I have not heard any reporting on what type of drug education our children are receiving in schools. Considering the high number of deaths due to drug overdoses just this year alone, that is 500 in B.C. in the last three months, I would like to know if the schools have any drug prevention education and if so, what is the message?

Recently the granddaughter of a friend of mine who is in Grade 7 stated that her teacher said, "if you're going to do drugs, do it safely" =2E

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OTTAWA - When Robert was 18, he was arrested by Montreal's police for possession of a small amount of hashish, an event that would upend his young life.

The charge brought him 30 days in jail, and the conviction ended his part-time job as a translator.

"Back then, you smoke a joint, you would get arrested," said Robert, who asked that only his first name be used because of the continuing stigma of his criminal record. "Then the cops would put you in a car, then pull over and give you a couple of shots in the head. You get slapped around just because of smoking."

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43.5 per cent of study participants who used marijuana as a substitute for alcohol decreased the frequency of their drinking.

Authorized medical marijuana patients who began using cannabis to help reduce their drinking report experiencing a reduction or even discontinuation of alcohol use, notes new research out of the University of Victoria.

The finding reflects feedback from 2,102 patients registered with Tilray, a medical cannabis research and production company in Canada. The input was received as part of the Canadian Cannabis Patient Survey 2019, which gathered details on patient demographics, patterns of weed use and self-reported use of prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs before and after starting medical cannabis.

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In July, the Canadian province of British Columbia experienced its fifth straight month with more than 100 overdose deaths - and its third above 170 lives lost.

Globally, the World Health Organization reports approximately 500,000 deaths from drugs, over 70 percent of them tied to opioids. In Canada, from January 2016 through December 2019, more than 15,000 people died from apparent opioid-related causes. In 2019 alone, there were over 21,000 "suspected opioid-related overdoses" across nine provinces and territories, excluding Quebec (for which data wasn't provided). The opioid crisis clearly persists at home and abroad.

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A recent poll suggests 51 per cent of British Columbians are buying all product legally

B.C. has had a difficult road to getting cannabis users interested in purchasing from legal retailers over their neighbourhood dealer, but a recent poll suggests that the province may finally be winning the battle over bud.

A Research Co. poll released earlier this month found that 51 per cent of B.C. respondents who have consumed cannabis in the past six months have bought all of their products from licensed retailers. That's an 18-point increase from a similar survey conducted in October 2019.

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Listen to the police

Let's talk about decriminalizing all drugs

We're having a national conversation about policing and criminal justice. Examining our drug laws is a natural extension of this debate

More than nine years ago, writing about the war on drugs, this editorial board encouraged the government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper to get bolder with decriminalizing cannabis.

"By any reasonably broad metric," we wrote then, the war on drugs "has been an abysmal failure. According to estimates by the UN - by no means a liberal organization when it comes to drug policy - worldwide consumption of opiates rose 34.5 per cent from 1998 to 2008, cocaine by 27 per cent, and cannabis by 8.5 per cent. In achieving that abject failure, tens of thousands of people have been killed."

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SMITHS FALLS, Ontario - When Canada became the first major industrialized nation to legalize recreational marijuana, visions of billions of dollars in profits inspired growers, retailers and investors, sending the stock market soaring in a so-called green rush.

A year later, the euphoria has vanished.

"No one wants to invest in it now," said John-Kurt Pliniussen, a professor of marketing at the Smith School of Business at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

That is because those who have invested have generally lost money. During the first year after legalization, the value of shares in Canada's six largest marijuana companies tumbled by an average of 56 percent, according to stock price data.

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There's no getting around it: Year one of legalized cannabis in Canada was a dud.

It was an unmitigated disaster for many investors. The bubble burst, and the shares of most large Canadian marijuana producers dropped by at least 50 per cent. The public markets are largely closed to the industry; at the moment, there's simply no appetite for more pot stocks.

The Trudeau government's goal wasn't to make shareholders or investment banks rich, though. It was to whittle down the black- market marijuana business. Giving cannabis users a place to buy regulated marijuana would generate new tax revenue, open up new business opportunities and reduce the burden on police and the courts.

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It is indeed sweet victory to see the B.C. Liquor Corp. selling cannabis.

In the B.C. election of 2001, I, as a B.C. Marijuana Party candidate, was arrested at the behest of the Victoria Hillside liquor store for campaigning for legal cannabis.

Some advice about marketing would be in order.

As a Realtor of 30 years, I can offer some pointers. Analyze the prevailing market and emulate it. At present, in the "friends" market, you can smell before you buy. If you don't like it, you can bring it back.

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Canada has been at the forefront of cannabis research, education and regulation for the past 2 decades, yet uncertainty remains about how the drug should be used in medicine. Physicians lack evidence-based information and formalized training about cannabis, which stems, in part, from the drug's previously illegal status that hindered research. Among the public, however, many perceive cannabis as a natural and safe medical treatment. Patients increasingly seek advice about cannabis from physicians, request prescriptions or experiment with cannabis for medical problems on their own. However, physicians must adhere to good medical practice regardless of public pressure and provide counselling to patients based on up-to-date knowledge and evidence. Now that cannabis is legal in Canada more research should be forthcoming, but the evidence base remains weak.

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Re: "Legalizing pot is proving to be a public-health disaster," column, Aug. 11.

Lawrie McFarlane's verdict is premature. Legal regulation in Canada isn't analogous to legalization in Colorado, for among other reasons, Colorado allows advertising and initially allowed edibles and extracts with inadequate labelling, packaging and dose limitations.

Yes, emergency-room visits from adverse reactions spiked in Colorado following legalization, but this was due in part to inexperienced tourists from prohibitionist states, and consumers feeling more inclined to seek help once they no longer feared arrest. Panicked patients are typically discharged (the wiser) on the same day, with no lasting ill effects. Such visits remain far less common and severe than visits related to alcohol, pharmaceuticals and tobacco.

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Re: "Legalizing pot is proving to be a public-health disaster," column, Aug. 11.

In his opinion piece on cannabis legalization, Lawrie McFarlane cites a short-term increase in the numbers of adolescents visiting emergency rooms for cannabis in Colorado - a jurisdiction with a commercialized approach to cannabis legalization - as evidence that Canada's much more restrictive public health-oriented approach to legalization has failed.

However, as scientists who have carefully considered how to best measure the public-health impacts of cannabis legalization, we would suggest a thorough and ongoing analysis of Canadian data is needed to understand the effects of the new regulatory landscape. Although cannabis-related hospital visits should be a priority, we also need to ask important questions about underlying causes: if we see an increase, how much is due to increasing use among youth, and how much could be related to shifting trends in products/modes of administration (e.g., a shift towards high-THC concentrates, increased edible consumption)?

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It's becoming increasingly obvious that legalizing marijuana consumption was a colossal public-health blunder.

A good part of the evidence comes from south of the border, where several states legalized pot much earlier than Canada. This has allowed time for robust scientific follow-up - follow-up that is beginning to reveal a frightening picture.

Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2012, and recreational use in 2014. One result is that emergency hospital visits by adolescents with marijuana-related symptoms have jumped from 84 a year in the pre-legal era, to 500 in 2018.

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The Canadian cannabis industry is booming.

From giant industrial operations such as Canopy Growth to smaller "luxury"=9D cannabis retailers, to an array of cannabis "lifestyle"=9D brands and "cannabis brand consultancy"=9D firms, the industry is a lucrative fronti er for those seeking wealth in a rapidly growing market.

And oh, is there wealth to be had. Canadians spent $1.6-billion on legal weed in 2018 - double the total spent on medical cannabis the year before - despite the fact that non-medical cannabis was legally available only after Oct. 17. Statistics Canadaa's National Cannabis Survey from the first quarter of 2019 found that use of non-medical cannabis has increased among men and people aged 45 to 64. The survey reported that 646,000 people tried cannabis for the first time in the prior three months, half of whom were aged 45 or older.

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VICTORIA - B.C.'s largest First Nation is accusing the provincial government of stalling its application for a retail cannabis licence while it races to open its own public store in the community's prime retail location.

The Cowichan Tribes on Vancouver Island are in the sixth month of trying to get approval for two retail store licences from the provincial government. As the Cowichan wrestle with a wall of red tape, and are repeatedly rejected for nation-to-nation talks with the province, the B.C. government is competing against the First Nation for the municipal rights to open a store in the community's largest shopping centre.

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If you've got the munchies for cannabis edibles, you'll have to go to the liquor store.

The province has tapped the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. - which already sells dried and fresh cannabis, cannabis oil and cannabis accessories - - to sell edibles, extracts and topicals.

"The NSLC has done a good job in preparing and implementing our new retail model as recreational cannabis was legalized across Canada," said Karen Casey, the minister responsible for the NSLC, in a news release Monday.

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TORONTO - Adam Ash, 37, wasn't the least bit shy in explaining why he was at the Hunny Pot Cannabis Co., a four-story boutique on Queen Street West in the middle of the city's downtown district.

"Marijuana," the Toronto resident said midday on a recent Monday, a little bewildered as to why someone would even bother asking.

Glass containers of marijuana flower were laid out on tables throughout the shop, amid glass cases of rolling papers, pipes, bongs, grinders and vaporizers. Employees known as "bud tenders" worked the floors, ready to provide advice and recommendations for picking just the right strain.

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Howard Dean, the former Democratic candidate for president, and Michael Steele, the ex-head of the Republican National Committee are joining the advisory board of Tilray Inc., the Canadian cannabis grower, the company has announced.

Backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, Tilray was briefly worth more than $28 billion -- valued at more than Twitter or CBS -- in September after it became the first cannabis company to be listed on an American stock exchange. The company made a second splash this year when it was chosen by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to provide a small amount of marijuana for a study at the University of California, San Diego.

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OTTAWA - The federal government's crackdown on drug-impaired driving has taken a big step forward, as the Justice Department is set to give its blessing to Canada's first roadside saliva test.

Once in use, police officers will be able to swab a driver's mouth to test for the presence of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

Roadside saliva-testing devices were authorized by Bill C-46, a massive overhaul of Canadaa€™s impaired driving laws that passed in June.

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The legalization of marijuana for general consumption is a devastating, immoral attack by the Trudeau government against the best interests of all of Canada'€™s vulnerable and marginalized citizens, especially our young people, who are ill-equipped to handle it (What A Long Strange Trip It Will Been, editorial, June 21).

Surviving in modern society demands vigilance, sobriety, discipline and competence on all fronts. Marijuana use discourages these necessary virtues. There should have been a national referendum before this profound decision was made. There are no adults in charge any more.

Peter Best, Sudbury, Ont.

[end]