Veterinarian Katherine Kramer remembers an 18-year-old cat she recommended be put on hemp-based cannabidoil (CBD).

"It had heart disease and pancreatitis so painful the traditional amount of pain medication knocked him out and he had no quality of life," says Kramer, a veterinarian at Vancouver Animal Wellness Clinic. "So, I contacted the [medicinal marijuana] Compassion Club."

Kramer says with not much to lose, the owner agreed to work together and very soon the cat was eating and playing again.

[continues 421 words]

Nelson Police executed a search warrant on a downtown medical marijuana dispensary and arrested five employees.

Five employees at MMJ marijuana dispensary, 752 Vernon Street, were taken into custody Tuesday morning, March 20, without incident.

Charges against the employees are pending, said a release from NPD Chief Constable Paul Burkart, adding that all five were released from custody Tuesday afternoon.

Until charges are formally laid, Burkart said the NPD will be making no further comment as the investigation is ongoing. A further update can be expected in the next week.

[continues 267 words]

The Town of Oliver is setting aside a hearing to "hash out" some details in local bylaws prior to the legalization of the sale of recreational marijuana.

Council on Monday "decimated," as Coun. Larry Schwartzenberger put it, a staff recommendation to restrict cannabis sales via zoning bylaws in Oliver, as well as a $15,000 ask to hire a consultant to determine the wishes of the community.

"We will be able to approve or disapprove an application. If something is in the commercial zone that's too close to a park or school, we will just not approve it," Schwartzenberger said.

[continues 259 words]

News release that called for study to make personal use legal called 'a surprise'

Things started off on a pretty collegial tone Tuesday morning in Vancouver city council.

Much of the morning session was concerned with development plans for an 8.4-hectare site in south Vancouver. Councillors echoed their support for the project, and one commented on proceedings going "so smoothly." The mayor agreed, saying it was nice to conduct the meeting "without the kind of friction that can sometimes occur."

[continues 768 words]

Near the historic native village of Kitwancool in northern B.C., the hereditary chief of the Gitanyow frog clan has his eye on an old logging site that could be the perfect place to grow a new cash crop.

"It's already serviced with a power supply," said Will Marsden. "We see an opportunity for our people to be employed in sustainable jobs in our traditional territories."

Those jobs would be in the legal marijuana trade, coming soon to British Columbia and the rest of Canada.

[continues 740 words]

Can we put the words "illegal" and "marijuana" together and still be making a relevant statement in Canada? Marijuana is going to be legal as a recreation drug.

The federal government has committed itself to legalization. The provincial government has stepped forward with a plan for legal marijuana, which included dispensaries as a component. They even went so far as to include early licence application for dispensaries.

Marijuana will be sold, consumed by people and I do not believe there is anything that will stop that from happening. This means the political movement to legalize marijuana is no longer of significant relevance. Operating dispensaries as a political statement is no longer required. So, now what?

[continues 673 words]

Last week, the Liberal government introduced the 2018 budget. As is customary in Canadian democracy, it is the role of the Liberal government to promote what it views as the merits of their budget.

As the Official Opposition, it is our job to illustrate the concerns we have with the budget. On that note, I have a few. It has become clear over this mandate, that the prime minister excels in making promises, but often falls short on the delivery of said promises. For example, we were promised electoral reform, a national housing strategy, infrastructure investment, new fighter jets for our military…the list goes on. This budget is no exception. Mr. Trudeau distinctly promised Canadians that after a series of small deficits, his government would return to a balanced budget in 2019. This budget demonstrates that the Liberals have no intention whatsoever of returning to balance in 2019.

[continues 454 words]

Back off, bud.

The City of North Vancouver is aiming to slam the lid on the host of unlicensed pot shops that have operated with seeming impunity in recent years following Monday's council meeting.

The crackdown, which involves civil court injunctions, is meant to give the city enough time to draft its own regulations about where and how marijuana dispensaries can operate within city limits.

"I do believe that it should be legalized but it needs to be regulated," explained Mayor Darrell Mussatto. "This enforcement action here is allowing us some time so that we can put in these regulations before it actually becomes legalized."

[continues 397 words]

How do we get out of this box? It may be time to follow Portugal in legalizing drugs

British Columbia has a $250,000-a-day drug habit that is spiralling out of control - and it's not supported by the Downtown Eastside street bazaar.

Rather, it's the opioid substitution program.

The province now spends more than $90 million a year on "treatment" and health services for participants of the drug-maintenance program - that's more than it provides for legal aid.

[continues 666 words]

Emergency services taxed by spike in overdoses, incidents

Police, firefighters and paramedics are so overwhelmed with drug-related 911 calls in the days after welfare cheques are issued that Victoria's police chief wants the province to consider staggering distribution of the cheques throughout the month.

"Generally speaking, we see a spike during the evening of welfare Wednesday and the day or two after of overdose calls, disturbances, drug activity occurring. Sometimes someone has been defrauded or robbed," Police Chief Del Manak told the Times Colonist.

[continues 704 words]

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]

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]

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]

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]

British Columbia is expecting legalized cannabis to bring in $75-million a year to the province in taxes, with legal sales estimated to be worth a billion dollars.

This week's provincial budget estimates that once the drug is legalized later this year, the province will take in $50-million in the current fiscal year and $75-million in 2019-2020, the first full fiscal year under legalization.

That represents the province's 75 per cent share of a federal excise tax, which Ottawa has said will be $1 per gram, or 10 per cent of larger purchases, whichever is higher. While that translates to about $1-billion in sales in the province, B.C.'s Finance Minister says it could be higher.

[continues 541 words]

Medical marijuana added to health-insurance plan

Medical marijuana will soon be part of health insurance for students at UBC Okanagan.

The one-year pilot program will begin in September. University of Waterloo began a similar plan in 2014.

The idea was initiated by Michelle Thiessen, chairwoman of the Okanagan chapter of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and a UBCO graduate student.

Without coverage for medical marijuana, students are left covering 100 per cent of the costs while still paying into the student health insurance plan, she said.

[continues 288 words]

As the B.C. government sets policy on the legalization of marijuana, the towns of Oliver and Osoyoos are still wondering what that will look like.

Oliver Mayor Ron Hovanes said his council has to have a formal discussion on the topic.

"We had most recently suggested that any sale (of marijuana) should take place through a government agency and the province has decided against that."

Hovanes previously questioned if municipalities should have any role in marijuana legalization. Council recently supported a call for local governments to receive a share of the cannabis revenue to cover social and policing costs.

[continues 765 words]

Dear Tony: Our strata council is getting a lot of pressure from our owners to adopt a bylaw that prohibits use of marijuana and growing of marijuana plants. Several owners have already complained about the smell of marijuana in the building from several smokers, and we had to eradicate a grow-op back in 2004, costing our strata more than $75,000 in damages that we never recovered.

What our council is struggling with is the question of how far we can go with our bylaws.

[continues 447 words]

B.C. has become a haven of drug-dealing and money-laundering that's killing hundreds of people from overdoses and pricing homes beyond the reach of law-abiding citizens.

That's the view of Attorney-General David Eby, who's promising bold action to purge B.C.'s casinos and hyper-inflated real-estate markets from the influence of criminals.

"We have an international reputation that's in tatters," Eby told me. "We will clean it up. My goal is to have B.C.'s international reputation back on track."

[continues 404 words]