The fentanyl crisis in B.C. continues to worsen.

In the past five years, the province has gone from 12 fentanyl-related deaths to 823 between between January and August this year.

There have been no fentanyl-related deaths reported in Revelstoke, but RCMP still believe that the powerful opioid has made its way into the community.

With the number of fatalities in the province climbing, it makes sense that community institutions would arm themselves with a resource to combat opioid overdoses.

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Editor:

The question is not when our government will decriminalize personal possession and provide a safe clean drug source, like we do for alcohol and soon to be marijuana, but how many more families will be devastated with the loss of a loved one before a government is brave enough to value lives over votes.

In Portugal, possession is not a criminal offence if you have a 10 day personal supply in your possession. If it is more than that then it's treated as trafficking. By decriminalizing personal possession, we can then start to rid the negative stigma that is associated with addiction.

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Being illegal - for now - makes it hard to pin down just how big the market for marijuana is, but one estimate suggests it's at least as large as hard liquor sales, about $5 billion annually.

The report, from financial services firm Deloitte, estimates the market for legalized recreational marijuana could give Canada's economy a $22.6 billion annual boost when you include growers, equipment suppliers and the like.

With that much of an economic boost at stake, it's a little hard to understand the fear-mongering coming from many levels of society as the date for the promised legalization approaches.

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The Vernon School District is taking a proactive approach to battling the opioid crisis.

Rather than waiting for drug problems to develop, school counsellors, backed by the district, are tackling potential problems before they materialize through a new program.

Preventure, a school-based preventative drug and alcohol program, aims to reduce drug and alcohol use in high-risk teenagers.

"The starting point is prevention, then intervention," said Doug Rogers, district substance abuse prevention counsellor.

The Canadian-developed program screens Grade 8 students for four personality traits that are considered at risk: sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness, as research indicates that up to 90 per cent of at risk youth can be identified from these traits.

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A quarter-century ago, Abbotsford had its moment of clarity with respect to drugs and gangs.

After repeated denials by the city's municipal police department that gangs were active in the Fraser Valley city, the truth was laid bare when 18-year-old Kirby Martin was shot and killed in a parking lot of a mall along the city's main strip, South Fraser Way.

His death was followed by acknowledgment from police that gangs were indeed part of life in the city and many community forums followed.

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The event will feature stories from the front lines

Nelson's Fentanyl Task Force is set to host Growing Hope: A Community Conversation on the Current Fentanyl Crisis at Nelson's Hume Hotel on Nov. 22. The discussion will feature health care professionals, emergency responders, educators and community leaders across the West Kootenay.

"What will have the biggest effect on death is reducing stigma for people who are using drugs," says Chloe Sage, an educator at Nelson's ANKORS who will be part of a seven-person panel of speakers at the event. "One of the goals of these panels is to be able to talk about all the issues that involve people who use drugs and people who are at risk of dying from fentanyl overdose. When we start lowering the stigma and people can talk about what they are going through, then we will have less deaths because people will be able to seek the help they need."

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The province should develop a licensing regime to allow for designated cannabis-consumption lounges when marijuana becomes legal next year, say Victoria councillors.

"We're seeing a need for it in our community right now, as there are lounges that are operating illegally based on our regulations and current laws," said Coun. Jeremy Loveday.

The recommendation will be part of a suite of suggestions the city will forward to the province for consideration as it crafts regulations governing the production, sale and use of marijuana, which the federal government plans to make legal by next summer.

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The guidelines are strict but it won't matter

According to new marijuana marketing guidelines released Wednesday by The Coalition for Responsible Cannabis Branding after working with Advertising Standards Canada, companies marketing marijuana will not be able to use animals to sell pot nor will be they be able to promote the use of cannabis itself ( just brand preference) and they will be required to advertise in places where over 70 per cent of the audience is adult (or above the age of majority in the particular province).

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Five of the six marijuana dispensaries located in West Kelowna are defying the city's order to shut down.

And, as a result, they are each facing hefty fines that, if left unpaid, could result in court action.

A week after the deadline the city gave the dispensaries to wrap up their operations in West Kelowna, only one has complied. So the city has started fining the dispensaries $1,000 a day each for contravening city bylaws.

According to the city, West Kelowna bylaw officers visited the six dispensaries Nov. 1 and only one said it has stopped dispensing marijuana.

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5 West Kelowna stores rack up daily fines as they continue to sell marijuana despite loss of their business licences

No business licence, no problem. That seems to be the defiant attitude of five West Kelowna pot shops, which continue to sell marijuana despite orders from the city to shut down.

"We are open for business as we speak," Selina Lau of Black Crow Herbal Solutions said Monday.

The operators of each store are being fined $1,000 a day for not having a business licence. The fines began Nov. 1 and will continue indefinitely, the City of West Kelowna says.

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Dear editor:

Congratulations Mr. Miller, on your promotion.

Re: Your Editorial of Nov. 1, 2017.

The move on the part of our national government to "legalize" the recreational use of marijuana without putting in place a nation-wide format of what their "legalization" really means is utterly disgraceful.

Their offloading this responsibility to each provincial jurisdiction to rush together a set of laws and regulations by next summer is truly unacceptable behaviour.

Once again we will have a situation of utter confusion with what is legal or permissible from one local town or city to the next.

Such poor performance, to fulfill one campaign promise, at the cost of creating so many new problems across our country.

Tom Crawford, Penticton

[end]

Group against drunk driving says injuries, deaths due to driving high likely to increase after pot use is legalized in Canada next summer

Crashes caused by drivers high on pot are likely to spike after the drug is legalized next summer, MADD Canada says.

American states that have already approved the use of marijuana have seen sharp increases in fatal accidents in which a driver was impaired by the drug, MADD's western region manager for chapter services said Sunday.

"That's certainly been the experience in Washington state and Colorado, and we will probably see an increase in deaths and injuries related to cannabis use here after it's legalized next July," Tracy Crawford said after a MADD-hosted candlelight vigil for victims of impaired driving.

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Province widens availability of device for detecting the presence of fentanyl; medical health officer says lives will be saved

British Columbia has expanded a program allowing people to check their street drugs for fentanyl before using, becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to facilitate the experimental testing on a wide scale.

Health officials have also purchased a device that detects both the presence and quantities of deadly adulterants and can provide a more detailed analysis of not just fentanyl, but other chemically similar drugs being cut into the local supply.

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Conditions can push people to commit crimes: Study

Releasing people on bail on the condition they do not go to the Downtown Eastside sets them up for failure, according to research from three Canadian universities.

Judges often order people on bail to avoid certain "no-go zones" or "red zones" in an effort to prevent them from committing crimes. But it, in fact, does the exact opposite, says SFU geography professor Nicholas Blomley.

"These are people who have yet to be found guilty of an offence," he said.

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When Lisa was released on bail, following an arrest for possession for the purpose of trafficking, British Columbia's Provincial Court ordered the Downtown Eastside resident to stay away from the busy hub of Hastings Street.

But she says that condition, that she stay away from the street where she was arrested, made little sense.

"My bank was there, my home was there, my probation was there, my doctor was there, like come on guys! All of Hastings Street? Hello! My whole life is there! They're going to arrest you every time you want to go home?"

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Legalizing marijuana will dramatically increase the workload for police forces across the country, says Victoria Police Chief Del Manak.

"The Cannabis Act will legalize cannabis, and I can assure you that the work for the police department and every police agency across this country is going to exponentially increase," Manak told city councillors during a budget workshop on Tuesday.

Efforts to keep drugs out of the hands of organized crime and youth and to deal with drivers who are impaired by cannabis "will not happen overnight," Manak said.

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Here in Vancouver, it's tempting to praise ourselves for our forward-thinking approaches to illicit drug use. We're home to Insite, the first supervised-injection facility in North America, the success of which paved the way for Health Canada to start approving prospective supervised-injection sites in other cities across the country this year. We're also home to the first and only prescription heroin program on the continent, which has proven how life-changing it can be for a person entrenched in opiate addiction to have access to a clean, regulated supply of drugs.

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Most Canadians are in favour of legalizing marijuana and for many different reasons.

Little Kyla Williams in Summerland became a poster child across North America for the benefits of medical cannabis.

Recreational users affirm that pot is less harmful than alcohol. (Most cops agree that drunks are far harder to deal with than stoners.)

A suggestion by the Green Party is to take distribution out of the control of organized crime and tax it like they do for alcohol and tobacco. A portion of tax collected can then be directed for education and treatment programs for those who become addicted.

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The majority of Canadians are in favour of legalizing marijuana and for many different reasons.

Little Kyla Williams in Summerland became a poster child across North America for the wonderful benefits of medical cannabis.

Recreational users affirm that pot is less harmful than alcohol. (Most cops agree that drunks are far harder to deal with than stoners.)

A suggestion that the Green party has been saying for years is take distribution out of the hands of organized crime, tax it like they do alcohol and cigarettes, and spend the money on education and treatment programs.

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Tory Leader open to new ideas for tackling crisis in B.C., but remains leery of supervised drug-use sites and further decriminalization

Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he is trying to keep an open mind on options for dealing with the opioid overdose crisis in British Columbia, but is not backing off key tenets on harm reduction his party pushed in government.

That includes reservations about supervised drug-use sites. In an interview on Wednesday ahead of a visit later this month to the Lower Mainland, Mr. Scheer also said prosecuting drug users may steer them into rehabilitation programs that would reduce the risk of overdoses.

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