toronto

CBC News

 

Smoking marijuana does help relieve a certain amount of pain, a small but well-designed Canadian study has found.

 

People who suffer chronic neuropathic or nerve pain from damage or dysfunction of the nervous system have few treatment options with varying degrees of effectiveness and side-effects.

 

Neuropathic pain is caused by damage to nerves that don't repair, which can make the skin sensitive to a light touch.

 

Cannabis pills have been shown to help treat some types of pain but the effects and risks from smoked cannabis were unclear.

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After a 33-7 vote yesterday, Toronto City Council endorsed the Vienna Declaration, a document which denounces the war on drugs, The National Post reports.

The declaration favours public health responses to drug instead over enforcement.

“The war against drugs has failed. In every jurisdiction and in every community, we know that policing this issue is not enough,” said gaybourhood councillor Kyle Rae.

Last year, controversy erupted during a Toronto safe consumption site feasibility study when Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he planned to shut down a Vancouver’s safe injection site.

The Vienna Declaration aims to end all that.

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By: Zoe McKnight, National Post

 

Toronto City Council voted to endorse the Vienna Declaration on Thursday, raising a loud voice against the war on drugs.

 

“The war against drugs has failed,” said city councillor Kyle Rae, who brought the declaration to council after attending the AIDS 2010 international conference this July, where it was announced. “In every jurisdiction and in every community, we know that policing this issue is not enough.”

 

The principles of the declaration favour a public health approach to dealing with drug addicts, rather than enforcing ever-stricter drug laws, which advocates say doesn’t work, and in fact can cause greater harm.

 

“Just as clearly as we know HIV is the cause of AIDS, we know the war on drugs doesn’t achieve its stated objectives and contributes to a range of harms, including the spread of HIV,” said Dr. Evan Wood, a research physician who studies infectious disease at the University of British Columbia, and who chaired the writing committee.

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Vienna Declaration

 

26 August 2010 [Toronto, Canada] – Toronto City Council today voted to endorse the Vienna Declaration, a recently released document that highlights the failure of the global War on Drugs and calls for a transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies.

The City of Toronto is the first municipality to join a long list of Nobel Laureates and academic, political, law enforcement and health leaders to endorse and sign the Vienna Declaration, the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS conference (AIDS 2010) held in Vienna, Austria from July 18-23, 2010.

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By: Betsy Powell, Toronto Star

 

A couch, slashed and smouldering, lay upended in the tiny backyard, while inside the home household possessions were strewn on the floor after dresser drawers were dumped, shelves cleared and closets emptied.

 

In a May pre-trial ruling, Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Code criticized the Toronto police officers who had executed that search warrant and concluded they had caused “deliberate and unnecessary damage” to the contents of the Driftwood Ave. townhouse unit.

 

Police obtained the warrant three summers ago after a confidential informant told them a resident was selling marijuana on the premises.

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By. Canadians for Safe Access

 

Yesterday, Cannabis as Living Medicine (CALM), one of the most well-established medical cannabis dispensaries in Canada, was raided by police in Toronto for the second time in one month. In the last couple of months, a dispensary in Guelph, another in Iqaluit, and several in the province of Quebec were also raided.

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CBC News

 

Canada's first International Medical Marijuana Expo in Toronto hopes to attract people suffering from health problems who are "sick and tired of taking pharmaceutical drugs that have adverse side-effects," says the event's organizer.

 

The event, which is being held in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this weekend, is labelled as "the first expo promoting the respectable and responsible use of marijuana as medicine."

 

The expo's website says it will feature a number of vendors who are selling products "who specialize in the medicinal use and production of high-quality medical marijuana."

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Examiner.com

 

Toronto - Pro-marijuana activists held their counter summit at the Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto called the G420 Summit but as soon as it begun it was temporarily stopped by police officers.

 

On Saturday, prior to the chaos that engulfed the downtown core of Toronto, activists that support the legalization of marijuana protested at the Yonge-Dundas Square, which they dubbed as the G420 Summit.

 

Under heavy rain, demonstrators carried signs supporting the use of marijuana and many danced to the music that was played from a truck that had a flag promoting the site: whyprohibition.ca

 

However, a few moments after the counter summit began, police officers started to give the organizers a hard time by telling them they cannot do this and that they must leave the premise right away.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 21, 2010

G-420 Protest Planned for Saturday June 26 - Dundas Square to Queens Park South

 

Saturday, June 26 members of the Toronto Cannabis Community will be hosting the G-420 parade in downtown Toronto. The protest will start at 12pm at Dundas Square and parade will depart at 2pm to Queens Park South, via Yonge and Wellesley Streets. Organizers are adamant that nobody attend the protest wearing masks, asserting that anyone who does so will be assumed to be an undercover police officer/agent provocateur.

 

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By TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun

 

Thousands of Toronto pot smokers were puffing their bongs and spliffs without fear of arrest at Queen’s Park before taking part in a march calling for the weed to be legalized.

 

The air around the legislature reeked with pot as an estimated 25,000 users, mostly between 18 and 35, gathered to spark one and view arts and crafts that is part of a fourth Toronto Freedom Festival that takes alongside a Global Marijuana March involving people in 200 countries.

 

Festival organizer Blaine Dowdle said the event promotes the legalization and medicinal use of marijuana.

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