To the editor:

Re: Legalized marijuana will be a gateway drug, Letters, Dec. 28.

I read with interest the opinion that marijuana will lead to becoming a junkie.

From the age of 25 to around the age of 55, I smoked pot every day. I never encountered the day the marijuana failed to get me high. Some strains were more effective than others, but with the hundreds of fellow smokers I met over this time, only a few would go on cocaine benders but never made it a habit. There were doctors, lawyers, mechanics, school teachers and just about every walk of life who enjoyed a puff every day. In my life I have seen many more lives ravaged by booze than pot.

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VANCOUVER - Dan Sutton always assumed cannabis had to be grown indoors.

The former technology professional was new to the marijuana industry in 2012 when he founded Tantalus Labs. The stereotypical image of a large industrial warehouse, with pot plants growing under bright lights and fans, loomed large in his mind.

But when Sutton asked academics, horticulturists and engineers for advice, they all told him that no crop on the planet is grown indoors on a commercial scale.

"It just doesn't really make a huge amount of sense to replace the energy of sunlight, which is so abundant and obviously healthy for leafy green crops, with a synthetic alternative," he said.

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Dear editor:

Re: "Looking ahead to 2018," editorial by James Miller (Daily Courier, Jan. 2).

Miller's statement that "most Canadians support legalizing pot," where does he get his information on this presumption?

I believe it's completely opposite to Miller's so-called facts. Most Canadians do not support Prime Minister Trudeau's pot plan for Canada. We will become potheads all because of just a few potheads from the big cities like Vancouver and back east.

I would guess that 80 per cent of Canadians are against it, or maybe as high as 90 per cent. So 10 or 20 per cent doesn't sound to me as "most Canadians."

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Re: Op-ed by marijuana industry investor Dan Kriznic.

It appears Kriznic has been sampling his product. That's the only way I can account for his over-the-top description of what's going on in the money grubbing battle for pot dollars.

I get it that this move is in the cards since people refuse to just quit. But to describe the Canadian marijuana model as showing the world "something noble and dignified, a structure that will draw people from around the world seeking education and enlightenment" makes marijuana's legalization sound like the discovery of penicillin.

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Nelson council will hold a public hearing on Monday about its intention to disallow recreational cannabis businesses at least until July. It plans to do this through change to its zoning bylaw.

Council decided in December that it wants this moratorium because it does not want anyone opening up a recreational cannabis business in Nelson before federal and provincial rules are made known in the summer, and before council has carried out a public consultation process that will start this month.

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Dear editor: Re: "Looking ahead to 2018," editorial by James Miller (Daily Courier, Jan. 2).

Miller's statement that "most Canadians support legalizing pot," where does he get his information on this presumption?

I believe it's completely opposite to Miller's so-called facts. Most Canadians do not support Prime Minister Trudeau's pot plan for Canada.

We will become potheads all because of just a few potheads from the big cities like Vancouver and back east.

I would guess that 80 per cent of Canadians are against it, or maybe as high as 90 per cent. So 10 or 20 per cent doesn't sound to me as "most Canadians."

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Vancouver - Canada's marijuana industry is expanding rapidly and some First Nations are looking to cash in on the emerging economic opportunities.

Phil Fontaine, an Indigenous politician turned marijuana executive, has spent the last year travelling the country and talking to First Nations about jobs, wealth and training opportunities the burgeoning marijuana business could bring.

"Everywhere we've been, it's been the same reaction, interest, excitement. First Nations are speaking about possibilities and potential. So it's been very encouraging," said the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

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Vancouver has a history pioneering harm-reduction programs. In 2003, it opened North America's first supervised-injection facility, Insite. In 2014, it moved a prescription-heroin program beyond the confines of an academic study.

Now B.C. will launch its most radical drug program yet. It's a plan that one of the province's top doctors says could be a partial solution to the province's opioid crisis.

Tentatively scheduled to begin in March 2018, Vancouver will dispense hydromorphone-a synthetic opioid similar to heroin-in a way that, if all goes according to plan, will not require a doctor's visit and possibly not even a prescription for the powerful drug.

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Feds have promised a deadline of July 1, 2018

The day marijuana advocates and enthusiasts have long been waiting for what will come in 2018 - recreational marijuana will be legalized on Canada Day.

But with federal legislation comes a host of logistical and revenue issues for provinces and cities across the country. Vancouver may appear to have a head start, as the city established a licensing program for marijuana dispensaries in 2015, but it will need to follow provincial rules on the issue as well.

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Making a safe opioid available in vending machines may be the next harm-reduction tool to fight the deadly overdose epidemic, says the executive medical director of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

Dr. Mark Tyndall said he envisions a regulated system where drug users would be assessed, registered and issued a card to use in vending machines to obtain hydromorphone, a painkiller commonly marketed under the brand name Dilaudid.

"I'm hoping that it's kind of like supervised injection sites," he said of the program that could begin as early as next March. "At first it sounded a bit off the wall and now it's pretty well accepted."

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New tools are helping - but more needs to be done

December 2016 is seared into the memory of people who live or work with people from the Downtown Eastside, the epicentre of B.C.'s opioid overdose crisis.

"People were going down in alleyways," Karen Ward remembers. "It was a year ago that nine people died in one weekend.

"I remember the night when three people died in my building."

"BC Ambulance had its busiest day in history, St. Paul's hospital was fully blocked up and we were seeing the highest rates of overdoses that we had seen in the emergency room and at Insite," Dr. Mark Lysyshyn recalls.

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Marijuana could be a profitable addition to the crops grown in Central Saanich, but a proposal for a huge operation raises a recurring question about the way we use agricultural land. Why bury perfectly good, scarce agricultural land under greenhouses, which could be built just about anywhere?

Shawn Galbraith proposes to build a 150,000-square foot, $25-million greenhouse on the Stanhope Dairy Farm, near the point where Lochside Drive turns into the Lochside Trail. He plans a five-to seven-year project with 21 greenhouses on 36 acres.

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Dear editor: It was shocking to read that a parent and her nine-year-old child had to take on the drug-needle problem in our school grounds (Western News, Dec. 12).

That secret Queen's Park shed should never have been secret in the first place. What with such a fuss being made about possible marijuana shops anywhere within sight of schools, how can discarded needles go on being all over the place, right at those schools?

Wendy Hyer, school district superintendent, seems not to realize what her priorities should be, and therefore what we are paying her for.

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Province releases first decisions on cannabis regulation after public engagement

After receiving input from 48,951 British Columbians and submissions from 141 local and Indigenous governments and other interested stakeholders, the provincial government made some decisions on the anticipated legalization of non-medical cannabis in July 2018.

On Dec. 5, the NDP government announced the following policy decisions:

Minimum age

The Province will set the minimum age to possess, purchase and consume cannabis at 19 years old. A minimum age of 19 is consistent with B.C.'s minimum age for alcohol and tobacco and with the age of majority in B.C.

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Concerns still abound as cannabis legalization planned for this summer fast approaches

A Squamish cannabis retailer thinks the province's recent announcement around the sale of marijuana is a step in the right direction but says there are still many unanswered questions.

"I'm excited, but there is still not much that's changed since the announcement," says Bryan Raiser, owner of 99 North Dispensary.

The federal government has said marijuana will be legalized by July 1 of next year but handed it over to the provinces to determine how to manage the details.

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Nearly 7,000 life-saving naloxone kits have been used by harm reduction staff in B.C. so far this year and thousands more kits will be distributed by pharmacies to battle the effects of a contaminated drug supply.

"That means you can get a kit at no charge if you use opioids or you are likely to witness an overdose," said Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy. "Already, 1,900 kits have been distributed to over 200 pharmacies around the province."

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Overdose Crisis: Thousands more kits to be distributed this year through pharmacies

Nearly 7,000 life-saving naloxone kits have been used by harm reduction staff in B.C. so far this year and thousands more kits will be distributed by pharmacies to battle the effects of a contaminated drug supply.

"That means you can get a kit at no charge if you use opioids or you are likely to witness an overdose," said Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy. "Already, 1,900 kits have been distributed to over 200 pharmacies around the province."

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Life-saving drug now accessible after web tutorial

People can now learn how to administer Naloxone, the antidote to opioid overdose, by watching a five-minute video online.

St. Paul's emergency medical team led the project and launched the online tutorial this month to help more people access the life-saving drug. At the end of the tutorial, participants receive a certificate they can show at a nearby pharmacy, or any Naloxone dispensing site, to receive a free kit.

Previously, people who wanted Naloxone would have to attend a training workshop before receiving a kit.

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As a former Toronto police chief, Liberal MP Bill Blair said he understands how the federal government's legislation legalizing marijuana consumption for recreational use affects municipalities.

Blair, Ottawa's point person on the pot file, was in the Tri-Cities this week, meeting with mayors and councillors, he said, to ensure cities have the tools and information ahead of the regulation changes coming next summer.

"I recognize the important roles that mayors, councillors and local police officers have to make this thing work," he said in an interview Monday with The Tri-City News at Port Coquitlam city hall. "They have a big job to do here and we want to make sure they have the support they need that is required at the local level in order to make sure that this works in this community."

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Complaints about marijuana dispensaries have increased each year since the City of Vancouver implemented a licensing regimen in 2015. But even after three years of consecutive growth, the number remains relatively small.

In 2015, there were 30 complaints, according to data supplied by the city. Then 84 in 2016 and 112 in 2017 (up to December 6).

For comparison's sake, so far in 2017 the city has received 348 complaints about other business categories (excluding illegal housing suites and short-term rentals like those on Airbnb). Meanwhile, this year there have been 5,529 complaints about potholes and 7,734 about streetlight outages.

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