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Drugs Tag

26 Apr 2021 Bill C-22 and Restorative Justice: How the Liberal plan to drop minimum sentences for drug crimes could actually be a good thing

Posted at 13:21h in Blog, Criminal Justice 0 Comments
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By Daniel Zekveld I will always remember my first experience visiting a prison. I was in my University choir, and we stopped at a medium-security prison while on tour to sing for their chapel service. Throughout our performance and through our brief interaction with inmates afterwards, many of them were brought to tears and were amazed that a group of University students would sing for them and chat with them. The whole choir received a letter from one of the people imprisoned there following the visit, and he explained how that...

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08 Dec 2017 Could marijuana decriminalization present an opportunity for better policy?

Posted at 17:49h in Blog, Criminal Justice 0 Comments
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by John Sikkema Parliament is well on its way to legalizing marijuana. Bill C-45, the “Cannabis Act”, has passed in the House of Commons and is now in the Senate. It will likely be law early next year. Our government acknowledges marijuana is harmful, particularly for young people. So it proposes to severely punish selling to a young person, while legalizing a recreational marijuana market. But if pot becomes more pervasive and easily available than it is today – as current investment in massive marijuana grow-ops suggests it will – it isn’t...

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01 Jun 2017 “Safe Injection Sites” – Coming to a City Near You?

Posted at 09:23h in Blog, Criminal Justice 2 Comments
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By John Sikkema “Safe” or “supervised” injection sites provide drug users with clean needles and medical supervision for injecting narcotics. So far, there are none in Canada outside of Vancouver. But that is likely to change. Parliament just made it a lot easier to establish safe injection sites with Bill C-37, which passed earlier this month. Canada’s Health Minister is currently reviewing 19 applications for such sites, and more applications are expected. Another win for “harm reduction” You may recall the 2011 Insite case (Canada v PHS Community Services Society), in which the Supreme...

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03 Feb 2015 Marijuana: Personal liberty or State responsibility?

Posted at 20:30h in Criminal Justice, Justice and Freedom 0 Comments
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This past year, ARPA's legal counsel hosted a discussion about marijuana with two political thinkers, Matt Bufton of the Institute for Liberal Studies and Joseph Ben-Ami of the Arthur Meighen Institute. The discussion focused on laws pertaining to marijuana and whether they should liberalized or kept the way they are now. During the discussion, André was able to interject with questions from a Christian perspective, challenging both Matt and Joseph on their positions. Thanks to the able assistance of our IT guy, Nate Bosscher, we have captured the best parts...

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15 May 2014 Committee Work on the Hill

Posted at 15:20h in Criminal Justice, Uncategorised 0 Comments
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Special report by ARPA Canada intern Mark Luimes If you ask most Canadians what they think about parliamentary procedure, they will typically recall question period - the energetic, overly partisan war of words that is publicly televised on CPAC (Cable Public Affairs Channel). Many will come away from question period unimpressed with the seeming inability of MPs to give straight answers or engage in meaningful debate on government issues. What most people don't realize, however, is that question period provides a poor picture of the life and work of our parliamentarians. In reality, a significant part of the real work is done in small, multi-partisan committees, characterized by higher levels of co-operation, decorum, and policy analysis than what is typically displayed in question period.
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20 Oct 2011 Supreme Court on Safe Injection Sites – Commentary

Posted at 19:02h in Criminal Justice 0 Comments
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Many have heard about the Supreme Court's ruling a couple of weeks ago on the InSite safe injection site in Downtown Eastside Vancouver. InSite is a place where drug addicts can go to shoot up on illegal drugs, under the supervision of health workers. When on the premises, addicts cannot be charged for possession of illegal drugs. It was an experimental project and the federal government was going to shut it down. (Click here to see a scientific study showing the failure of this experiment). The Supreme Court, however, decided...

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22 Sep 2011 Study Debunks Vancouver Injection Site

Posted at 22:57h in Criminal Justice 0 Comments
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For immediate Release, September 22, 2011: Drug Prevention Network of Canada - ERRONEOUS STUDY ON VANCOUVER INJECTION SITE EXPOSED Three Australian doctors, a Canadian Ph.D., and Dr. Robert Dupont, the President of the US National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), are part of an international team, which has exposed major, inexcusable errors in a highly influential 2011 Lancet study on Vancouver’s Insite injecting facility.  The study had claimed that the site has reduced overdose deaths in the immediate surrounding area (Down Town East Side-DTES). This recent analysis nullifies the Lancet study’s claims, which are found to be unsustainable.  According to data from the British Columbia’s Coroner’s office, the number of deaths from drug overdose in the drug injection area has not decreased, but increased each year from 2002 – 2007, despite Insite’s commencement in 2003 (see endnote).
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22 Sep 2011 Study Debunks Vancouver Injection Site

Posted at 22:57h in Criminal Justice 0 Comments
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For immediate Release, September 22, 2011: Drug Prevention Network of Canada - ERRONEOUS STUDY ON VANCOUVER INJECTION SITE EXPOSED Three Australian doctors, a Canadian Ph.D., and Dr. Robert Dupont, the President of the US National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), are part of an international team, which has exposed major, inexcusable errors in a highly influential 2011 Lancet study on Vancouver’s Insite injecting facility.  The study had claimed that the site has reduced overdose deaths in the immediate surrounding area (Down Town East Side-DTES). This recent analysis nullifies the Lancet study’s claims, which are found to be unsustainable.  According to data from the British Columbia’s Coroner’s office, the number of deaths from drug overdose in the drug injection area has not decreased, but increased each year from 2002 – 2007, despite Insite’s commencement in 2003 (see endnote).
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19 Apr 2011 The Facts on Insite: Overdoses and Harm Reduction

Posted at 19:48h in Economics 0 Comments
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Drug Prevention Network of Canada, Vancouver April 19, 2011: The leaders of the harm reduction movement, psychologists Dr. Thomas Kerr and Dr. Julio Montaner and Dr. Evan Wood, a health specialist, have written yet another advocacy study in promotion of the Vancouver drug injection site. None of these individuals is a drug treatment specialist.
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