Re: A smart way forward, Editorial Dec. 14

So the government's panel of "experts" has recommended both the legalization of recreational marijuana and to allow 18-year-old young people, whose brains and general physiology are still developing, to buy and use it.

One might wonder why a government, supposedly concerned with the well-being of its citizens, would encourage them to engage in taking a mind-altering drug (and legalization will certainly be seen as a stamp of approval) against the advice of many in the medical establishment.

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Young teen leaves victim with concussion

An attack that left a girl with a concussion resulted in a year's probation for another Lambton County girl.

The impact of marijuana use on developing brains was one of the issues to be examined during probation.

Science has identified substantial negative mental impacts on teens' developing brains and the focus on marijuana use within the girl's report was concerning, said Justice Deborah Austin during the girl's sentencing.

The young teenage girl had pleaded guilty in Sarnia youth court to an assault causing bodily harm during the spring.

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Union vows to fight in court, says members 'furious' about new tests run by outside firm

The TTC has provoked the ire of its largest union by announcing that it will begin randomly testing its employees for drug and alcohol use starting on March 1.

In a news release on Thursday, the transit agency said that it had given formal notice to its workers that it was moving ahead with the plan, which has been in the works for five years. Under the plan, 20 per cent of employees occupied in "safety sensitive" positions - including some management and executives - would be subject to the tests for drugs and alcohol. Those who would be tested include vehicle operators, maintenance workers and supervisors.

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City councillors have given public health the green light to study the possibility of bringing safe injection sites to Hamilton.

The pitch for such a study was first made to the Board of Health earlier this year, in light of a deadly opioid crisis that has led to a spike in overdoses across the country.

In Ontario, where overdose deaths are the third-leading cause of accidental death, someone dies of an overdose every 13 hours.

"These are entirely preventable deaths," says Dr. Jessica Hopkins, associate medical officer of health.

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Philippines' police have shot more than 3,000 to death

Thousands of kilometres away from her hometown of Samar in the south of Philippines, Sonia Pormarca Carreon has been finding it hard to sleep.

"I have four sons in that country. And the police is shooting people every day," said the Scarborough resident ,who came to Toronto more than two years ago as a live-in caregiver. "Honestly, I am very worried about their lives. I know they have not done anything wrong but the situation is so scary."

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When you look at the rainbow of sins that governments tax, you would have to place marijuana in a pretty unique place.

Think of the vast array of ills government live off of and their alternatives:

Gas taxes: are you not going to drive a car or heat your home? Or if there was an alternative, could you use it. Governments control it all. Don't want to pay taxes? Tough luck.

Gambling: Nothing beats a government run casino and lottery. Try setting up your own lottery and tell me how it goes. But first, look up Ponzi Scheme...it's in the criminal code.

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I'm laughing really hard right now at all of the crying little liberal potheads who feel cheated by their knight in shining armour who rode into Ottawa on his Liberal Red Bong last year! This proves that pot indeed makes people stupid. Consider two other widely used drugs: Alcohol and tobacco.

When do you think it was more free for enterprising individuals to produce, distribute, and consume these two drugs: Before or after the government began taxing them? The reason why the black market marijuana industry was relatively un-policed under the Harper administration was that it had no plans to derive revenue from it. And since recreational production and use of marijuana was a non-violent, non-destructive crime that made the perpetrators and customers fairly apathetic, they turned a blind eye to it.

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"Pot smokers feel 'cheated' by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau" (Antonella Artuso, Dec. 5) It should read 60% of Canadians feel cheated by single issue voters. What did they think, the child king would wave his magic wand and bang, sunny ways and doobies everywhere?

Perhaps Abi Roach should take a look at reality: Canada-wide carbon tax, green energy modelled after the Ontario Liberals, Trudeau's hail to Castro, cabinet minister Monsef, a $30-billion deficit. Abi and his followers may find their next choice hydro or pot.

Tim Hockridge

Apsley, Ont.



(You mean the budget doesn't balance itself?)

[end]

Driving under influence of marijuana increasing, Ontario survey says

TORONTO - With Ottawa poised to legalize recreational marijuana next year, researchers are keeping a close eye on use of the drug, which has been steadily trending upward over the last couple of decades.

In Ontario, for instance, a survey released Wednesday by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found that past-year cannabis use virtually doubled between 1996 and 2015, rising from about eight per cent to almost 15 per cent of respondents.

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Thanks to easy access at the dispensaries popping up on every street corner, city-dwellers across Canada are turning to marijuana to soothe their creaky old bones.

And if it works for you, why not for an elderly or ailing pet?

Tamara Hirsh, owner of Pacifico, stocks Apawthecary brand marijuana-infused dog treats and tinctures at her dispensaries in Toronto and Hamilton, Ont.

She claims there are no side effects.

"You can really take any dose," she said. "We recommend you start low and go slow."

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Dan Mulligan, like many Canadians, is in favour of legalizing marijuana. Big deal, right? It is to his employer: the Ontario Provincial Police.

The 33-year OPP veteran is at the mercy of the professional services bureau, facing two counts of insubordination and discreditable conduct, because he had the audacity to be a speaker at the 2015 Not by Accident conference in London. Technically, he's on "trial" not because of his presentation but because he disobeyed an order from his superior not to speak at the conference.

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Cop faces hearing over removal of cat from stoned owner's home

An award-winning Durham Regional Police officer who rescued a "cowering" kitten from a stoned pet owner's home will face a police tribunal on Monday, charged with discreditable conduct.

Const. Beth Richardson is accused of "removing a kitten from a residence without the owners'" knowledge or consent on Jan. 12, 2016.

"She was dispatched as a back-up officer to attend an Oshawa home to check on the well-being of a female who had been using drugs (crystal meth) for several days," the notice of hearing says, adding Richardson "observed a kitten cowering under a table and (believed) it was not being properly cared for."

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'It's such a silent killer that nobody knows about,' mom says

It's the end of November and the light is woolly, the forest barren, still, out behind the Dolman place, perched on a ridge in North Gower.

The house is tidy, quiet enough to hear a newspaper rustling. Sandi Dolman, 62, is at the kitchen table talking about her son Neil, 33, because talking about Neil is all she can do now. He died April 1 from an overdose of fentanyl, another victim of a horrible mistake.

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Bill Blair and Ann McClellan blather on about a strictly regulated marijuana market. Ask yourself, "Is there a high school student anywhere in Canada today who can't get a joint at lunch?"

During the 50 years that I have been a daily marijuana smoker, billions have been squandered on enforcement. Tens of thousands of lives have been ruined. However, criminal regulation does not have the slightest impact on marijuana consumption and never has. Since 1968 the inflation-adjusted price is down two-thirds while quality is radically improved. Availability is universal.

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Re: Fentanyl a 'game changer': Larkin - Dec. 1

Why is the availability of the drug fentanyl on our streets a "game changer" for Police Chief Larkin or for anyone else concerned about the welfare of those among us who choose to take illegal drugs? If the prevention and eradication of street drugs is indeed a game, then maybe our game plan is not working so well. Instead of facilitating street drug use by establishing "safe" injection sites, providing free needle programs, and seeing to it that the available illegal street drugs don't kill you right away, as fentanyl apparently does, would these efforts and resources not be better spent in intensifying drug use prevention and in more help for those who want to break their dependency on drugs?

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Considering that the Trudeau government already has a growing problem with election promises, the last thing it wants is to wobble on marijuana legalization, which will come to fruition sometime in early to mid-2017. A task force, bureaucrats and politicians are working a legislative framework to go before Parliament next spring with a rollout plan to follow.

But there are a couple of large flashing yellow lights on the road to legalization that the government needs to come to grips with first.

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The wrong way to go

The Toronto Transit Commission has had five years to make a convincing case that there is a serious drug or alcohol problem among its staff that is putting public safety at significant risk. So far it hasn't.

But that hasn't stopped the commission from announcing last week that it would go ahead with its misguided plan, originally approved in 2011, to randomly test thousands of transit workers for drug and alcohol consumption with invasive mouth swabs and breathalyzer tests.

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Study set to test oral cannabis treatment in children with rare and debilitating form of epilepsy that begins in infancy

Researchers at Toronto's TORONTO Hospital for Sick Children are poised to begin a clinical trial using cannabis extracts to treat children with severe epilepsy whose seizures can't be controlled with existing medications.

The trial is believed to be the first in Canada to test an oral preparation that contains both CBD and THC, compounds in marijuana that have been shown in the lab and through anecdotal reports to have anticonvulsant properties in children with treatment-resistant epilepsy.

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Toronto has seen a 77-per-cent increase in overdose deaths between 2004 and 2014

Brooklyn McNeil was an Ontario scholar, singer, artist and harm reduction advocate. But the 22-year-old woman was also an injection drug addict who sadly died alone in June beside a dumpster in an east-end alley.

It shouldn't have happened that way. McNeil was at the forefront of the movement to bring safe injection sites to Toronto, something that could have saved her life.

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Queen's Park silent as Toronto moves to table proposal to feds

The city and two local health providers will formally request federal permission on Wednesday to operate three supervised injection services in Toronto.

Toronto would be the first Ontario city and third Canadian city to have supervised injection sites - something considered to be a huge triumph for advocates.

It could also pave the way for other municipalities to open sites amid an overdose crisis in Canada.

But as the city moves to submit applications to the federal government, which will be announced Wednesday, the province has been silent on its willingness to fund the program.

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