. [continues 795 words]
When I was in university, two of the dumbest guys I knew had a thriving pot business. They grew their plants behind a pair of bushes under their rez room window and conducted sales from a corner at the pizza place down the street. Selling weed is neither complicated nor particularly difficult. But just watch how cumbersome and bureaucratic it becomes after governments try to take over "bud" retailing next July. When Health Canada tried to grow medical marijuana in an abandoned hard-rock mine near Flin Flon, Manitoba, it made a hash of it, before finally bringing in a private hydroculture company to grow the plants for them. [continues 521 words]
Supporters of Edmonton's Chinatown packed a meeting Thursday on how to let community members guide the implementation of the city's new supervised injection sites. But the olive branch was too little, too late for some, with many residents left feeling bitter and ignored by city council's vote on injection sites last May. "Supervised injection is not just a health services issue," said resident William Lau. "You know why we're frustrated, angry, why we're scared Do you know why we feel insulted?" [continues 498 words]
Re: Victims of overdose. To have a location so these people can go for a fix is totally wrong. What needs to be done is to drill them into giving up the people that supplied the drugs to start with. Giving them another fix is not a solution. Alcohol is also a nasty drug. Is the city setting up a location where alcoholics can go for a supervised drink? No, AA is not a place where they can get a supervised drink. [continues 114 words]
An opioid crisis is bringing together friends and family members of overdose victims who want to support others going through the same pain. Fort McMurray residents Mari-Lee Paluszak, 55, and Holly Meints, 51, both lost sons to accidental overdoses last year. Both attended Overdose Awareness Day at the Wood Buffalo Regional Library last Thursday to help put a face to the drug overdose problem, and to promote a support group for people suffering the same grief as their own. Their new group, On A Dragonfly's Wings, is meant to provide mutual support for grieving family members of overdose victims. [continues 726 words]
Discarded needles in the spotlight as Edmonton tackles overdose crisis, safe injection sites Cardboard boxes filled with syringes fill every nook and cranny of the Streetworks office at Boyle Street Community Services. They're stacked on top of cabinets, in corners and underneath a table in the centre of the brightly lit office. Unboxed sharps, wrapped in plastic, are stored in bins along a counter where people who use drugs can pick up clean supplies. The boxes go "wherever we can stuff them," said Marliss Taylor, program manager at Streetworks. Last year, the service distributed a record two-and-a-quarter million syringes through its needle exchange van and exchange sites throughout the city. The goal, Taylor said, is to "flood the market" with clean needles, reducing the health impacts of intravenous drug use. [continues 621 words]
Chief medical examiner's office pores over deaths in opioid fight EDMONTON - In the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner each morning, medical examiners, investigators, and morgue staff divide the stack of files containing unexplained deaths that have come in from the night before. Five years ago, this department, headquartered in a low-slung grey building in Edmonton, investigated between 1,900 to 2,000 cases a year. But in the last couple of years the caseload has jumped to between 2,500 to 2,600 annually - the bulk of that increase, officials say, is due to fentanyl and other opioid deaths. [continues 1507 words]
Re: Pot use can make your sperm lazy, Sept. 1 This article shed light on the very serious implication of the use of marijuana products on reproductive health. In 2016, I testified before the federal task force on the legalization of marijuana and started my six-hour presentation against the legalization of marijuana with a question for the Health Canada lawyer and the committee. The question was simply: "How does a responsible government legalize a drug for recreational purposes when their health 'watchdog' agency, Health Canada, acknowledges the science and in turn warns all Canadian men who wish to start a family not to use this drug due to the substantiated risks to reproductive health?" [continues 75 words]
Government will strive to make required policy changes, health minister says Mioara Whytock clutches a photograph in her hands as tears roll down her cheeks, a picture of her son kayaking on her T-shirt. Standing beside is her husband, Steve Whytock, wearing a shirt with a different photo of Calum Whytock. Their son died of a carfentanil overdose last April, just a week before his 19th birthday. Calum Whytock was one of many overdose victims remembered at the Alberta legislature Thursday on International Overdose Awareness Day. [continues 476 words]
Public health researchers behind Edmonton's effort to develop supervised drug consumption sites say they have a plan to study how the yet-to-be-approved facilities affect both clients and communities. Assuming the four sites win approval from Health Canada and begin operating, a robust evaluation process will be needed to gauge the benefits and residents' reactions to the facilities, the researchers said in a new report. The evaluation will be conducted by the University of Alberta's School of Public Health, with Elaine Hyshka serving as the lead. [continues 153 words]
Cannabis will not be the panacea everyone with an ailment is thinking it will be, says a local physician, and it is going to challenge law enforcement when it comes to impaired driving. "If there ever has been an issue in medicine as clouded by opinion and ignorance, it is medical cannabis," said Dr. Gaylord Wardell, anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Medicine Hat. The pro-cannabis forces have claimed everything from cancer cures to relief from pain but we don't actually have research to verify this, said Wardell. [continues 420 words]
I am a resident of the County of Strathcona and have been for 37 years. We live on Range Road 213 and have loved the peace and tranquility that comes with life in a rural area. Sadly, we are now going to be living with a medical marijuana facility in the neighbourhood. Our little piece of Heaven is going to change. The zoning bylaw for facilities such as this should be industrial, not agricultural, plain and simple. We are going to be faced with an increase in traffic on our range road, which will result in our tax dollars paying to either reinforce the road or pay for repairs to the same. [continues 226 words]
Alberta's justice minister says the province's law enforcement communities are having to "constantly" adapt in their efforts to combat the evolving methods of illicit drugmanufacturers. Following news that health workers have found possible fentanyl-laced stickers in Calgary and Edmonton, Kathleen Ganley said police are doing a "very good job" of staying on top of drug trends. That vigilance is key, Ganley says. "It's like this with most types of drugs, they're sort of constantly adapting to continue to try to keep those hidden and we're having to constantly adapt to continue to try to find those. We'll continue to use intelligence to move forward." [continues 83 words]
Alberta shepherds in new era in global fight against fentanyl INNISFAIL - Alberta is leading the world in fentanyl detection, having developed the first safe method for police dogs to detect the deadly drug. All but one of the 136 drug-detecting dogs schooled at the RCMP facility just north of Calgary have been trained to aid in the fentanyl crisis that's taking thousands of live. The RCMP developed a liquid solution for training because powdered fentanyl was too dangerous. The equivalent of just two grains of salt is enough to kill someone and was the reason agencies across the world didn't attempt to develop the solution themselves, said Staff Sgt. Gary Creed, senior trainer for the RCMP police dog service. [continues 219 words]
Alberta's justice minister says the province's law enforcement communities are having to "constantly" adapt in their efforts to combat the evolving methods of illicit drug manufacturers. Following news that health workers have found possible fentanyl-laced stickers in Calgary and Edmonton, Kathleen Ganley told reporters that police are doing a "very good job" of staying on top of emerging drug trends. That vigilance on the part of authorities is key, Ganley says. "It's like this with most types of drugs, they're sort of constantly adapting to continue to try to keep those hidden and we're having to constantly adapt to continue to try to find those. We'll continue to use intelligence to move forward." [continues 213 words]
Associate minister confident Ottawa will approve proposal for Beltway operation A proposed supervised drug-consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre will receive a $1.2-million funding boost from the province, as the number of fentanyl-related overdoses in Alberta continues to mount. Associate minister of health Brandy Payne said the funds will go toward renovating the Beltline health centre that is expected to eventually house Calgary's first supervised drug-consumption site. No timeline for the facility's opening has been confirmed, but Payne said the latest data on drug deaths across the province reaffirms the need for harm-reduction services. [continues 511 words]
One a day. That's the death toll fentanyl or its opioid derivatives are taking in Alberta each day. It's a startling fact. And the problems are mounting, with officials saying that death rate is already moving towards two per day. So when the province announces $1.2 million to help establish a supervised drug consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, we should all encourage government action. The debate around safe drug sites is well known. Whether it should be done is for health and law enforcement professionals to hash out. We need to trust the experts to come to the right answer. [continues 256 words]
Halfway through 2017, Fort McMurray is already nearing its year-end total for fentanyl overdose deaths last year, according to an Alberta Health report released Wednesday. A total of eight people have died from fentanyl overdoses in the first six months of 2017, compared to nine fentanyl overdose deaths over the whole of 2016. The report, Opioids and Substances of Misuse, shows that in the second quarter of 2017, a total of 119 people died in Alberta from apparent fentanyl-related drug overdoses, compared to 85 overdoses over the same period in 2016. [continues 351 words]
One a day. That's the death toll fentanyl or its opioid derivatives are taking in Alberta each day. It's a startling fact. And the problems are mounting, with officials saying that death rate is already moving towards two per day. This is the kind of tragedy that spurred the province to offer up cash to help establish safe drug consumption sites in the inner-city. While it is but one piece of the fight against opioids, it's an important one. [continues 278 words]
Albertans have a lot to say about legalizing cannabis outside medical purposes, judging by the number of people who shared their thoughts with the province in a recent survey. Just over 45,000 Albertans took the online questionnaire about how the province should approach legalization, according to the Justice and Solicitor General's office. The survey, which sought feedback on people's priorities - road safety, eliminating the black market or keeping pot away from minors, for example - closed July 31. The federal government wants to make recreational cannabis legal by July 2018, but many key decisions have to be made by provinces - such as where and how the drug can be sold or how products should be taxed. [continues 93 words]
Inside Alberta
