Iam increasingly concerned with the inadequacy of our approach to the opioid crisis, both as a society and in the field of public health. There is no question that when people are dying in large numbers, we have to respond, and that has been happening. Safe injection sites, the distribution of naloxone kits and similar efforts are important. But this response is sadly inadequate. It repeats the "upstream" story that I told in the first column I wrote, in December 2014, one that is fundamental to the public health approach. In essence, villagers living on the banks of a river are so busy rescuing drowning people that nobody has time to go upstream to learn how they are ending up in the river and stop them being pushed in. [continues 602 words]
Structural changes are required to clamp down on the unregulated private lending networks that drug traffickers are using to launder their illicit gains, a Simon Fraser University criminologist says. A recent Globe and Mail investigation identified people connected to the local fentanyl trade who are also private lenders, using Vancouver-area real estate to clean their cash. Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at SFU, said the complexity of these private lending networks and similar white-collar crimes make them notoriously hard to prosecute. [continues 640 words]
Less than two months out from this year's rally, it appears the vast majority of the end costs will again be passed on to taxpayers While they still can't find consensus on a location, it does appear all parties with a stake in the 4/20 smoke-out at Sunset Beach seem to agree on this: organizers will have to foot little, if any, of what could be a six-figure, post-event price tag. Less than two months out from one of the city's largest and polarizing public events, the Courier reached out the Vancouver Park Board, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department and rally organizers to assess where the annual April 20 gathering is at in terms of planning, lessons learned and the mechanics involved in the cost-recovery process. [continues 631 words]
As Canada is poised to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, readers might wonder how schools will handle the change. Will kids be legally toking up on school grounds? Will skunky smells be wafting down the halls? Definitely not. First off, it's important to note that when the recreational use of marijuana is legalized, probably later this year, it will still be illegal for minors to use or possess pot. In that regard, things won't change in schools. [continues 680 words]
Re: This is your brain on pot, Douglas Todd column, Feb. 17. Again, kudos to The Vancouver Sun for Douglas Todd's column on the potential health risks of marijuana. Educators have been warning about this for a long time, but the negative effects on adolescents has been blanked out by politicians looking for easy tax dollars. Just wait for the weeping and wailing that will follow the legalization of marijuana as youth damage their brains while participating in what they see as a rite of passage to adulthood. Ted Cooper, Powell River [end]
British Columbia is expecting legalized cannabis to bring in $75-million a year to the province in taxes, with legal sales estimated to be worth a billion dollars. This week's provincial budget estimates that once the drug is legalized later this year, the province will take in $50-million in the current fiscal year and $75-million in 2019-2020, the first full fiscal year under legalization. That represents the province's 75 per cent share of a federal excise tax, which Ottawa has said will be $1 per gram, or 10 per cent of larger purchases, whichever is higher. While that translates to about $1-billion in sales in the province, B.C.'s Finance Minister says it could be higher. [continues 541 words]
Medical marijuana added to health-insurance plan Medical marijuana will soon be part of health insurance for students at UBC Okanagan. The one-year pilot program will begin in September. University of Waterloo began a similar plan in 2014. The idea was initiated by Michelle Thiessen, chairwoman of the Okanagan chapter of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and a UBCO graduate student. Without coverage for medical marijuana, students are left covering 100 per cent of the costs while still paying into the student health insurance plan, she said. [continues 288 words]
As the B.C. government sets policy on the legalization of marijuana, the towns of Oliver and Osoyoos are still wondering what that will look like. Oliver Mayor Ron Hovanes said his council has to have a formal discussion on the topic. "We had most recently suggested that any sale (of marijuana) should take place through a government agency and the province has decided against that." Hovanes previously questioned if municipalities should have any role in marijuana legalization. Council recently supported a call for local governments to receive a share of the cannabis revenue to cover social and policing costs. [continues 765 words]
Dear Tony: Our strata council is getting a lot of pressure from our owners to adopt a bylaw that prohibits use of marijuana and growing of marijuana plants. Several owners have already complained about the smell of marijuana in the building from several smokers, and we had to eradicate a grow-op back in 2004, costing our strata more than $75,000 in damages that we never recovered. What our council is struggling with is the question of how far we can go with our bylaws. [continues 447 words]
B.C. has become a haven of drug-dealing and money-laundering that's killing hundreds of people from overdoses and pricing homes beyond the reach of law-abiding citizens. That's the view of Attorney-General David Eby, who's promising bold action to purge B.C.'s casinos and hyper-inflated real-estate markets from the influence of criminals. "We have an international reputation that's in tatters," Eby told me. "We will clean it up. My goal is to have B.C.'s international reputation back on track." [continues 404 words]
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." [continues 532 words]
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 [end]
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. [continues 513 words]
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? [continues 975 words]
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. [continues 730 words]
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. [continues 470 words]
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. [continues 120 words]
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 [end]
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. [continues 229 words]
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." [continues 630 words]