The point of Narcos was never Pablo Escobar. For its first two seasons the series rooted itself firmly in the rise and fall of Escobar, the most notorious of maniacal drug kingpins, and a performance by Wagner Moura as Escobar was as emphatic as it gets. But Narcos was always planned as a vast epic about the drug trade - what fuels it, who runs it and how every lame attempt to curb it goes awry. Two years ago when I spoke with Jose Padilha, the Brazilian director, producer and screenwriter who is an executive producer on Narcos, he said it's about, "What cocaine is - it's cheap to make, it's a natural product and it makes the human brain go haywire. The American approach to dealing with the cocaine problem is basically fighting cocaine by fighting supply. So yeah, you wage war on the Medellin Cartel. You kill Pablo Escobar. And then it goes to Cali. Then you wage war on Cali. And then it moves on and then it goes to Mexico. It's always there." [continues 753 words]
The legalization of cannabis and rapid scale up of supervised-injection sites - as well as community-led initiatives, such as the site set up by Overdose Prevention Ottawa in Lowertown this month - have thrust Canada back into the limelight of global drug policy. Against the backdrop of a national overdose crisis and a fracturing of global consensus on drug prohibition, these are welcome changes. Yet they only begin to chip away at the drug policy challenges facing Canada. Canada's policy community remains divided about how best to tackle the overdose crisis. As the death toll mounts, should we invest more in law and order approaches, treatment, harm reduction or some combination? [continues 582 words]
Advocate sees a role for public health nurses in fighting opioid crisis in rural communities The opioid crisis in St. John's is far from over, and a community advocate wants to see changes. "We see people every day who are at risk," said Tree Walsh, the harm reduction manager at the Safe Works Access Program (SWAP) for the AIDS Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador. "We're trying to save lives, and we're trying to prevent deaths, but as soon as the pharmaceutical supply of opioids dries up, which is happening now things are going to get so much worse." [continues 559 words]
Four arrested by officers in Cole Harbour dispensary One day after Tasty Budds reopened its five Nova Scotia locations following police raids last week, one of them has again been searched by police. RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jennifer Clarke confirmed to Metro Tuesday afternoon that police searched the Tasty Budds location in Cole Harbour. "We arrested four people, one of whom will be in court tomorrow morning in Dartmouth," Clarke said. Charges are expected against that one person, and Clarke said police will be naming them on Wednesday. [continues 136 words]
Urged to declare an emergency, province promises "significant resources and supports" The opioid drug crisis flaring up in Southwestern Ontario is becoming so bad across the province, hundreds of doctors, nurses and others are pushing Queen's Park to declare an emergency. In an open letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne Monday, the health workers say limited resources and poor data are preventing them from responding properly to a disturbing, sustained increase in overdoses. "The consequences have been clear: lives lost, families destroyed and harm reduction and health care worker burnout," they write. [continues 794 words]
Largest drug seizure in OPP history has three men facing charges ORILLIA - The OPP showed off the largest ever drug seizure of its nearly 110- year history Monday morning. Three men have been arrested, accused of importing 1,062 kilograms of pure cocaine. The drugs were displayed by police during a press conference in four specially constructed glass containers, each with a dimension of about four feet tall by eight feet wide. "This is a massive seizure, bigger than I've ever seen in my 33 years of policing," OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said during the press conference at OPP Headquarters in Orillia. [continues 825 words]
On Feb. 4, 2014, my only child died - alone - of an accidental overdose. Jordan's death was a shock. It still is. Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, I can connect the dots that led our happy, outgoing child to become addicted to opioids. Each of those dots represents an opportunity missed, a lesson to be learned. It's time those lessons be applied. Today, Jordan's experience - and ours as parents - is, sadly and unnecessarily, a common one. At the time, however, we were lost in the uncertainty of how to help our son. [continues 625 words]
Cheryl Guardiero should have spent Thursday celebrating her son's 30th birthday. Instead, she attended an International Overdose Awareness Day vigil in Nanaimo, her boy now among the dead for whom they grieved. Brett Colton Mercer was born in Nanaimo on Aug. 31, 1987, to loving parents who eventually had five children. He died Aug. 19, 2017 of an accidental drug overdose, alone in a motel room in Hope, where he had recently landed a job with an oil and gas firm. [continues 812 words]
Metric tonne found after force tipped off The cocaine was hidden inside hollowed-out quartzite stones packed onto shipping containers coming from Argentina - the drugs were concealed so well that even police dogs couldn't detect them. It was a tip from the public that ultimately led to the largest drug seizure in the Ontario Provincial Police's history as the force carried out an investigation into an international cocaine-smuggling ring with ties to Mexican cartels. Altogether the force seized 1,062 kilograms of cocaine during a months-long investigation that culminated in July, according to OPP deputy commissioner Rick Barnum. [continues 394 words]
Re: Winnipeg in grips of meth problem, say police (Aug. 27) Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Jay Murray is wrong when he says "the majority of property crime in the city is related to the methamphetamine subculture." Drug prohibition is responsible, just as it was when cocaine was the drug de jour in the past. The drug problem boils down to some people want to use those drugs and other people don't want them to. The short of it is that it is none of your business what drugs the next door neighbours are using since none of that use harms you. Repeal drug prohibition and the majority of property crime would end since these drugs that people want could be obtained for cheap and of a known purity at the local pharmacy. Chris Buors Selkirk [end]
'Alleged illegal activity' only at one location All five Tasty Budds medical marijuana dispensaries in Nova Scotia have reopened following raids last week, and allegations of illegal activity that the chain's owner says were confined to just one location. Police searched four homes and five Tasty Budds dispensaries last week after an eight-month investigation, and laid charges against nine people, including Tasty Budds president Mal McMeekin. Police said those searches turned up a loaded handgun, a shotgun, cocaine, marijuana, shatter, hash, oil, edibles, and large amounts of cash. One man, 31-year-old Jarrett Randall Shrum of Bedford, was charged with trafficking cocaine, plus seven firearms charges including possession of a firearm obtained by crime and tampering with a firearm's serial number. [continues 295 words]
Tasty Budds president Mal McMeekin is "very sorry" about alleged illegal activities that police say were occuring at his company's storefronts. "We want to be very clear that the alleged illegal activity was occuring at one Tasty Budds location (Sackville Location)," reads a written statement sent to The Chronicle Herald and attributed to Mal McMeekin. "This only came to our attention through the recent police activity and investigation. This is a gross violation of our code of conduct, our ethics, and everything that Tasty Budds stands for." [continues 343 words]
There is no silver bullet for North America's fentanyl crisis, according to the architect of Portugal's drug-policy framework, widely considered the most progressive in the world. "It is a difficult problem," Dr. Joao Goulao told the Straight by phone. "I have no magical insight for it." Illicit drugs are on track to kill more than 1,500 people in B.C. this year, up from an annual average of 204 deaths recorded between 2001 and 2010. So far in 2017, the B.C. Coroners Service has detected fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, in 78 percent of drug fatalities. [continues 727 words]
Drug dealers convicted on federal trafficking charges received the stiffest sentences from federal court judges last year in the Midwest and the Southeast. But the longer sentences are more driven by the type of drugs common in different states rather than judges in one region being tougher on drugs than counterparts elsewhere. In many states with longer average sentences, methamphetamines were the most prevalent drugs in these federal cases, according to a USA Today Network analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission data. [continues 438 words]
Northampton County's drug forfeiture program netted $132,000 last year, the district attorney's office announced. Northampton County's drug forfeiture program seized more than $132,000 in the past year, on par with other years despite heightened scrutiny of the practice nationwide. In the fiscal year ending June 30, the program brought in $122,000 in cash, plus $9,900 from the sale of forfeited vehicles, District Attorney John Morganelli announced. The proceeds represented an increase from the $112,000 averaged in the four previous years. But they were well short of the program's record in fiscal 2011, when $283,000 was seized. [continues 453 words]
Charges include fraud, bribery, trafficking A suspended Hamilton police gangs and weapons enforcement unit officer already awaiting trial for his alleged role in helping a drug trafficking organization is facing 16 new criminal charges. On Tuesday, Craig Ruthowsky was charged with bribery, two counts of breach of trust, two counts of obstructing justice, public mischief, two counts of weapons trafficking, fraud under $5,000, trafficking marijuana, perjury, two counts of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, robbery and two counts of trafficking cocaine. [continues 613 words]
Last month, you could hear the collective global gasp when news broke that eminent Zen Buddhist Michael Stone had passed away in Victoria, B.C. The shock was a natural reaction to the unexpected death of a beloved force of nature, a powerful communicator who, through his ability to make ancient spiritual ideas fresh and relevant, helped improve the lives of countless people around the world. Stone left behind a wife and two children - with another on the way - and would have celebrated his 43rd birthday this past Saturday. But what also caused thousands of jaws to drop from the news was the Stone's cause of death: the charismatic, world-renowned and respected yoga/meditation/mindfulness expert, author, and speaker - who founded the Centre of Gravity in Toronto-died after OD-ing on street drugs. [continues 1019 words]
Psst. Pass the word along. Much like the warning at the '60s Woodstock concert to avoid the brown acid, authorities are warning today's recreational drug users to carry naloxone kits in case their drugs are laced with fentanyl. "We're alerting recreational drug users that the MDMA (ecstasy) or cocaine they're taking could be tainted with fentanyl," said Janice Greco, manager of injury and substance misuse prevention at the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU). Greco is sounding the alarm after the health unit was warned of a spike in overdoses between Aug. 9 and Aug. 13 by its surveillance program at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH). [continues 582 words]
One of the Trudeau government's stated policy goals for ending marijuana prohibition is to divert the profits reaped by gangsters toward legitimate shareholders. But an investigation by Greg McArthur and Molly Hayes offers a glimpse into the insidious nature of organized crime, finding that criminal groups easily exploited loopholes in the federal government's old medical-marijuana licensing regimes In the late afternoon of March 14 in the Toronto suburb of Woodbridge, a masked gunman jumped out of the passenger side of a black Jeep Cherokee, darted across a snow-dusted parking lot and unleashed a flurry of bullets into a black BMW. Thirty seconds later, he was back in the car, leaving Saverio Serrano - the son of a notorious Canadian Mafia figure and cocaine importer - wounded, and Mr. Serrano's 28-year-old girlfriend dead. [continues 3221 words]
Decriminalize or legalize crack and that will reduce the opioid crisis and save lives? The hare-brained idea from Toronto that the country should consider decriminalizing or legalizing illicit drugs because current policy has failed is not just "crazy," it is insane. It would be laughable if the issue weren't so deadly serious. The worst of it is that Ottawa's medical officer of health, Dr. Isra Levy, supports this, saying Ottawa Public Health backs "new evidence-based approaches" on fighting drug addiction, including decriminalization. Also on side is the councillor for Ottawa-Vanier, Mathieu Fleury. "It's a crazy thought, but it is a crazy thought that might actually have some merit," he said. [continues 597 words]
