ottawa

CBC News

 

Methadone use as a means of treating addiction is on the rise in Ontario, but medical professionals say a lack of doctors willing to prescribe the drug in the Ottawa region is delaying access to the treatment.

 

Just three doctors in the Ottawa area prescribe the drug, which people use as a means of battling addictions to more dangerous opiates such as heroin or morphine.

 

Dr. Robert Cushman, the head of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, said that has led to unmet demand for the drug. Wait times can also vary from a month at a specialized clinic or longer than a year when obtaining a prescription from a doctor.

 

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

 

Ottawa has a problem with crack cocaine.

 

Its tentacles are everywhere. In the ByWard Market, obviously, but also in the middle-class enclaves of Orléans and Barrhaven and Kanata.

 

Police officers, drug counsellors, community groups, politicians, outreach workers, judges and an army of others in the fight know that realistically it will never leave town.

 

"It isn't a war against drugs," says Ottawa police Chief Vern White. "It's a continuous battle."

 

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

 

Michael started to use crack when he was 16. Eleven years of on-and-off addiction have cost him dearly in every way.

 

“I grew up with it,” he says. His mother was an addict and a dealer. Now she’s in treatment.

 

These days, Michael spends a couple of hundred dollars a week on drugs. At one time, he’d spend $1,000. He’s desperate to quit.

 

Michael stopped studying in Grade 9. He’s never held a steady job. He has served jail time — in Ottawa and New Brunswick — for the chronic petty theft that finances his habit. “I was clean for two-and-a-half years and fell back off last year,” he says. “My girlfriend left me and that was it.”

 

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

 

Q. You have said that one of your biggest surprises when you became chief was the extent of Ottawa’s crack problem.

 

A. I was shocked by it. I had Iived here from 2003 to 2005 working for the RCMP. Like a typical government Ottawan, I worked downtown, went home — in my case, Richmond — and would maybe go to the Market occasionally for lunch.

 

If you see one or two people begging downtown, you don’t see the depth and gravity of the problem.

 

Melanie Adams , CFRA 580

 

Despite a headline in the Ottawa Citizen Monday morning, Ottawa Police Chief Vern White says anyone looking for an ally in helping to push for decriminalization of marijuana should not look to him.

 

Chief White tells CFRA he is not in favour decriminalizing possession of the drug, though he would prefer police try other things first before laying criminal charges against marijuana smokers.

 

Urban Compass by Steve Collins, Metro Ottawa

 

On Tuesday, a mass of dope fiends gathered on Parliament Hill to flagrantly smoke marijuana — and the rest of Ottawa barely noticed.

 

Annual 4-20 decriminalization demos have gone on for years and they’re no longer news. Apart from an alarming rise in the prevalence of bongo drums, no incidents or arrests were reported here or at the majority of smoke-ins across the country. (In Toronto, one person was injured in a fight and another was arrested with what appeared to be a firearm).

 

By Kenneth Jackson, Sun Media

A private member’s bill to crack down on landlords who allow their tenants to operate drug dens failed an important test Wednesday.

Ottawa Centre Liberal MPP Yasir Naqvi said Bill 106, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act, didn’t get the support of the standing committee on regulations and private bills.

“By failing to pass SCAN (Wednesday) in committee, the future of this bill is in serious jeopardy,” Naqvi said in an e-mail to the Sun.

The odds of SCAN being recalled to the committee are “very slim,” he said.

The bill was an election promise Naqvi had hoped to have in place last spring. His Liberal party could have easily put the bill through but didn’t.