Soft policies caused disorder and violent crime
“It’s fine on the other side, it’s fine on the other side!” sing five rowdy, dancing Brits, to the tune of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West”. On the other side of the 14th century Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, a cluster of partying men yodel back. It is midnight on a Friday in the heart of Amsterdam’s De Wallen district, and I am on a reconnaissance tour with Amsterdam’s Night Watch.
Eight Canadians have filed a Charter challenge against the Government of Canada and the Minister of Health regarding patient access to psilocybin and psilocybin therapy.
The plaintiffs, which include seven patients and one health-care practitioner, are arguing that the current modes of accessing psilocybin are insufficient and a violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
The bill would authorize cities and counties to establish “safe consumption sites” where addicts could use illegal narcotics under supervision. Those accessing the “hygienic space supervised by trained staff” could consume pre-obtained drugs. Program staff would be trained to administer an “opioid antagonist” in the event of an overdose.
The place where Chris gets his fentanyl is bright and airy, all blond wood and exposed brick. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable about the potency of the pills he can crush, cook and inject.
Soft pop music played, and an attendant spritzed a bit of Covid-cautious spray on his seat before he settled into a booth on a recent afternoon with a couple of red-and-yellow pills, a tourniquet, a tiny candle and a lighter.
“The best thing about this is the guarantee: I can come in here four times a day and get it,” Chris said. He no longer spends all of his waking hours in a frantic scrabble of panhandling and “other stuff” to scrape up the cash to pay a dealer. He won’t get arrested — and he won’t overdose and die using a drug that is not what it is sold as.
This fentanyl dispensary is legal, and Canada’s public health system finances it.
Senator Larry Campbell, who struggles with depression, PTSD, and “getting old,” reveals that psilocybin microdoses helped improve his mood.
“This is the first time I’ve admitted this,” teased Senator Larry Campbell of his unexpected psilocybin experience while speaking at the opening ceremonies of the Catalyst Psychedelics Summit in Kingston, Ontario.
A Republican congressman is painting life in Washington as a non-stop orgy of “sexual perversion” and drug use akin to the fictional antics on TV’s House of Cards
North Carolina GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn, 26, claims D.C. is just like the series.
Following last week’s revelation by the Washington Free Beacon that the Biden Administration had provided free crack pipes and “safe smoking kits” to drug addicts in San Francisco and elsewhere, it appears two Republican lawmakers have proposed a new bill dubbed “Hunter’s Act”, which aims to prevent the Biden administration from spending taxpayer dollars on crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is looking at the issue of decriminalizing hard drugs with the provinces and is open to further action, a departure from his previous resistance to the idea.
The federal government introduced legislation Tuesday to repeal mandatory minimum penalties for drug offences, and Health Canada decided last year to allow some palliative patients to use psilocybin — the chemical compound in magic mushrooms — to relieve end-of-life suffering. Toronto and Vancouver have also called for the decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of drugs.
As cities across the US reject legalized heroin injection sites and needle exchanges, the Rhode Island General Assembly has passed legislation to open the first injection sites in the US. The bill would authorize a two-year pilot program to create harm reduction centers, which is another term for heroin injection sites.
“Drug-impaired driving is significantly under detected,” Statistics Canada wrote in a report called Impaired Driving in Canada, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “Drugs may be involved as often, or maybe more often, than alcohol in impaired driving incidents.”
According to the Gilbert Centre and other outreach groups, the local overdose rates skyrocketing during the pandemic. They say for people unable or unwilling to access mental health services and support; punishment only sends them spiralling further out of control.
Normalizing drug use is no longer an idea, it’s a reality. And if you want to see what that reality looks like, take a walk through once-thriving downtown Denver.
h/t Marvin
Officials in a Chicago suburb on Monday approved a first-of-its-kind reparations program that will provide housing grants to black residents as compensation for past municipal segregationist policies, with the money coming from donations and tax revenues from sales of recreational marijuana.
