As legalization looms, experts say we're not road safe yet

As Canada readies to legalize pot this summer, experts including an ex-traffic cop warn we're still stumped about stopping stoned drivers from hitting B.C.'S streets.

"I've stopped lots of people who have been under the influence of marijuana," recalls retired West Vancouver traffic enforcement officer Cpl. Grant Gottgetreu. "You had to get really good at making observations.

"Unless a person gets pulled over and there's an overwhelming smell of burned marijuana from the car … there's still no instrument out there to test like there is for alcohol yet."

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I firmly believe that most Canadians don't want recreational marijuana legalized, and that there is still time to stop it.

The basic threat to the Liberal party is anti-marijuana voters who will get their attention in the election coming up next year.

I don't need to repeat the many solid reasons why legalization of pot is a bad decision by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It will turn into a disaster, causing major grief to thousands of families.

It's sad that most Canadians don't speak up as loudly as the dopers do while breaking the law. What we need is a well-known "champion," like a Jim Pattison type, to start up a campaign against legalization.

Bill Davis, New Westminster

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With toxic street drugs such as fentanyl killing four British Columbians a day, much of the response has focused on overdose treatments with naloxone, and supervised injection sites. Yet public-health staff have concluded that emergency interventions such as these will not stop the epidemic. If the supply of these drugs cannot be halted - and no war on drugs has ever been won - the only option is to prevent the downward slide that leads to street-drug addiction.

Many of the victims are middle-age men and women who have fought a lifelong struggle against such challenges as alcoholism, mental illness, the lasting effects of childhood abuse and more.

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Psychologists point to 'compelling evidence' of cannabis' potential health impairments

Apart from the #Metoo maelstrom and the housing crises in Toronto and Vancouver, few things stir up Canadians more than marijuana, which its promoters claim is the cure for everything from glaucoma to brain disease =2E

Should private outlets sell recreational marijuana? Is it more enjoyable to smoke or swallow cannabis? Will I get rich on pot stocks? Is it possible to remove the criminal underground from Canada's $6 billion-a-year cannabis industry?

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Are public health officials facing up to the fact that the overdose epidemic in Canada and the U.S. is mostly devastating boys and men?

There are small signs some health officials are slowly, awkwardly, hesitatingly beginning to acknowledge the obvious: The overdose crisis is predominantly an issue of men's health.

Public officials have much denial to make up for. It was just a year ago that former B.C. Liberal health minister Terry Lake pulled out the public relations stops to open a 38-bed Vancouver facility for women to overcome substance abuse. Months before an election, Lake also announced an overdose prevention site exclusively for females.

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Demonstrators demand change to federal drug policies

Around 200 drug users and advocates took to Vancouver's streets Tuesday, demanding changes to the federal government's drug policies.

In a national day of action, co-ordinated with cities across Canada, demonstrators from the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD), the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and other groups marched through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside from Victory Square to the B.C. courts building at Hornby and Smithe St.

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Re: "Cannabis: City asks for public feedback" in the Feb. 7 issue of the Nelson Star.

I want to voice my disappointment with this article.

We don't have a municipal business licence, but the Nelson Cannabis Compassion Club isn't a for-profit business. Since March, 2000 we have been licensed by the province as a non-profit organization, incorporated under the Societies Act. The licensing and regulating of which is the jurisdiction of the province.

Also in the Feb. 7th 2018 issue Pam Mierau says, "Our assumption is they (medical dispensaries) will be treated like anybody else who is looking to set up a retail store here, and they'll have to go through the same process , and they won't have any advantage over anyone else." "But we're not sure." Well, she shouldn't be sure as there is a major difference between a recreational user of cannabis and a medical user. It's called the Chart of Rights and Freedoms. Recreational users don't have charter protections and medical users do. Even the provincial government realizes this. If you look at their announcements around the retail sales of recreational cannabis they use the same term "non-medicinal cannabis" over and over again.

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Why are people expecting to have marijuana-conviction charges removed from their records and/or expecting compensation for any prison time they may have served? They knowingly broke the law at the time.

I don't think any of them would be admitting to their habit if the government were announcing that they were going to criminalize it. Compensating people for breaking the law would be a waste of taxpayers' money.

Brian Slade, Pitt Meadows

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B.C.'s approach to the issue seems prudent to most observers and is based on some of the lessons learned in other jurisdictions. Marijuana will be legal, but it won't be a total free-for-all, either.

Much to the relief of local politicians, municipalities will have a big say about who gets one of the coveted provincial pot shop licences.

That means those operators who have been the subject of court action, or who've caused major headaches where they've set up in advance of the legal starting line might not be at the front of the line.

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Surrey mulls over 'missteps' from U.S. cities that have legalized marijuana

Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner says the city has developed a "balanced, appropriate and evidence-based approach" in preparing for the expected passing of the Trudeau government's Bill C45 Cannabis Act this coming July.

"Like all governments, the City of Surrey must determine the changes needed to ensure an effective response to cannabis legalization," Hepner said. "Our report was prepared following a comprehensive review of best practices in jurisdictions of the United States with legal recreational cannabis markets. Council and I have directed staff to implement the necessary steps outlined in the framework over the coming months."

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Town wants 'cautious' approach; hearing on Tuesday

With cannabis legalization just months away, the District of Tofino is considering a bylaw that would heavily restrict where pot shops can operate in the community.

A public hearing is set for Tuesday. People will be able to weigh in on the proposed bylaw, which would "prohibit the use of any land, building or structure for the sale, production or distribution of cannabis," according to a notice of public hearing on the district's website.

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In an interview with The Citizen last April during the 2017 provincial election, NDP leader John Horgan admitted that government and politicians are behind public sentiment when it comes to marijuana.

Knowing it and saying it is one thing but Horgan, now the premier, still seems reluctant to act on it, based on the additional details on a provincial pot policy the NDP government announced Monday that will take effect once marijuana is legalized later this year.

"Some may think that this work will end in July when non-medical cannabis is legalized by the federal government," Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said. "But the truth is our government will be dealing with this significant change in policy for years to come."

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Vancouver won't grant pot-shop licences to people with ties to illegal drugs, but critics urge reconsideration

Rocco Dipopolo is an entrepreneur juggling three businesses - a tattoo parlour, a gym and a boxing clinic - in East Vancouver, an area of hipster coffee shops and chic duplexes that the 46-year-old remembers as gritty during his delinquent adolescence.

Until recently, he also owned an illegal cannabis dispensary in the city's trendy Commercial Drive neighbourhood. He had to step away from that venture in order for it to secure a coveted business licence from the City of Vancouver.

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Coming soon to a storefront near you: a cannabis shop. The provincial government has brought down the latest of many new regulations as the date for legalization approaches. After much debate and much reading of tea leaves, the government says that legalized recreational marijuana will be sold at stand-alone stores, some run by private operators and others by the Liquor Distribution Branch. The distribution branch will be the wholesaler, and all will be overseen by the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch.

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Comment: Feds should pump the brakes and rethink its token gesture on safety

We're only seven weeks into the new year and already there are three major hurdles on the trucking industry's plate. The legalization of marijuana, the electronic logging devices (ELD) and either the total cancellation or just a fine-tuning of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

That's more than enough for the trucking industry to swallow, so let me try to shed a little light on each of the three.

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New Study: Fatal collisions involving young drivers increase by 38 per cent after pot-smoking celebrations

The risk of a fatal accident among young drivers spikes by 38 per cent in the hours after 4/20 celebrations, according to new research from UBC and the University of Toronto.

The finding suggests that mass marijuana celebrations may not be entirely without consequences.

John Staples, a professor of medicine and researcher at UBC's Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, said people aged 20 and younger had a much higher risk of a fatal crash on April 20 from 4:20 p.m. until midnight compared to the same period one week before and one week after.

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An unusual aspect of Canada's soon-to-be-legal cannabis market is that the activists who led the legalization movement may find themselves excluded from the industry for which their efforts paved the way.

Vancouver activists like Jodie and Marc Emery and dispensary pioneer Don Briere, for example, have criminal records for possessing and selling marijuana. Now those criminal records could be used against them in federal and provincial licensing systems that are under development to decide who gets to cultivate and sell recreational cannabis.

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Dear Prime Minister Trudeau: I was wondering why you bother traveling all over the planet to climate change conventions to save the world from pollution but remain willing to return home and pass a bill that will cause our whole country to become polluted everywhere with the stinking, cloying smell of marijuana?

That is OK for all you people who can afford a single-family dwelling where you can retreat, close the door and ignore the stink of the irritating smoke. But those of us who live in apartments, condos or other connected housing units aren't able to do that, leaving us at the mercy of our neighbours. Now we can at least, if someone is polluting our apartment building, phone the police and get help to stop the culprits.

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To fight the opioid epidemic will take altering people's thoughts around drug abuse

The way people feel about drug addiction has evolved significantly since the outbreak of the fentanyl crisis.

But the shift from viewing addiction as a moral problem to treating it like any other health issue is a work in progress, says Rae Samson, a substance abuse worker at Interior Health.

"I'm not sure if we are a generation away from making that shift, but a lot of work has been dedicated to that purpose in the past 20 years with tremendous gains. But there have been really rapid gains since the opioid crisis began," Samson said.

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Overwhelming 'delayed symptoms' once again a worry as 4/20 event nears

Calls to the B.C. Drug and Poison Information Centre have surged on the annual 4/20 cannabis event in Vancouver in recent years, according to a report by provincial health officials.

"The 4/20 cannabis calls represent a real spike, way over what we see on ordinary days," said Dr. Tom Kosatsky, medical director of environmental health services for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

He acknowledged that the total number of calls remains small, but is nevertheless growing. His report is published in the current B.C. Medical Journal.

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