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Tag: Canada

  • Planned Safe Injection Sites Put On Hold In Canada

    Planned Safe Injection Sites Put On Hold In Canada

    Advocates of safe injection sites called the Canadian health minister’s decision to halt the opening of the facilities “horrifying.”

    A trio of planned safe injection sites in Ontario, Canada have been put on hold while the province’s new health minister conducts a review to determine if such facilities “have merit.”

    Health Minister Christine Elliott said that she remains unconvinced that such sites are effective in reducing drug overdose deaths and the spread of HIV infection; she also cited concerns from neighboring businesses over security and biohazard refuse as core reasons for the review.

    Advocates of safe injection sites and harm reduction policies called the health minister’s decision “horrifying,” that runs contrary to the needs of individuals in the midst of Canada’s opioid epidemic.

    The CBC reported that in a letter sent on Friday, August 10, to health integration networks and health units in the province, Roselle Martino, assistant deputy minister of the population and public health division, said that the approval process for new safe injection sites in the cities of Toronto, Thunder Bay, and St. Catharines would be halted immediately.

    The sites would allow for supervised injection of opioid drugs, grant access to harm reduction support and allow users to safely dispose of needles and other paraphernalia.

    In the letter, Elliott wrote that she will be “reviewing the evidence and speaking to experts to ensure that any continuation of supervised consumption services and overdose prevention sites are going to introduce people into rehabilitation and ensure people struggling with addiction will get the help they need.”

    CTV News also noted that Elliott will address how local businesses have been impacted by existing sites. The network cited concerns by Mark Garner, a member of the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area (BIA) in Toronto, who said that his organization has found discarded needles in the area near the Works, the city’s first supervised injection site, which opened in November 2017.

    Garner stated to CTV that while his organization supports efforts to reduce drug overdoses, the businesses in the BIA have felt the need to increase security and allocate funding to clean up discarded needles, especially ones discarded in toilets which have caused plumbing issues.

    “This is the number one tourist destination in Canada,” he said. “How do we integrate that into the neighborhood, what resources are needed, and how do we make it safe for everybody?”

    But harm reduction advocates and health care professionals have expressed alarm at the province’s move, which some described as a decision motivated more by politics than any actual health concern.

    “It’s a complete disaster, and I do worry about people on the ground,” said Marilou Gagnon, an associate professor of nursing and president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association. “The science is very clear that overdose prevention sites do work, and we’ve known this since the ’80s. [I’m] extremely concerned about a government going against science.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Marijuana Anonymous Sparking More Interest In Canada

    Marijuana Anonymous Sparking More Interest In Canada

    Marijuana Anonymous uses an adaptation of the 12 steps from Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous.

    For some marijuana users, Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous don’t quite feel like a good fit. 

    That’s why in some areas, Marijuana Anonymous is being introduced as an alternative. According to Vice, the group follows similar routines and readings as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. But it was created especially for marijuana users, as some felt that they did not identify with those individuals at AA meetings, while others who’d attended NA felt their marijuana use was dismissed as not being serious enough.

    In Simcoe, Ontario, Marijuana Anonymous meetings began in March 2018. Typically attendance hovers around five members. The Simcoe meeting is one of about 12 in the country, while there are hundreds of AA and NA meetings in comparison.

    One member, David, tells Vice he discovered the meeting online. Prior to attending, he had tried other recovery groups, as he also struggles with alcohol use. But for David, those groups weren’t effective when it came to addressing marijuana.

    “I knew I had a problem,” David told the group at the meeting. “My life had become totally unmanageable. I had become totally isolated… smoked a lot of joints.” 

    Marijuana Anonymous roughly follows the same 12 steps as NA and AA. However, the group celebrates milestones with a token of their own—small rocks painted with an M and A to represent the group’s name.

    “They’re called Stones for Stoners,” David said during the meeting. “I should probably collect because I’m 21 days away from nine months without weed.”

    According to Vice, Marijuana Anonymous members are to try and stay removed from providing thoughts about topics such as legalization of recreational marijuana. But outside these groups, the conversations are happening.

    David Juurlink, an addictions expert and head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, tells Vice that marijuana use disorder is legitimate, but that the withdrawal symptoms of marijuana are much less severe so people tend to view it as safer.

    “Alcohol withdrawal kills people,” he said. “Once people drinking 40 ounces of alcohol a day stop, they can go into withdrawal and they can die. Opioid withdrawal is a big deal. Someone who is a heavy user of cannabis who stops is not going to die. They are going to have trouble sleeping, they’re going to be irritable, they might have weird dreams, they might have anxiety. And all of these things might get better when they resume their cannabis again.”

    According to the MA public information trustee, Josh, interest in the group is growing. He tells Vice that there has been a 51% increase in calls to the organization’s phone line over the past year.

    Soon, Canada may become an important destination for Marijuana Anonymous members, as the country is hosting the 2019 world convention and conference in Toronto and Vancouver, Vice notes. The conference just happens to fall around seven months after Canada will implement the legalization of recreational marijuana, which members say is a coincidence. 

    “As legalization happens and becomes more ingrained in our culture, we probably will see a rise in attendance but at the same time, we’re an anonymous corporation,” MA member Lori told Vice.

    “I was miserable and I was lonely, so eventually I ran out of excuses as to why my life was a mess,” she added. “There’s all these conjectures and this thinking that pot’s not addictive, so as an addict I latched onto that. Then I get to MA and I hear the stories and I see the recovery and I say OK, I will give this a shot. And things went much better.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Device To Test Drivers For Cannabis Impairment Approved In Canada

    Device To Test Drivers For Cannabis Impairment Approved In Canada

    After legalizing cannabis in June, Canada’s government is cracking down on drugged driving.

    Our neighbor to the north has settled on a method that law enforcement officers will use to test motorists for cannabis impairment.

    Canada became the first major economy, and the second country in the world after Uruguay, to legalize cannabis this past June. With legal sales to begin on October 17, it appears that Canada won’t have to wait for a reliable test that can detect cannabis impairment in motorists.

    Immediately following the decision to legalize (with Bill C-45), Canada made major changes to its impaired driving laws with Bill C-46, High Times noted.

    This included the use of roadside drug tests, but now, the government has approved a specific device for the job—the Dräger DrugTest 5000, a roadside saliva drug test device that analyzes a mouth swab for the presence of THC.

    The device was approved by Canada’s Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould, following a review of its effectiveness by an independent panel of traffic safety experts and toxicologists.

    According to the Los Angeles Times, the device—already in use in Germany and the UK—tests for the presence of cannabis, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamine, amphetamine, methadone and benzodiazepines, but does not measure the level of intoxication.

    Gauging if someone is “high” on cannabis is more complex than testing for alcohol intoxication. It’s uniquely difficult to test for impairment from cannabis because THC can remain in a person’s system for weeks, therefore its presence does not necessarily indicate that a person is impaired.

    This has presented a challenge as more federal and local governments choose to legalize cannabis in some form.

    While the Dräger device does not specify impairment, neither does Bill C-46, which gives police officers broad discretion when it comes to motorists who come up positive for THC. They are allowed to charge a driver with drug-impaired driving “based solely on the presence of THC,” High Times reported.

    However, officers will still need “reasonable grounds of suspected drug activity” to administer a drug test on a driver.

    The Canadian government will continue to invest in improving drug testing to counteract drugged driving. According to High Times, the national government has allotted $81 million over five years to purchase drug-testing devices and toward training police officers on how to use them.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Toronto Health Officials Recommend Decriminalization of All Drugs

    Toronto Health Officials Recommend Decriminalization of All Drugs

    “The potential harms associated with any of these drugs is worsened when people are pushed into a position where they have to produce, obtain and consume those drugs illegally.”

    On Monday, the Toronto board of health unanimously accepted the decision to propose that Canada’s federal government decriminalize all drug use.

    The board made the decision upon reading a report by Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s chief medical officer, which made the case for treating drug use as a public health, not a criminal, issue.

    “What we are saying here is drug use has always been with us. Humans have always used drugs in one way, shape or form,” said de Villa, according to the Canadian Press.

    “The potential harms associated with any of these drugs is worsened when people are pushed into a position where they have to produce, obtain and consume those drugs illegally. That’s what we’re trying to address through this particular report and this recommendation.”

    However, a representative for Canada’s national government said it has no plans to decriminalize or legalize all drugs. “We are aware that decriminalization, as part of a comprehensive approach to substance use, seems to be working in places like Portugal, but more study would be required as the circumstances are very different in Canada,” said Health Canada spokesperson Maryse Durette.

    Durette is referring to Portugal’s decision in 2001 to decriminalize all drugs use, in response to “one of the worst drug epidemics in the world,” according to NPR.

    Since then, Portugal has been cited by drug policy reform advocates as a harm reduction experiment that has yielded positive outcomes. Since the government made the decision to approach drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal one, reports have shown decreases in drug-related HIV and hepatitis infections, fatal overdoses, drug-related crime and incarceration rates.

    Canada may not be ready to change policies regarding “hard drugs” like heroin and cocaine, but in June it became the second country in the world (after Uruguay) to legalize cannabis.

    Still, the Toronto health officials are hopeful that the tide will someday turn. “The only way that federal laws are going to change is if we provoke that national conversation,” said board chair Coun. Joe Mihevc.

    In 2017, nearly 4,000 Canadians died of a “apparent opioid overdose” in 2017, according to a recent Health Canada report. According to de Villa, 303 of them occurred in Toronto; a 63% increase from the previous year.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Canada Legalizes Marijuana In Historic Vote

    Canada Legalizes Marijuana In Historic Vote

    Residents are expected to be able to purchase marijuana from licensed producers as early as mid-September 2018.

    Canada became the second country in the world to legalize marijuana after the passage of its Cannabis Act in a 52-59 vote on Tuesday, June 19.

    Canadian adults will be allowed to carry and share up to 30 grams of legal marijuana in public and cultivate up to four plants in their homes. The country’s provinces and territories will be allowed to draft their own rules for sales, which have been projected to echo the billion-dollar windfall enjoyed by the marijuana industry in the United States.

    The government is giving its provinces 8 to 12 weeks to set up their own regulations on sales and more, and residents are expected to be able to purchase marijuana from licensed producers as early as mid-September 2018.

    Prior to the passage of Bill C-45, Uruguay was the only country on the planet to legalize marijuana for sale and use. In the U.S., 29 states and Washington, D.C. allow the medical use of marijuana, while nine and D.C. also allow recreational use. Canada introduced the Cannabis Act in 2017, which passed the House of Commons in November of that year before reaching the Senate for final approval.

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed the intention of C-45 in a June 19 Twitter post which read, “It’s been too easy for our kids to get marijuana – and for criminals to reap the profits,” he wrote. “Today, we change that.”

    Once the bill receives Royal Assent—a ceremony in which Canada’s governor general, Julie Payette, will officially approve the measure—only adults ages 18 or 19 years or older (depending on the province or territory) will be allowed to legally purchase “cannabis, dried cannabis, cannabis oil, cannabis seeds or cannabis plants” from licensed retailers, both at brick-and-mortar locations and online.

    According to the BBC, edibles will not be available for purchase by the proposed September launch date, but are expected to reach markets within a year’s time to allow the government to establish regulations for such projects.

    They can also grow up to four plants per household—not per person—for personal use as long as the seeds are bought from a licensed supplier, and make cannabis-related products in their home as long as the plants do not use dangerous organic solvents.

    C-45 will also establish a new offense of up to 14 years in prison for selling cannabis to minors, as well as “significant” penalties for individuals who involve minors in cannabis-related offenses or drive under the influence of cannabis, and will impose restrictions on how marijuana is promoted to young people, such as through the use of celebrity or animal/cartoon character images. 

    Provinces will also decide where cannabis will be sold to the public. As CNN noted, Alberta will make it available at more than 200 private retailers, while buyers in Ontario will only find it in state-run stores, and Newfoundland/Labrador residents will be able to purchase cannabis along with their groceries at the Loblaw supermarket chain.

    With Canadian sales of marijuana in 2015 estimated at about $4.5 billion—nearly the same amount spent on wine—cannabis industry observers have suggested that the country may see annual revenue as high as $5 billion.

    Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau said that the excise tax revenue will be split 75/25 between provincial government and the federal government for the first two years after legalization.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Canada Moves Closer To Legalizing Recreational Marijuana

    Canada Moves Closer To Legalizing Recreational Marijuana

    Canada is taking a countrywide approach to avoid the issues that have unfolded in the United States, according to one Canadian senator.

    Canada is one step closer to becoming the first major global economy to legalize recreational marijuana, with the Senate passing a legalization plan on Thursday.

    The plan and all its amendments will now move on to the House, according to the BBC. If approved there, legal sales are expected to start within 12 weeks, meaning it could be legal to purchase marijuana in Canada by the end of the summer. 

    According to one Canadian Senator, Canada is taking a countrywide approach to avoid the issues that have unfolded in the United States, where cannabis is legal in some states but prohibited under federal law. 

    “We’ve very much learned from the early mistakes made by some U.S. states and other jurisdictions,” Canadian Sen. Tony Dean, an independent who sponsored the bill in the Senate, told USA Today. “We know we have a national challenge with cannabis. We have some of the highest youth consumption rates in the world, an illegal cannabis market worth upward of $6 billion annually, we know it’s harmful for kids, especially younger kids… and we had a government that wanted to tackle those issues.”

    Having a national system will allow the Canadian government to address these issues above board, according to Roy Bingham, the CEO and co-founder of cannabis data firm BDS Analytics.

    “Canada is creating a normal industry. What we have in the United States is a very abnormal industry,” he said. “In Canada, you see tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical companies, all these mainstream industries interested in getting involved.”

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ran on a platform of marijuana legalization in 2015. The senate measure will make recreational use and sale of marijuana legal, but it will leave the specifics of the cannabis laws up to each province or state. 

    Marijuana firms, researchers and public health experts will all be watching Canada closely to see how the market for legalized cannabis unfolds. 

    “It’s going to be a bit of a science fiction experience for a while,” Benedikt Fischer, an expert on substance use at Toronto’s biggest psychiatric hospital, told The Guardian. “It’s unique in the world, because it’s happening for the first time in a wealthy country. It’s not like in the U.S., where there are these state experiments. Most people kind of ignore Uruguay. And so the world is really looking at this.”

    One issue will be setting the price of cannabis high enough to prevent new users from getting started with marijuana, but low enough to discourage black market sales. 

    “What I am mainly following … is who will be the new legal growers, and whether authorities manage to get some of the illegal growers to become legal growers,” said Tim Boekhout van Solinge, a Dutch criminologist.

    Other issues including the impact of legalization on use of other drugs and dealing with impaired drivers, will also be closely monitored by policymakers and researchers from around the globe. 

    “They’re waiting to see if the sky’s going to fall,” said Jordan Sinclair, company spokesman for Canopy Growth, a medical marijuana grower in Canada. “[Investors] are waiting to see if all the stigma and all the demonization of this product that’s built up in 90 years of prohibition is true. It’s on us to demonstrate that it’s not.”

    View the original article at thefix.com