An easy promise to make will be harder to pull off

Smoking marijuana can impair one's thought processes, but all the federal government needs to do is talk about it to achieve a state of surreal confusion.

Consider the situation today. Marijuana is going to be legalized next year. Cool. In the meantime, illegal pot stores are proliferating across the country under the guise of offering medical marijuana. Since they are illegal, and theoretically don't exist, they are unaffected by zoning regulations and business licence requirements. Little is known about the quality of what they sell. When Health Canada received a report about dangerous toxins in marijuana sold in dispensaries in Vancouver, it sat on it and did nothing.

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The Cannabis Culture store in downtown Peterborough plans to reopen for business on Tuesday at 10 a.m. after closing following a city police raid earlier this month.

Marijuana advocate and Cannabis Culture stores chain founder Marc Emery said Monday afternoon that the store at 382 George St. N. will reopen Tuesday at 10 a.m. and resume its operating hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The store first opened Sept. 9, openly serving clients 19 and older with marijuana for medicinal and recreational use.

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As the federal government is planning to introduce legislation next year to begin the process of legalizing and regulating marijuana in Canada, there is an unprecedented urgency to end a new driving behaviour before it is too late.

We have to get this right. It's essential all public safety officials and elected representatives make sure the same knowledge that exists around seatbelts and car seats saving lives exists around driving sober from alcohol and drugs.

We must first commit to doubling-down our efforts, as policymakers, to spread the word that driving high is just as dangerous - and as stupid, as irresponsible, and as reckless - as driving drunk.

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On Monday, police Chief Charles Bordeleau said he wants The Suya Spot, a restaurant on Shillington Avenue where 26-year-old Abdi Jama was shot to death on Sunday, shut down. It's understandable why he'd urge this: in the three years it has been open, police have received more than 100 calls to the eatery about everything from illegal liquor sales to public drunkenness to incidents involving guns, yet it hasn't been shut down. The chief himself doesn't have the power to close a legal business; he wants those officials who do have it to act.

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'Dispensaries are becoming more and more prevalent,' Fleury says

Some city councillors have asked Ottawa police to explain what the force plans to do about the illegal pot shops operating across the city.

The chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board, Coun. Eli El-Chantiry, tabled an inquiry at Monday 's meeting, saying some councillors and residents are concerned about the marijuana dispensaries popping up around town.

About 15 shops have opened, most since June. Coun. Mathieu Fleury says he and several other councillors want them closed.

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Port Colborne will ask Health Canada to revoke licences to grow medical marijuana at a greenhouse on Pinecrest Road, in the wake of last week's armed robbery there when two people were held at gunpoint.

Niagara Regional Police reported last week that while searching the property, officers found 3,400 plants growing in the greenhouse.

That's about 3,000 plants - worth $1.5 million - more than the facility was permitted to produce through the three licences it was operating under.

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All of the pot dispensaries are breaking the law. Close them down. The Liberal government has said that they want to control distribution. What are they going to do about established businesses when they finally decide to come up with their plan?

These pot shops are not getting their cannabis from government-approved growers. Some may be fronts for organized crime.

Go in and audit their books. There should be a proper record of sales and purchases. If they cannot show a receipt for purchase of all their products (marijuana, cookies, candy and such), then they are obviously breaking the law by buying from an illegal source. If they are cooking their own brownies, then Health Canada should be looking into their business.

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Cannabis Culture reopens after raid, while Trent University business student prepares to open another marijuana store

Peterborough's marijuana store, Cannabis Culture, reopened Tuesday morning, with city police announcing that the opening has their attention.

The shop was closed Sept. 15, days after it opened, when city police raided it and removed its products. Two people, store owner Richard Standen and employee Maranda Gallant, were arrested.

Standen, 62, of Wecker Drive in Oshawa, was charged with trafficking marijuana, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime.

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City police brass want more training, and equipment, for officers to deal with potentially hazardous narcotics.

Fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamines are increasing in popularity among drug users, said Deputy Chief Sean Sparling during a Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Board meeting Tuesday at Civic Centre.

They're all "very potent," especially powdered fentanyl.

"It's also dangerous for the officers to handle," Sparling told The Sault Star following the meeting's open session. "We have to be very mindful of how we're seizing the stuff."

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Pretty soon, marijuana will officially be wonderful. God help us.

There was a revealing story in Friday's Citizen by reporter Jacquie Miller about a marijuana dispensary in Orleans that opened in a building that also houses a couple of services that cater mostly to children.

One was a private tutoring centre, the other a martial arts academy. The soccer moms are anxious. "This is killing me," said one. "We are terrified," said another, threatening to pull her three children from the tutoring centre.

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Debate's all about the mockery at marijuana lounge

What's the best way to watch the U.S. Presidential debate on Monday? At downtown Windsor's medical marijuana lounge Higher Limits, there's a simple answer: high as hell.

Like many venues across North America, the lounge will be showing the live televised debate on its biggest screen. But unlike anywhere else, Higher Limits will hold a toking game in conjunction with the proceedings.

Attendees will take hits from the lounge's various bongs, vaporizers, and rigs depending on what happens during the 90-minute debate.

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Each day 700 people line up to get into the Insite supervised safer injection facility in Vancouver.

They come to inject pre-obtained heroin and cocaine in a clean environment, with clean needles, under the watchful eye of nurses, addiction doctors, counsellors and peer volunteers.

Between 60 and 100 clients overdose at Insite each month. Yet not one of the three million intravenous drug users (IDU) who have been to Insite has died since the harm-reduction clinic opened in 2003. Does Insite save lives? Yes. Would a similar site in Hamilton save lives? Likely. This answers just one of many questions our community has as our public health officials, city councillors, addiction community members and neighbourhood associations wrestle with the proposal of a supervised injection site for Hamilton. But it is the biggest question.

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Early one morning, while leaving my downtown Toronto home, I heard the quiet crying of a young woman lying in the alleyway. I saw a tourniquet and needle on the ground, her valuables scattered in disarray. I stopped and offered to take her to a centre where she could get help.

Tragically, this is an all-too-common occurrence across the country. Scenarios like this will only increase if we restrict opioid prescribing for chronic pain. We have an opioid abuse problem in Canada, but we must be careful about how we address it.

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Provincial police say a Leamington raid and the arrest this week of a now-former Crime Stoppers president also yielded a marijuana seizure worth more than $3 million.

Windsor & Essex County Crime Stoppers called an emergency meeting and immediately ousted Jon-Paul Fuller after learning of his arrest. He also used to work for Aphria, a licensed medical marijuana producer in Leamington, but he was let go from that company more than two years ago.

Fuller, 44, is charged with production of marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

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Kingston woman whose daughter was stuck by needle at city park wants it to be a lesson for all

A Kingston business owner, blogger and mother is warning parents to talk to their children about discarded needles after her daughter stuck herself with one earlier this month.

"I've anticipated what happens if they fall from a tree and their arm hurts, or if they stepped in glass, I've run through that process in my mind of what I would do … I've thought through all the scenarios in my head, but this is one that never occurred to me," Natalie George, mother of four, told the Whig-Standard on Friday morning.

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Since last spring, Toronto police have raided about 50 of the city's marijuana dispensaries and charged dozens of people with drug trafficking. It hasn't come close to stamping out the illegal pot shops, though - dozens still operate across the city.

That cautionary tale is not far from the minds of Ottawa police as they ponder what to do about the 15 pot shops that have opened here.

Several Ottawa city councillors have said the dispensaries are breaking the law and should be closed. Parents in Orleans are furious after a dispensary opened in a building on St. Joseph Boulevard that also houses a martial arts studio and a tutoring centre for children.

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The Ontario attorney general and Ottawa Centre MPP wants a central Civic site, an end to marijuana law's 'grey zone' and bail reform to cut jail crowding, Andrew Seymour writes after Yasir Naqvi met with the Citizen editorial board.

As public consultation on a new site for the Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus officially began Thursday, Yasir Naqvi said his preference is that the hospital remains centrally located.

That means proposed locations along West Hunt Club Road aren't the best choices from a dozen available federal sites, according to Naqvi.

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The former president of Windsor & Essex County Crime Stoppers is facing charges in connection with a large-scale illegal marijuana grow operation.

Jon-Paul Fuller, 44, of Lakeshore, is one of two people who OPP charged after officers raided a property in Leamington on Wednesday morning.

Shortly after the charges were made public Thursday, the local Crime Stoppers' board ousted Fuller. He had been involved with the organization since 2013 as a board member, was named treasurer in 2015 and became president this June.

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A bright yellow bin, about the size of a mailbox but taller, is now positioned on the edge of the Junction Creek trail near Hnatyshyn Park.

The sunny hue, however, belies the gravity of its contents and the issue it's mean to address.

The receptacle also boasts a biohazard symbol, and is there to contain used drug needles that might otherwise be left on the ground and cause a prick wound and possible infection.

It appeared within the last week, and in the wake of concerns raised in late July about the dangers of discarded syringes.

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Hamilton police have raided another medical marijuana dispensary and seized about $75,000 worth of merchandise.

Officers from the vice and drug unit executed a search warrant on MMJ-Canada's Urban Dispensary at 118 George St., in Hess Village, on Tuesday.

The raid yielded marijuana and cannabis resin, shatter (cannabis extract), THC-infused syrup, soft drinks and edibles.

A 35-year-old Hamilton man, whom police "believe" was the operator of the business, is charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and possession of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking.

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