Marijuana Proponents Buzzing Over Bill C-26 There was more than one way to get baked in the sun in Halifax on Canada Day. A telltale sweet smell drifted through the air as more than 200 people gathered on the Dartmouth Common for Halifax's 13th annual Cannabis Day picnic, held every July 1. They seemed relaxed and happy as they enjoyed the warm weather, played Hacky Sack or sat together on blankets under nearby trees. One young man named Jordan said he had recently moved to Halifax from Ottawa and wanted to get a taste of the city's Canada Day events. [continues 356 words]
About 5% of Enlistees Do Drugs, Mainly Marijuana, Tests Show VICTORIA - More than one in 20 Canadian soldiers and sailors in non-combat roles tested positive for illicit drug use in random tests conducted on more than 3,000 military personnel from coast to coast. The results provided to The Canadian Press show that over a four-month period, 1,392 sailors in the navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets and 1,673 soldiers in the army's four regions and training branch were subjected to blind drug testing. [continues 1168 words]
Researcher Wants To Study The Effect Of Being High While Driving Mark Asbridge wants Canadians to know exactly how risky it is to use drugs and get behind the wheel. In three years, he hopes to have the scientific data to prove it. "We want to actually know how much THC, or cocaine, or benzodiazepines are in (an impaired driver's) system," said Mr. Asbridge, an assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at Dalhousie University. "Do we see collisions in people who have higher levels of cannabis in their system? Is the severity of the collision worse when people are more impaired or less impaired?" [continues 483 words]
Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada said it's unconstitutional to randomly search schools for drugs with sniffer dogs and the same for a person getting off a bus in Calgary. What about my rights and the rights of my kids? Don't they have the right to go to school and not be faced with drugs? Bring on the sniffer dogs! I welcome them because I am not afraid. I don't use dope. Nor do my kids. If I get off a long-distance bus, search me. I'd rather have my neighbours there, or wherever, know they're alright around me. Isn't that my right? Am I not allowed to look forward to having enjoyment of life, protection of body? The Supreme Court wants me to give up my rights to protect lunatics and losers? People want to have unprotected sex, people want to carry guns and knives, people want to buy and sell and use dope. Then that is your right. OK? But you face the consequences - you - not me. Dennis E. Parry, Yarmouth [end]
What's the world coming to when sniffer dogs don't pass the sniff test? That's what the Conservative government in Ottawa is asking after the Supreme Court of Canada, in a pair of recent rulings, curbed the use of police sniffer dogs for random drug searches at an Ontario high school and an Alberta bus terminal. The new rules are expected to apply across a wider spectrum of quasi-public spaces, like shopping malls and sports stadiums. Airports and border crossings, however, are exempt under federal law. [continues 452 words]
OTTAWA - Distributing crack pipes to addicts in Canadian cities to halt the spread of disease is actually doing more harm than good by tacitly encouraging substance abuse, says a senior RCMP officer fighting the illicit drug trade. "I just don't think it's helping," said Chief Supt. Derek Ogden, director general for drugs and organized crime with the Mounties. "If you're just experimenting with cocaine and people are handing out crack pipes at will, really I think it sends the wrong message, and could actually encourage the rate of crack cocaine use in the community," he said in an interview. [continues 164 words]
Users Owe Ottawa More Than $500,000 OTTAWA - Medical marijuana users are on the hook for more than $500,000 in unpaid bills for government-certified weed, raising questions about the effectiveness of Health Canada's troubled dope program. Newly disclosed statistics show that Health Canada has sent final notices - and sometimes dispatched a collection agency as well - to 462 registered users since government marijuana first became available in 2003. "Most of the 462 individuals who have received a letter regarding their accounts in arrears have had their shipment ceased," department spokesman Paul Duchesne said in an e-mail. [continues 527 words]
Cops Not Testing Syringes Found Wedged Point Up In New Waterford Park Bench NEW WATERFORD - Two fresh needles coated in blood were found embedded upright in a park bench this weekend, barely 24 hours after police picked up seven syringes in the area. Cape Breton Regional Police believe the angle of the hypodermic needles discovered at Colliery Lands Park suggests malicious intent, a spokesman for the force said Monday. And this type of random attack could have deadly consequences if the needles were tainted with disease, Const. Gary Fraser said. [continues 419 words]
AMHERST - A Maccan-area man who says his hemp oil cures cancer was sentenced Monday to eight days in jail after he pleaded guilty in provincial court to trafficking the drug. But Ricky Simpson, 58, won't spend any time behind bars because Judge Carole Beaton said the time he spent in custody after his November arrest was enough of a deterrent. "If he and others do not get the message, after spending the equivalent of eight days in jail, that trafficking is against the law, I'm doubtful that adding 20 more days as suggested by the Crown would be any more of a deterrent," Judge Beaton said Monday as she sentenced Mr. Simpson on one charge of trafficking marijuana oil. [continues 327 words]
SYDNEY (CP) - A resident of the Membertou First Nation believes mandatory drug and alcohol tests being introduced for many band employees are an infringement on their human rights. Fishing boat captain John Bonham Paul said Monday that drug tests may be justified in his job but not for employees in some other areas. "I can see me, I am in a safety sensitive situation, but I can't see my 15-year-old niece, who works at a concession stand in bingo," said Paul, whose father, Terry Paul, is the band's chief. [continues 276 words]
AMHERST - Ricky Logan Simpson, the Maccan-area man who says he has found the cure for cancer in a marijuana oil he produces, is expected to plead guilty to his latest drug-trafficking charge - but not for another couple of weeks. Mr. Simpson, 58, was expected to enter a plea to the charge in provincial court Thursday, but he appeared without his lawyer, Duncan Beveridge, who couldn't make the trip to Amherst because he was preparing for a Supreme Court jury trial in Halifax. [continues 334 words]
Court OKs Move Against Alleged Drug Dealer With No Convictions BERWICK - The provincial Justice Department's director of public safety investigations served a court-ordered eviction notice Thursday on a couple and their son in the first case of a community safety order being contested and upheld by the Supreme Court. Fred Sanford arrived at the mobile home of Michael Stephen Cochrane, 57; his wife, Laura Mary Cochrane, 56; and their son Mica Andrew Cochrane, 27, just before 10 a.m. A copy of the order was given to Ms. Cochrane, then Mr. Sanford and public safety investigator Mike McNeil attached a large poster advertising the order relating to the trailer, at 42 Douglas Ave., and a copy of the order. [continues 529 words]
Regulatory Body Finds Two Pharmacists Didn'T Properly Dispense Methadone Two Glace Bay pharmacists will lose their licences for a week after an investigation found they dispensed methadone improperly. One man died of an overdose of the drug. And at least three other patients became ill after taking prescribed methadone prepared at Ferguson's Pharmacy Ltd. in 2005. The Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists launched a probe of David and Donald Ferguson after Ron Whalen filed a complaint. Mr. Whalen's son, Robert Whalen, 23, died in 2005 of a methadone overdose. [continues 905 words]
Man Who Claims His Hemp Oil Cures Cancer Says He's Leaving Canada After Fine For Trafficking In Medical Pot By TOM McCOAG Amherst Bureau AMHERST - A Maccan-area man who insists he has found the cure for cancer says he is leaving Canada for an unnamed country where he can live without fear of persecution or prosecution for taking and producing medicinal marijuana. "I can't live in a country where I and others are labelled as criminals because of our medical need for this (marijuana) medication," Ricky Logan Simpson, 58, said Friday. "I've decided that after five years of trying to bring my medicine to the people, I don't like the way this country is run. It seems that the health and welfare of the people means nothing to the (politicians) in Ottawa." [continues 623 words]
AMHERST - A Maccan-area man who says marijuana cures cancer will have to wait until next month to plead to a new charge of drug trafficking. Ricky Simpson, 58, was to have entered a plea Monday to a charge of trafficking not more than three kilograms of cannabis resin. But the hearing in Amherst provincial court was cut short when Truro lawyer Linda Hupman told Judge Carole Beaton that the Crown and defence lawyers handling the case were not in attendance and were asking for a postponement until Feb. 28. [continues 295 words]
VANCOUVER (CP) - The head of the RCMP's national drug branch is debunking claims by the U.S. drug czar, who claims organized crime rings in Canada are dumping dangerous, methamphetamine-laced "extreme ecstasy" into his country. Supt. Paul Nadeau said he doesn't know why John Walters, of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, would make such statements in a widely distributed news release without checking facts with Canadian officials. "I shook my head when I read the release that they put out," said Nadeau, who's never heard of extreme ecstasy. [continues 232 words]
TORONTO - Canadians who are prescribed marijuana to treat their illnesses will no longer be forced to rely on the federal government as a supplier following a Federal Court ruling that struck down a key restriction in Ottawa's controversial medical marijuana program. The decision by Judge Barry Strayer, released late Thursday, essentially grants medical marijuana users more freedom in picking their own grower and allows growers to supply the drug to more than one patient. It's also another blow to the federal government, whose attempts to tightly control access to medical marijuana have prompted numerous court challenges. [continues 469 words]
Tobacco, Alcohol, Marijuana Top List Of Problem Substances In Southwest N.S. YARMOUTH - More than 1,000 people in southwestern Nova Scotia sought help for an addiction during the 2006-07 fiscal year, says the man in charge of addiction services for the local health authority. And information supplied by those clients from Yarmouth, Digby and Shelburne counties clearly reveals the top five substances people say they have trouble with. They range from tobacco down to benzodiazepines, or downers, used to calm nerves. Many clients are addicted to more than one substance. [continues 426 words]
SYDNEY - Guilty or not, people suspected of certain crimes are being turfed from their homes across the province. So far, occupants of 23 homes, apartments or trailers have been evicted since the summer, when a new division of the Justice Department began to fully enforce the new provincial Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act. Proclaimed Jan. 7, the act is intended to target suspected drug use and sales, prostitution, illegal gaming, bootlegging or child sexual abuse. The Justice Department hired and armed five former police officers to staff the public safety investigative unit, which has looked into 130 complaints from the public. More than half of those reports came from rural Nova Scotians sick of suspected criminals and the perceived lack of action by cash-strapped police forces. About 20 of the complainants were Cape Bretoners. [continues 1172 words]
Ottawa-Approved Grass Doesn't Ease Symptoms Like Street Drugs - Patients TORONTO - Lawyers for Canadian users of medical marijuana who want Ottawa to ease restrictions on where they get their drugs wrapped up their case Wednesday by telling a Federal Court judge that government-approved pot doesn't compare to higher-quality strains available on the street. Patients ought to be able to pick their own grower, said lawyer Alan Young, who accused Ottawa of rushing into drafting a program in 2003 that ultimately forced patients to use a substandard product - a violation of their constitutional rights. [continues 365 words]
