Companies that produce marijuana for the medical market are pouring millions into expansion projects in preparation for the legalization of recreational pot in this country. However, as Christopher Curtis reports, they face big challenges - including a still-thriving underground market. SMITHS FALLS, ONT. The journey to the centre of Canada's marijuana economy begins on a stretch of country road in eastern Ontario. It weaves through a patchwork of cornfields and hamlets before settling in Smiths Falls - a town that boasts a stone mill, a Lion's Club that meets every second Thursday and a factory that grows cannabis by the tonne. [continues 2836 words]
Health Canada, which is facing a growing controversy over tainted medical marijuana, cannot say with certainty how widespread the use of banned pesticides is within the industry. Instead, the regulator has been leaving it up to the growers to police themselves on the use of potentially harmful chemicals. In a background briefing with The Globe and Mail, a senior Health Canada official acknowledged that even though the government prohibits the use of potentially harmful chemicals such as myclobutanil, the department has not been testing cannabis growers to ensure the 38 federally licensed companies were, in fact, not using it. [continues 714 words]
Police and drug experts say it's more complicated and expensive than nabbing those who are drunk, writes Joanne Laucius. What, exactly, does it mean to be one toke over the line? That's one of many questions that will have to be answered as Canada moves toward legalizing marijuana and police wonder if they're equipped to crack down on stoned drivers. "We're having our challenges. The most pressing one is that we don't know what the legislation will look like. It makes it hard to train and prepare," said Supt. Gord Jones of the Toronto Police, the co-chair of the Canadian Chiefs of Police traffic committee. [continues 1802 words]
Get ready for the worst, intervention counsellor warns province Andy Bhatti has spent the majority of his life surrounded by hard drugs. As an interventionist, he can talk to you eloquently about the dangers of drug use, quote Canadian statistics, and offer his ideas about what programs and services are needed in order to help drug users and stop overdoses. He can just as easily slip into the language of a drug user, calling drugs by their slang names, giving you a list of his acquaintances who have died, and talking like living in stolen cars and dirty motels while committing crimes in order to support an expensive addiction is a regular fact of life. [continues 950 words]
Canada's organized-crime groups and gangs are much less likely to produce and traffic marijuana than they are other illicit drugs such as cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, according to a new federal study that tracked drug violations from police forces in four cities across three provinces. The new report from Statistics Canada analyzed all drug-related violations over a two-year period in Victoria, Vancouver, Regina and Waterloo, Ont., and found that police linked organized crime to 39 per cent of all cannabis-trafficking charges and 6 per cent of cases involving the production of marijuana. [continues 796 words]
Even as more and more states allow their residents to use marijuana, the federal government is continuing to obstruct scientists from studying whether the drug is good or bad for people's health. A report published last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine points out that scientists who want to study cannabis have to seek approvals from federal, state and local agencies and depend on just one lab, at the University of Mississippi, for samples. As a result, far too little is known about the health effects of a substance that 28 states have decided can be used as medicine and eight states and the District of Columbia have approved for recreational use. [continues 408 words]
Marijuana's health effects A new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on its users remain something of a mystery. (Jan. 13, 2017) More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it's now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on those who use it remain something of a mystery -- and the federal government continues to erect major barriers to research that would provide much-needed answers. [continues 1147 words]
Researchers combed through more than 10,000 scientific studies to examine the various health effects of marijuana use. More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it's now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on those who use it remain something of a mystery -- and the federal government continues to erect major barriers to research that would provide much-needed answers. [continues 1123 words]
The 81 barangays in Cebu Province that were initially declared by the police as drug-free are still subject for validation, a top-ranking official said Tuesday, January 3. Chief Superintendent Noli Talino, Police Regional Office (PRO)-Central Visayas director, said that it is up to the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office (CPADAO) to declare a barangay free from drugs. "Yung sa amin, hindi pa naman final yung report ng Cebu Province. Ang sabi ko sa kanila for recommendation as a drug-free barangay pero hindi pa final yun. Ipapa-validate pa natin 'yun (For our part, the report from the Cebu Province is not yet final. What I told them was only to submit a recommendation of drug-free barangays but these are not yet final. This (recommendation) will still be validated," said Talino. "So if I will not approve it then it's back to zero." [continues 158 words]
Doctors may reduce opiate dosage for patients suffering chronic pain "Funny story," the email begins. What follows is anything but. Recounted are five years of pain, suffering and a gradually increasing prescription drug dependency, which even now is barely enough for the storyteller to make it through the day looking after two kids. The storyteller has a spinal injury. Surgeons initially refused to operate; a couple of years later they determined it had been operable, but now it was too late. The storyteller now has chronic pain that includes tingling and burning down one arm and into the thumb and pointer finger. [continues 792 words]
It took me awhile to perfect the cookie recipe. I experimented with ingredients: Blueberry, Strawberry, Sour Diesel, White Widow, Bubba Kush, AK-47 -- all strains of cannabis, which I stored, mixed with glycerin, in meticulously labeled jars on a kitchen shelf. After the cookies finished baking, I'd taste a few crumbs and annotate the effects in a notebook. Often, I felt woozy. One variation put me to sleep. When I had convinced myself that a batch was okay, I'd give a cookie to my 9-year-old son. [continues 1942 words]
LUBBOCK, Texas - Across from a sprawling cotton field, among mobile homes in varying states of decay, one stood out: a double-wide with a new, expansive metal garage and the only paved driveway on the dead-end street. It was here that an unemployed former computer repairman with a bad back ran what a drug informant called the biggest fentanyl ring in Lubbock. All Sidney Lanier needed was a computer and an elementary knowledge of chemistry to order shipments of the potent synthetic opioid from China and turn it into a highly profitable - and dangerous - street drug. [continues 1455 words]
A VicPD officer explains why the opioid is so easily available Staff Sgt. Conor King has been a Victoria Police Department officer for 16 years, is an expert on fentanyl and other drugs from a law-enforcement standpoint, and serves in VicPD's Investigative Services Division. He shares his thoughts on the province's growing opioid crisis. I spent Christmas 2015 sitting at my kitchen table, smartphone in hand, tracking overdose deaths across Greater Victoria. Eight people had died in seven days, three in the preceding 24 hours. Two of them died on the street, one in a parkade, the rest at home. [continues 915 words]
I spent Christmas 2015 sitting at my kitchen table, smartphone in hand, tracking overdose deaths across Greater Victoria. Eight people had died in seven days, three in the preceding 24 hours. Two of them died on the street, one in a parkade, the rest at home. This included Miranda, the 22-year-old daughter of one of my co-workers at the Victoria Police Department. She died in her bedroom a few hours after opening Christmas presents with her mom and stepdad. [continues 916 words]
Victoria Police Staff Sgt. Conor King shares his thoughts on B.C.'s growing opioid problem. I spent Christmas 2015 sitting at my kitchen table, smartphone in hand, tracking overdose deaths across Greater Victoria. Eight people had died in seven days, three in the preceding 24 hours. Two of them died on the street, one in a parkade, the rest at home. This included Miranda, the 22-year-old daughter of one of my co-workers at the Victoria Police Department. She died in her bedroom a few hours after opening Christmas presents with her mom and stepdad. [continues 916 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - No one knew what was in the baggie. It was just a few tablespoons of crystalline powder seized back in April, clumped like snow that had partially melted and frozen again. Emily Dye, a 27-year-old forensic chemist at the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Testing and Research Laboratory, did not know if anyone had died from taking this powder, or how much it would take to kill you. What she did know was this: New drugs were appearing in the lab every other week, things never before seen in this unmarked gray building in Sterling, Virginia. Increasingly, these new compounds were synthetic opioids designed to mimic fentanyl, a prescription painkiller up to 50 times stronger than heroin. [continues 2297 words]
BEIJING -- U.S. assertions that China is the top source of the synthetic opioids that have killed thousands of drug users in the U.S. and Canada are unsubstantiated, Chinese officials told the Associated Press. Both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy point to China as North America's main source of fentanyl, related drugs and the chemicals used to make them. Such statements "lack the support of sufficient numbers of actual, confirmed cases," China's National Narcotics Control Commission told DEA's Beijing field office in a fax dated Friday. [continues 1179 words]
Yes, there is a fentanyl crisis, but it is one we made ourselves in our all-fired enthusiasm to control everything. The Drug War had its origins almost exactly 100 years ago when legislation was created both in the U.S. and Canada to "control" cannabis and opium, and were largely racially-inspired attacks on unpopular minorities who used these substances (eg. Chinese labourers working on the CP railway, and disposable artsy types). Since the Second World War, the drug problem has grown like Topsy, each ill-advised exacerbation of the laws being reliably accompanied by an increase in prison populations, in the U.S. from 500,000 in 1980 to about 2.2 million in 2013. [continues 181 words]
Dog treats containing Cannabidiol, better known as CBD, a chemical compound extracted from the marijuana plant, are a growing business as owners seek ways to treat hyperactive and nervous canines. Even for a puppy, Kat Donatello's black Labrador, Austin, was hyperactive. After experimenting with natural supplements on her older dog, Donatello slipped a special biscuit to Austin. "It just kind of took the edge off of him," she recalled. The treat contained Cannabidiol, better known as CBD, a chemical compound extracted from the marijuana plant. [continues 992 words]
JERUSALEM - Israeli scientists began their pioneering research to isolate the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana with a 10-pound stash seized by the Tel Aviv police. That effort, in the 1960s, helped propel Israel to the vanguard of research into the plant's medicinal properties and lay the foundations for a medical marijuana industry. Now the nation's burgeoning pot business, backed by an unlikely coalition of farmers, lawyers, scientists, entrepreneurs and the country's ultra-Orthodox health minister, is going mainstream - and eyeing markets abroad. [continues 1086 words]
