Manitoba's Justice Minister is calling for federal legislation to confirm that provinces can ban the home growth of marijuana plants.

"I think that is clear that is provincial jurisdiction to make that decision. (But) I believe the federal (Justice) Minister made some comments that were a little concerning, so we wanted clarification on that," said Justice Minister Heather Stefanson, following a speech to Manitoba Chambers of Commerce members on cannabis legislation Thursday. "We've called (for) some clarification from the federal government. If they could put it specifically in legislation, that would be best."

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People who have post-traumatic stress disorder but do not medicate with cannabis are far more likely to suffer from severe depression and have suicidal thoughts than those who use marijuana, new national research says.

Based on cross-country data from Statistics Canada, the observational study by researchers at the British Columbia Centre for Substance Use shows that Canadians with PTSD who use medicinal cannabis are 60 per cent to 65 per cent less likely to have major depressive episodes or thoughts of suicide compared with those who do not treat their symptoms with medical marijuana. The study is the first national-scale indication of the effectiveness of cannabis at mitigating the hallmark symptoms of PTSD. It was presented on Thursday at the annual conference of the Canadian Public Health Association in Montreal.

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The government's leader in the Senate, Peter Harder, slammed the committee's removal of the provision

OTTAWA - In a controversial move that may set up another showdown with the House of Commons, a Senate committee voted on Wednesday night to remove random alcohol testing from the government's impaired driving legislation.

The provision would allow police to demand a breathalyzer test from any driver regardless of whether police had reasonable grounds to believe the driver had consumed alcohol. Currently police need that reasonable suspicion to make the breathalyzer demand, which drivers are punished for refusing.

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TORONTO - An aging construction worker arrived quietly in the building's basement, took his seat alongside three other men and struck his lighter below a cooker of synthetic heroin.

A woman, trained to intervene in case of an overdose, placed a mask over her face as his drug cooked and diluted beneath a jumping flame. He injected himself, grew still and then told of the loss of his wife who died alone in her room upstairs - an overdose that came just a few months before this social service nonprofit opened its doors for supervised injections.

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Open letter sent to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and her B.C. counterpart David Eby

Jessika Villano sells a potent array of dried cannabis, oils, salves and even bud-infused bath bombs at Buddha Barn Medicinal Society - all grown and processed by small-scale British Columbia producers.

Villano doesn't want that to change when marijuana is legalized later this year, and she's among the proponents of local craft cannabis who are pushing the federal and provincial governments to ensure its survival.

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Edmonton police will need about $1.4 million in ongoing and one-time funding to prepare for marijuana legalization this summer, a report to the police commission states.

Cannabis is set to become legal in Canada this summer and with it comes higher policing costs, the Edmonton Police Commission heard Thursday.

Police officials outlined a laundry list of new technology and training needed to enforce legal weed laws. Last month, the city approved $1.4 million in one-time and ongoing funding to help the police service deal with the impact of legal weed.

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Researchers have long been intrigued by the intoxicating effects of the world's most popular illicit drug. Here's how pot affects your body and mind

When neurologist Frances Ames began testing the effects of a single dose of cannabis sativa on a group of her medical colleagues who were, on the whole, "articulate and fairly stable people," the onset of abnormal sensations "was always abrupt and immediate." One was sustained hilarity. "The whole idea of the experiment," Ames reported in 1958 in the Journal of Mental Science, "would suddenly seem enormously amusing." Researchers have long been intrigued by the intoxicating effects of the world's most popular illicit drug. Here's everything you need to know about how pot affects your body and mind.

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Some time this summer, marijuana will be legal in Canada. It's already legal in Washington state and has been for four years.

But Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth warned this week that there's a significant problem looming at the border crossing, because it's still going to be illegal there.

It makes no sense whatsoever, but the U.S. federal government controls the border crossing, and marijuana is still nominally illegal in the U.S. federally.

"People [meaning, cannabis users] are going to naturally assume, on either side of the border, that they cross back and forth because it's legal in each jurisdiction,a" told the house. "But the reality is it will not be legal at that federal border crossing."

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It'€™s all about harm reduction and improving community health outcomes

No doubt some Hamiltonians are chuckling to hear city council is considering banning sugary drinks from city buildings to protect people's health.

With good reason.

The proposed ban by the public health department lands at the same time the city is moving ahead with opening its first safe injection site for drug addicts.

It's more than a little ironic that the city may be cracking down on sugar while enabling the use of illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine.

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Cannabis sales likely won't prove a financial bonanza.

Those counting on help from cannabis sales to balance the provincial budget are in for a disappointment.

As far as Statistics Canada can tell, cannabis prices in this country have been dropping for the past three years, perhaps the past dozen years. Since weed-market watchers in the United States have found roughly the same thing, it's probably true.

Canada's provincial treasurers, along with private investors in the cannabis trade, may still be able to turn a profit, but the bonanza that used to beckon has probably evaporated already.

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OTTAWA - A Senate committee says Ottawa should put off legalizing marijuana for a year until Canada and First Nations can negotiate tax sharing, produce culturally appropriate education materials and ensure First Nations are able to regulate for themselves whether they want pot to be legal in their communities or not.

The Senate Aboriginal Peoples committee released a report Tuesday after studying the impact the government's legalizing pot bill could have on Indigenous communities.

While Ottawa plans to make pot legal sometime this summer, the committee says Indigenous

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We are already seeing construction workers smoking during their breaks, one industry rep said at a gathering

Contractors, building owners and construction company owners say they are worried about the repercussions of the imminent legalization of cannabis and think there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

The Corporation des proprietaires immobiliers du Quebec, the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l'habitation (APCHQ) and the province's two largest construction unions - the FTQ-Construction and the Conseil Provincial - debated on Monday the impact of the anticipated legalization during a summit of Quebec's construction industry that took place in Montreal.

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Canada'€™s real estate industry organization is calling for a moratorium on growing recreational marijuana at home until the government sets out nationwide regulations for the practice.

Ottawa'€™s proposed marijuana legalization regulations allow Canadians to grow up to four marijuana plants at their residences. Medical users are already allowed to grow at home after a federal court ruled in 2016 that the government cannot ban patients from growing their own cannabis.

However, the Canadian Real Estate Association said the ban it is requesting applies to home cultivation for recreational users when marijuana legalized later this year.

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The Senate seems determined to slow the Liberal government's timeline for marijuana legalization and Justin Trudeau seems just as determined to deliver his legalization on time - give or take a few weeks.

The prime minister will get his way, but that doesn't mean the Senate, and Indigenous leaders, are not flagging some important issues.

Opposition Conservatives would like nothing more than to push the rollout of legal recreational pot into an election year, the better to take political advantage of the inevitable stumbles that will come with such a momentous move.

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OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn't backing down from his government's much-maligned timeline for legalizing marijuana, despite a growing chorus of calls from senators, Indigenous leaders and others to delay the plan for up to a year.

Trudeau says the plan to make recreational pot legal by this summer will go ahead without delay.

"We're going to continue to move forward. We're going to bring in legalization as we've committed to this summer on schedule," Trudeau said Thursday.

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Canada is squandering first-mover advantage with cannabis, the most significant consumer product launch in history, at a time when our economy is starving for growth.

How do you choke on $60 billion-plus of growth opportunity and hundreds of thousands of purposeful jobs? You roll it into the hands of the federal government, and they then shotgun it out to ten provinces, three territories and all the bureaucrats and bulls* that comes with this plan. There is no efficiency or scale.

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"You can't help dead people - that's the point of injection sites"

There you go again, being a "bleeding heart." A recent letter writer is correct. Injection sites are encouraging and abetting druggies in their bad habits. There is no point to safe-injection sites.

And if they die, as they surely will if they don't kick their habit, why should I give a hoot?

They chose to live on the edge as they do. Suffer the consequences! They know better, and yet refuse to accept the inevitable. Stop or die!

And you should stop trying to be the social conscience of your readers.

(Look, we're not fond of illegal drug use. But caring about what happens to our fellow citizens - especially the weakest - is important in a civilized society.)

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Doug Ford says he is "dead against" supervised injection sites and believes the focus should be on drug rehabilitation instead.

And if elected premier of Ontario in June, the Progressive Conservative Leader says he will do everything he can to fight the opioid crisis and get people who are struggling with addiction the help they need.

"If your son, daughter, loved one ever had an addiction, would you want them to go in a little area and do more drugs? I am dead against that," Mr. Ford said Friday. "We have to help these people. We can't just keep feeding them and feeding them."

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Heather D'Alessio remembers drug education in high school that consisted mainly of dire warnings about the consequences of using any of them.

She was smoking pot by Grade 9, so she disregarded the advice.

"Most of the time, they would give us these fact sheets on cannabis. Then we'd all take it out to the corner and get high and laugh at it because we thought it was stupid."

Who uses cannabis?

Governments and public health advocates are now launching new education campaigns to warn young people about the health risks of marijuana, which will soon be legal across Canada.

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The Liberal Party of Canada has voted in favour of removing criminal penalties for the personal possession of drugs.

It'€™s one of a number of policies that the party selected as priorities at a convention in Halifax on Saturday (April 21).

Members also voted in favour of universal pharmacare, decriminalizing consensual sex work, and expanding medicare to cover mental-health issues.

A total of 15 policies were selected to become official party priorities.

However, a policy'€™s status as a party priority does not mean that party leaders have to include it in the document where it really counts: the party'€™s campaign platform for the next federal election.

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