Vancouver police are recommending 11 criminal charges be laid against five people in connection with Sunday's bust of an open-air marijuana market in Vancouver's Robson Square.

VPD Deputy Chief Howard Chow says four people were arrested - and another is pending - after police descended on Robson in the block between Hornby and Howe late Sunday evening.

But just hours after the police released details of the bust Tuesday, pot was once again being sold on the block.

Robert Moore, president of World Cannabis, an anti-prohibition advocacy group, was at the "cannabis farmer's market" Tuesday afternoon but not selling cannabis.

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Two vices are poised to potentially descend on Delta in the coming months, but it's curious that the reception they're getting from city leaders is markedly different.

The federal government is expected to legalize marijuana sometime later this year, which has prompted those over at city hall to compile a laundry list of concerns. Delta doesn't want to see pot grown on local farmland due to its impact on food security and public safety, worried that large-scale pot farms could be a draw for organized crime. The city is also raising questions over public consumption, where marijuana will be sold, how tax revenues will be split and more.

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Punitive approach behind OD crisis, Susan Boyd says.

Canada has been inching toward legal regulation of cannabis for many years. But the fears that paralyzed our country for more than a century are still very much in evidence, despite decades of proof that none of the punitive policies we cling to help reduce drug-related harm.

Increasingly, drug prohibition is understood as an issue of social justice and human rights by those who have fought for a better way. The history of Canadian drug prohibition is marked by many pivotal moments and challenges to the status quo, brought forward with passion and insight by community activists, people who use drugs, organizations, constitutional lawyers, researchers, and health and service providers.

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Vancouver VCH will offer many services in one location Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Vancouver Coastal Health has built a new supervised injection site. But until Health Canada approves the health authority's application, it will sit empty.

The new room, built especially to offer injection-drug users a supervised place to shoot up, is part of the new Heatley Community Health Centre.

It's designed to offer what its creators call "wrap-around" health care to patients from the Downtown Eastside. And its completion comes in the middle of the worst overdose crisis in B.C.'s history that saw over 1,200 British Columbians die from illicit drug overdoses in 2017.

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Food cart vendors raised concerns about site

An open-air weed market operating in downtown Vancouver's Robson Square has been shut down by police.

Complaints were filed in recent weeks with the Vancouver police over vendors who had set up tents and carts in the pedestrian-only area, selling cannabis and related products. Nearby food cart vendors voiced concerns about marijuana booths selling to minors, and there were questions about whether they had business licences such as what is required of the food cart vendors.

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Dear editor: When is enough enough? Twelve years ago my wife and I decided that we wanted to move to the Okanagan. After a lot of thought and visits, we chose Penticton. What an absolutely wonderful place: sunshine, beaches, festivals, sports and if you stayed all winter very bearable

But what has been happening is more break-ins, both on the personal level as well as businesses, thefts are a regular occurrence (the police know who most of these criminals are, it's mostly drug related) resulting in more and more fear amongst good honest citizens.

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Food vendors had filed complaints about cannabis sales near art gallery

An open-air weed market operating in downtown Vancouver's Robson Square has been shut down by police.

Complaints were filed in recent weeks with the Vancouver police over vendors who had set up tents and carts in the pedestrian-only area, selling cannabis and related products.

Nearby food cart vendors voiced concerns about marijuana booths selling to minors, and there were questions about whether they had business licences, such as what is required of the food cart vendors.

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Vancouver is one of 16 locations where clinicians hope to use the drug to transform trauma treatment

Ed Thompson remembers the helplessness he felt each of the thousands of times his twin daughters would turn blue and go lifeless in his arms.

The young girls suffered from acute breath-holding spells, an involuntary condition that causes children to pass out, in their case up to 40 times a day.

"Having your kids die in your arms 7,500 times kind of sucks," he said.

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LSD, MARIJUANA HITS CITY IN 1966

City, police freak out over 'berserk' man

On Jan. 17, 1966, The Vancouver Sun published a small story with an alarming headline, Man Goes Berserk While Using Drug. LSD had hit the city. "Police said they found the man, clad only in his pants, running around the 1600-block Yew shortly after 3 a.m., screaming that he was God," said the story.

"The man, aged 36, was frothing at the mouth, had a wild-eyed appearance and was completely devoid of reason, police said.

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A few days before Christmas my son and I were in the site office with a friend of ours solving the problems of the world as we sometimes do. The topic of government taxation came up and how every aspect of life is taxed.

As the conversation continued, our friend Mike expressed a point of view we had never considered so I asked and received his permission to use it here, with some background and explanation.

When I was a teenager I worked part-time at my dad's General Motors dealership and every now and then this old fellow walked through the shop saying hello to all the mechanics and would wind up going out the back door where he would just stand around. Over the next few minutes the mechanics would lay down their tools one at a time and go out to talk to him, as well as the car salesmen and fellows from the parts department. After a few minutes of this, the old fellow left just the same way he came in, which was all a mystery to a teenager in the early 1960s.

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Re: Nelson City Council proposed moratorium for recreational cannabis sales.

This is the West Kootenays. We have some of the best pot growers and breeders in the world. For Nelson city to limit who can sell pot in Nelson will not stand up in court when recreational weed is legal.

This is Canada, thank goodness and I trust if pot is legal, we should be all able too play ball. Canadians are serious about fair laws concerning the free market or capitalist democracy. Everyone should get to play, not just the chosen few.

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The region served by Interior Health has been "hit hard" by the opioid epidemic, says the agency's medical health officer, but new tactics are being brought to bear in the fight.

"We've come a long way, but unfortunately these deaths continue to occur," Dr. Silvina Mema on Thursday told the board of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.

Fentanyl is the sole reason for the Interior Health region facing the second highest number of overdose deaths in B.C., behind only the Vancouver area, she said. According to the BC Coroner's Service, almost 90 per cent of overdose victims had fentanyl in their system.

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City considers ways to better protect employees and public

Victoria public works officials are examining protocols over the handling of discarded hypodermic needles to better protect employees and the public.

Fraser Work, Victoria director of engineering and public works, said the city is looking at its own protocols in light of reports this month of people encountering or being nicked by discarded needles.

"We take this issue very seriously, on behalf of our workers and the public," said Work.

He attended a meeting on Wednesday with public health officials, police, social service agencies and addict advocates to discuss recent needle incidents.

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After Vancouver, Interior Health has the second highest rate of illicit drug overdose deaths per population.

This alarming statistic was a sobering thought for regional district board members after hearing a presentation by health professionals on Thursday.

Administrator Rae Samson and medical health officer Dr. Silvina Mema said fentanyl is considered the cause or "poison" that is overwhelming the illicit drug supply.

BC Coroners Service data show a steady increase in deaths across the province since 2007. For example, the statistics indicate that Interior Health experienced a rate of five overdoses per 100,000 population in 2007, compared to 33 in 2017.

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Needle prick incidents may be a byproduct of permissive action aimed at saving lives

Anyone who spends a significant amount of time in downtown Victoria is at least somewhat aware of the potential for spent hypodermic needles to be discovered.

That said, finding one in a public or private area is always grim reminder of the reality that people in our midst struggle daily with addiction. And despite the efforts of local groups, those that work with the city's drug-addicted population, to clean up after the relatively small number of addicts who can't or won't dispose of needles safely, there are innocent, unsuspecting people getting pricked.

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The Municipality of North Cowichan is considering prohibiting the retail sale of marijuana within its boundaries.

That means that any application to set up a pot shop in North Cowichan would require a site-specific zoning amendment that would have to come before council to be considered.

In anticipation of the upcoming legalization of pot, expected this summer, North Cowichan's council gave first and second reading at its meeting on Jan. 17 to the zoning bylaw amendment.

This proposed zoning amendment will now proceed to a public hearing, and the time and place of the hearing will be announced.

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Bob Woolsey says laws were not valid at the time of alleged offences

A Mission man lost a court challenge this week to have his marijuana-trafficking charges thrown out.

Bob Woolsey had argued during a hearing that ran from Nov. 20 to 23 and on Dec. 12 in Abbotsford provincial court that he was not operating against the law when he allegedly sold marijuana and other derivative products to undercover police officers in late 2015.

Woolsey was operating a "compassion club" in Deroche at the time. The Crown alleges that he sold the products to the officers, even though they did not produce the proper medical documentation.

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Windows were smashed Wednesday evening and spray paint called the owner a "goof" and a "pedo"

Just a week into its opening in Okanagan Falls, a former Penticton pot shop has been vandalized with spray paint and smashed windows.

Jukka Laurio opened up his Herbal Green Apothecary in Okanagan Falls about a week ago, he said, with the hopes of putting to rest legal action from the City of Penticton over the Penticton location.

Until Wednesday night, he said the community has been fairly welcoming from the get-go.

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Homicide rate rising to levels not seen in years

The Vancouver shooting death of an innocent teenage boy caught in the crossfire of a drug gang shootout has revived fears of gang war in British Columbia's Lower Mainland.

"We are targeting gangs as we speak," said Adam Palmer, chief of the Vancouver Police Department, as he announced the death of two people, including one of the gunmen, in a wild shootout just after 9 p. m. on a busy city street last Saturday.

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Drug users need access to clean drugs: BCCDC head

As Vancouver records its highest ever number of overdose deaths, the head of B.C.'s Centre for Disease Control says he wants to move ahead on a controversial but innovative idea he feels is vital in the fight to save lives.

Dr. Mark Tyndall first proposed a vending machine back in December as a way to distribute prescription opioids to people with serious addictions who haven't responded to other treatments.

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