The B.C. government stepped up its fight against the growing number of drug overdose deaths Friday with the launch of a new emergency response centre that will link to regional and community action teams on Vancouver Island and elsewhere.

The emergency centre will have about 10 full- and part-time staff based at Vancouver General Hospital and backed by a team of experts.

The centre will analyze data, spot trends and work with new regional teams at Island Health and the other four health authorities to improve front-line services.

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Lessons are still being digested after a lethal batch of opioids in October put emergency workers to the test

The first warning came mid-afternoon on a Thursday in late October, from a client at a downtown Victoria HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction facility.

It was the day after "cheque day," when social-assistance payments are issued in B.C. - a period linked to an increase in overdoses and other related harms. But even with that factored in, front-line workers were getting the sense that things were worse than usual.

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Motacan Compassion Society is exempt from business licence requirement, operator argues

A medical marijuana dispensary is suing the City of Abbotsford in an effort to remain open and avoid paying thousands of dollars in tickets.

Motacan Compassion Society, which operates a storefront location in an alley off Montrose Avenue in downtown Abbotsford, says it is exempt from bylaws requiring a business licence due to its not-for-profit society status.

In a petition filed last week in B.C. Supreme Court, "principal operator" David Smith claims Motacan is a registered society that provides "reasonable access to medical cannabis to members of the society on a highly subsidized basis."

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West Kelowna is the latest B.C. city to petition the court to stop cannabis dispensaries from doing business.

The city is alleging that the Black Crow Herbals Association, Okanagan Cannabis Solutions Society, Selina Lau, Ralph Krehbiel and Matthew Nicholas are operating without business licenses and it is petitioning the court for an order to stop them from continuing to do so.

In the petition to the court, it says once the order is issued, the RCMP would be given the ability to arrest and remove any person who is contravening any provision of this order within the properties listed.

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The Liberal government has released its draft legislation for Bill C-45, known in shorthand as the 'Cannabis Act' for legalizing marijuana. And according to Kootenay Outdoor Producers Cooperative co-founder Todd Veri, it's better than just good news for small producers - it's everything they'd hoped for.

"Our big concern was that they wouldn't allow outdoor growing or that they'd make life impossible for the co-operative model," says Veri. "Based on the report the government put together last year, we believed the government was going to go in the right direction but might need a nudge from us. It seems they took into account our documentation - we had five or six points we wanted to address and they addressed them all in the draft legislation."

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Reading the CBC News report, 'Associations call for ban on homegrown weed in BC once it becomes legal,' I have to question the judgment of the Doctors of BC, who default to pharmaceutical drugs quite unquestioningly, yet challenge more natural modes of treatment such as cannabis and homeopathy.

Cannabis cannot be tied to a single death or overdose. Meanwhile we are experiencing an opioid crisis. The CDC noted in one report that: "Among the more than 64,000 drug overdose deaths estimated in 2016, the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) with over 20,000 overdose deaths." According to news website Vox, "More Americans died of drug overdoses in 2016 than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War - the result of the US's opioid epidemic."

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Vancouver comic Mark Hughes interviews fentanyl dealer as part of recently launched podcast

Death has been a constant in Kyle's life for 25 years.

It's a narrative that goes hand in hand with his lifestyle, and shows no signs of abating.

Kyle - not his real name - is a fentanyl dealer. He says he's killed people with his own hands, and by extension, through his line of work. Kyle spoke to Vancouver comedian Mark Hughes as part of Hughes' recently-launched podcast called Pulling the Trigger. The Courier attempted to speak with Kyle, but he declined on more than one occasion.

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Some cities want to prohibit all recreational marijuana sales; others have already started licensing dispensaries

Ottawa's Cannabis Act, Bill C-45, passed third reading in the House of Commons on November 27, little more than seven months before the federal government's July 1, 2018, target date for legalizing recreational marijuana. The bill must be approved by the Senate and achieve Royal Assent but the writing is on the wall that legalization is on the way.

The B.C. government has yet to reveal how it plans to regulate retail sales for non-medicinal marijuana.

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Packed event featured seven speakers, plenty of questions

The fentanyl death toll is rising in B.C., but so is local interest in finding solutions to the crisis.

A packed room at the Hume Hotel heard stories and statistics Wednesday evening from a seven-person panel at an event called Growing Hope: A Community Conversation on the Current Fentanyl Crisis, which was put on by Nelson's Fentanyl Task Force.

Cheryl Dowden, executive director of ANKORS, co-hosted the evening with Nelson Police Department chief Paul Burkart. The event had been planned to run two hours, but ended up stretching to three as the audience peppered speakers with questions.

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It's late afternoon and you receive a text message: "Friends coming for dinner. Please pick up wine." You pull into the neighbourhood liquor store, pick up a bottle of your favourite wine and head home. A familiar scene taking place across the province every day.

When you go into your local liquor store, you have confidence knowing you're buying a quality product in a secure environment, with stores conveniently located in every community across the province.

B.C.'s public and private liquor stores have a proven track record over many decades, selling controlled alcohol products to adults in a responsible manner, with more than a 90 per cent compliance rate in restricting sales to minors.

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A proven system is already in place, Stephanie Smith and Damian Kettlewell write.

It's late afternoon and you receive a text message: "Please pick up wine." You pull into the neighbourhood liquor store, pick up a bottle and head home. A familiar scene taking place across the province every day.

When you go into your local liquor store, you know you are buying a quality product in a secure environment, with stores conveniently located across the province.

B.C.'s public and private liquor stores have a proven track record selling controlled alcohol products to adults in a responsible manner, with more than a 90 per cent compliance rate in restricting sales to minors.

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A man has been acquitted after evidence that he had checked in a suitcase containing a large quantity of drugs at Vancouver International Airport was thrown out of court.

David Edward Herman checked in two pieces of luggage when he arrived at the airport for a flight to Toronto on March 17, 2013.

One of the suitcases passed through security without any incident and was loaded onto the plane but screening of the second suitcase indicated the possible existence of explosives.

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North Shore residents should be able to buy marijuana in either private or government-run outlets, similar to liquor stores, but there should be strict regulations banning youth under 19 from accessing weed and roadside suspensions for drivers impaired by pot.

Local municipalities also want a cut of marijuana revenues to help with enforcement of the rules and a say about where pot shops are set up.

Those are some of the messages put forward by all three North Shore municipalities in response to a provincial call for submissions as B.C. considers how legal marijuana will be sold and regulated next year. Those responses received are now posted online by the province.

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The District of North Vancouver is going to fight another pot shop in the courts.

The municipality filed court documents Nov. 15 in B.C. Supreme Court, asking for an order that the owners of Medicinal Mary Jane Iprio Inc. operating at 1488 Pemberton Ave. stop selling marijuana and marijuana products, in contravention of local bylaws.

The court documents also ask for an order authorizing police to arrest anyone who contravenes a judge's order in the case.

Six people - residents of Vancouver, New Westminster and Richmond who are directors of the company, are named in the lawsuit, along with Orient Holdings Ltd, which owns the property where the marijuana retail shop operates. Legal documents also name the Medicinal Mary-Jane Canada Society and three people who are directors of the society, including Aaron Sinnathamby of Burnaby who is also a director of Medicinal Mary Jane Iprio Inc.

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A man has been acquitted after evidence that he had checked in a suitcase containing a large quantity of drugs at Vancouver International Airport was thrown out of court.

David Edward Herman checked in two pieces of luggage when he arrived at the airport for a flight to Toronto on March 17, 2013.

One of the suitcases passed through security without incident and was loaded onto the plane, but a screening of the second suggested it might contain explosives.

When the suitcase was examined by security officers, they discovered drugs later determined to be marijuana and hashish.

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Re: "Smoking pot hard on health."

The reason that "disparate points of view on the whole issue" exist is simply because those in the prohibitionist camp seem to be highly selective about what they choose to acknowledge as fact. Tobacco use provides the No. 1 source of preventable deaths in Canada and no one in the span of recorded history has ever died just from smoking cannabis.

At the same time, studies that indicate that the use of cannabis slows or even stops the growth of tumors are completely ignored.

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B.C. cannabis company has wait-list of 1,500 orders, but some experts warn such illegal seasonal novelties pose potential health risks

A Vancouver cannabis company is scrambling to keep up with a flood of orders for marijuana-filled Advent calendars, but the novel take on a popular Christmas tradition has some health experts ringing alarm bells.

Lorilee Fedler of Coast to Coast Medicinals said she's been overwhelmed by the response since launching the holiday calendars earlier this month.

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A Vancouver cannabis company is scrambling to keep up with a flood of orders for marijuana-filled advent calendars, but the novel take on a popular Christmas tradition has some health experts ringing alarm bells.

Lorilee Fedler of Coast to Coast Medicinals said she's been overwhelmed by the response since launching the holiday calendars earlier this month.

"We just wanted something fun and different for adults," Fedler said, adding that she came up with the idea after seeing versions containing beer.

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On a flight home last week, I was having a conversation about the introduction of Bill C-45 or the "Cannabis Act." The person I was talking to is working with local governments to sort out the multitude of bylaws and regulations which will be necessitated by the legislation. Different municipalities are taking varying approaches and have disparate points of view on the whole issue.

After all, not everyone is in favour of legalizing marijuana nor sure what exactly that means.

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The ramifications of legalized marijuana keep popping up, as governments try to prepare for the new reality that is rapidly approaching. Municipalities are at the sharp end of the issue. As so often happens, they will have the bulk of the responsibility, while having the least power and the fewest resources.

Victoria city council has offered a list of suggestions to the provincial government, as the province tries to answer its own slice of the many questions about the production, sale and use of marijuana. The city's list gives a taste of the many possibilities that policymakers have to foresee.

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