Being first on the scene of a drug overdose was 'the most stressful situation' 28-year-old Ryan Semiao ever experienced

When a person suffering from a schizophrenic episode starts trashing his room and screaming in rage, one of the best things you can do is knock softly on the door and ask if he would like a glass of water.

That's one of the ways 28-year-old Ryan Semiao has learned to calm troubled residents since he began working full time in March at a rough-and-tumble housing facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Semiao's new job combines janitorial duties - such as cleaning up drug paraphernalia - with front-line support that may include helping someone find an alternative to drinking Listerine.

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Researchers have identified important factors that can led to teen drug abuse. These risk factors include things such as a chaotic home, drug-using friends, and ineffective parenting.

Conversely, protective factors include parental involvement, success at school, a strong family bond, a no-use drug policy at home and appropriate role modeling from parents.

Parents should remember to model the kind of person they want their child to become.

Keep these tips in mind:

* Be a living, day-to-day example of your value system. Show the compassion, honesty, generosity and openness you want your child to have.

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The election campaign in Canada is in full swing. Colin Mayes' recent columns about climate change and drug problems (read, "Oh no, marijuana") echo television advertising currently put out by our Conservative government and doubtless paid for by us taxpayers. Some of us see through that ploy.

As a medical cannabis user for three years, I cannot restrain myself from commenting on less-than-enlightened statements. Mayes' information regarding cannabis (the actual plant name, as opposed to the derogatory, slang term marijuana) is possibly even older than that great propaganda piece, Reefer Madness.

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Life for Marc Emery has been grand since July 9, the day he was released from custody in the U.S. and crossed the border to Windsor after nearly 41/2 years behind bars.

"It's been the most wonderful time," he said.

"Everybody's been really nice to me across Canada and Europe.

"If you go to jail, it makes your work more relevant, I guess, the idea that you sacrificed."

He's taken his advocacy to Europe, where he's been presented with three lifetime achievement awards.

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A NEW DRUG that could dramatically improve outcomes for people who are addicted to opioids or alcohol is being tested in Vancouver.

St. Paul's Hospital is the only Canadian site that's involved in a pilot study headed by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse's clinical trial network of the effects of Vivitrol, or naltrexone, on people with HIV who also have opioid or alcohol addiction. Approved for use in the U.S., it blocks the brain's ability to experience the effects of alcohol and drugs such as heroin.

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The Victoria Police Department is now the sole respondent in a human rights complaint filed by VicPD Cst. David Bratzer.

Bratzer filed a human rights complaint against VicPD, former police chief Jamie Graham and Insp. Jamie Pearce in 2013 for restricting his public communications as a member of the U.S.-based organization LEAP, Law Enforcement Against prohibition. Bratzer is an outspoken member, advocating for drug legalization.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal dismissed Graham and Pearce from Bratzer's complaint on Dec. 16.

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THE B.C. HUMAN Rights Tribunal has noted that a police department restricted the off-duty activities of an officer who believes in ending the war on drugs.

In a decision today (December 16), tribunal member Robert Blasina wrote that there is "no dispute" that the Victoria Police Department sought and continues to limit the public advocacy of Const. David Bratzer when he's not in uniform.

The question that remains is whether or not the VicPD contravened the B.C. Human Rights Code.

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Parliamentary committees undertake studies dealing with various topics and then write a report. If Opposition members on a particular committee do not agree with the report, they usually put together what is called a Dissenting Minority Report.

The House of Commons Health Committee recently did a study on all aspects of marijuana policy and use in Canada. The NDP believes that this study was unbalanced and was designed to focus on the harms of marijuana policy and use in Canada.

According to our Health critic, Libby Davies and other NDP members of the committee, the study and resulting report did not allow for an unbiased assessment of both harms and potential medical benefits.

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Constable Who Wants Drugs Legalized Said Former Chief Discriminated Against Him

Former Victoria police chief Jamie Graham and Insp. Jamie Pearce have been removed from a human rights complaint filed by an officer who says he was discriminated against based on his political views.

Const. David Bratzer, an outspoken advocate for drug legalization, filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal last year saying the department's senior management, including Graham and Pearce, warned him not to speak about drug legalization while off-duty. Bratzer is the president of the Canadian branch of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international organization of current and former law-enforcement officials pushing for full legalization and regulation of drugs.

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Undercover agents posing as drug kingpins. Cartel reps exchanging hockey bags full of money. A west-side kid who moved money for the Mexicans

Ariel Julian Savein would drive to classes at Vancouver's Point Grey secondary a decade ago in his father's green BMW.

In his 2003 graduation yearbook, Savein thanked his parents and teachers for getting him through school: "Looking back, it's hard to put things in perspective but I think I've learned a lot."

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Mexican cartels are bypassing the middleman and sending their own agents into Vancouver to arrange drug shipments and launder money. The Sun's Kim Bolan investigates.

Infamous Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and La Familia have sent representatives to the Lower Mainland to broker drug deals with local gangs, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

A Sun investigation has uncovered increasing links between B.C. drug gangs and the notoriously violent cartels that have wreaked havoc along Mexico's northern border.

For years, local crime groups travelled south to the U.S. and Mexico to work with the cartels. Police now confirm that the Mexican crime groups have moved members north so they can be on the ground in B.C. and other parts of Canada. Calgary Police recently revealed that cartel members are also operating in that Alberta city.

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I am always puzzled by the national media's focus on trivial issues and missing the more important challenges facing society and governments. Our society is being under-minded by substance abuse and very few people are talking about it.

One in five Canadians (21.6 per cent ) has a substance or alcohol abuse problem. Substance abuse costs us $40 billion per year in Canada. Eighty per cent of federal offenders have a history of substance abuse issues. Six million Canadians are in recovery. Contrary to the solutions of the NDP and Liberals to legalize marijuana, because they say it is just a soft drug, studies found that 40 per cent of people that start using marijuana move on to harder drugs.

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How would I react if I were dying of terminal cancer and none of the current painkillers could ease my agony? Or if I were suffering day after day the pain of crippling arthritis and no medication relieved my misery? And then I read that addicts were granted prescription heroin to treat their addiction.

I'd be damn annoyed that this painkiller was available for addicts but not for cancer victims and others dying in pain.

Several years ago I wrote that I'd send addicts to chop wood in Northern Canada. That would surely solve their addiction.

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Legal Narcotics In A Liberal City

THE people queuing up at the Providence Crosstown Clinic are pioneers of a sort. They are heroin addicts whose habits have resisted conventional treatment. They hope to become the first in North America to get their fixes legally as part of a treatment programme rather than just for a clinical trial. "It's heroin that you know is good," says one addict waiting outside, who aspires to join the queue.

Some European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, prescribe heroin for the most severe cases of addiction. Patients taking heroin are less likely to use illicit drugs and drop out of treatment than those who use methadone, a substitute. Vancouver's eagerness to follow is not surprising. It has long had Canada's most liberal drug policies, and it has a big problem. Addicts congregate in Downtown Eastside, two derelict blocks right next to tourist attractions and the financial district. In the late 1990s the city had the highest rate of HIV infection outside sub-Saharan Africa.

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When one observes and considers the state of our society, it becomes obvious that we are headed in the wrong direction. One change that is occurring that shows people's contempt for the law is the belligerent attitude towards smoking marijuana.

This I will break into two segments, those using it for medical purposes (which does seem to provide some benefit), and those who just want to smoke dope.

There is already an infrastructure in place to provide for medicinal use. There is one legal grow-op in Kelowna that I know of, and stores here in Vernon where people with the proper credentials can purchase it.

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To the Editor,

Re: Pot producers partner on study, Nov. 18.

Why is Canada's first clinical trial to test the effectiveness of marijuana in treating post-traumatic stress disorder not being conducted at the brain research centre of the province, Vancouver General Hospital, where the most diagnostic equipment for imaging the brain is located?

It certainly is first and foremost a question of how does it work on its own? This must be completely understood and all of the harms identified first before a new drug can be compared to others.

Furthermore, the average amount of time that it takes for a new drug to go from the laboratory to the retail market is 17 years. This has been so in part to try to ensure the drug has long-term efficacy and safety.

Linda Richards

Nanaimo

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How would I react if I were dying of terminal cancer and none of the current painkillers could ease my agony? Or if I were suffering day after day the pain of crippling arthritis and no medication relieved my misery? And then I read that addicts were granted prescription heroin to treat their addiction.

I'd be damn annoyed that this painkiller was available for addicts but not for cancer victims and others dying in pain.

Several years ago I wrote that I'd send addicts to chop wood in Northern Canada.

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A judge has given an absolute discharge to a man charged with trafficking marijuana after police raided his Lions Bay home and found 414 marijuana plants, although almost half most were seedlings.

Michael Santos, an audio engineer with no criminal record, pleaded guilty to possessing about three kilograms of marijuana for trafficking.

The police raid took place on Feb. 28, 2013, when a battering ram was used to break the front door when no one immediately answered at Santos' rental home, where he lived with his wife and two children.

The court was told that Santos, 40, grew the pot as medical marijuana for himself and gave the rest away to others in need of medical marijuana.

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The Regional District of Nanaimo is seeking direction from the province on steps it can take to regulate medical marijuana production facilities through local bylaws.

Directors for RDN also voted last week to write to Health Canada - the federal department in charge of regulating the medicinal substance - requesting a "thorough" evaluation of traffic, security, water contamination and wastewater issues resulting from the construction of medical marijuana production centres.

The vote came amidst growing frustrations among elected officials and members of the public after learning that two such facilities were proposed within the RDN by Vancouver-based producer Wildflower Marijuana Inc. - one in Nanoose next to a subdivision and another reportedly in the Yellow Point area. A third, separate licence application has been made for a facility in the Deep Bay-Bowser area by a Vancouver Island group.

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A move intended to eliminate a problem area in the downtown may have had unintended consequences for businesses nearby.

In a letter to city council, local lawyer Ben Levine said the city decision to remove the planters on Third Avenue and George Street in October resulted in an "immediate" increase in loitering around his office in the 1100 block of Third Avenue. The city removed the previous waist-high planter boxes often used as informal seating, and replaced them with planting areas flush to the ground.

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