News
SKEWED SEARCHES
CANNABIS BECOMES
LEGAL IN CANADA
ADULTS IN CANADA are now able to legally buy and
possess up to 30g of dried cannabis or its equivalent
from authorised retailers across the country. After
‘extensive consultation’ with law enforcement
agencies and health organisations, the Canadian
government has implemented its legal framework
to legalise and regulate access to the drug.
The legislation, which was first announced at
the UNGASS in New York in 2016 (DDN, May 2016,
page 4), aims to ‘keep profits from going into the
pockets of criminal organisations and street gangs’,
says the government, and makes Canada the second
– and largest – country to legalise the drug after
Uruguay (DDN, May 2017, page 4). ‘The old
approach to cannabis did not work,’ the government
states. ‘It let criminals and organised crime profit,
while failing to keep cannabis out of the hands of
Canadian youth. In many cases, it has been easier for our
kids to buy cannabis than cigarettes.’
While the Cannabis Act means that possession of small
amounts of the drug is no longer against the law, the
government has created a new criminal offence making it
illegal to sell cannabis to a minor and has ‘added signifi -
cant penalties for those who engage young Canadians in
cannabis-related offences’. It has also toughened laws
relating to drink- and drug-impaired driving.
People need to be 18 – or 19, depending on the
territory – to legally buy, possess or use cannabis, with
legal drugs displaying an excise stamp on the product
label. However, anyone either bringing cannabis or
cannabis products into – or taking them out of – the
country still risks ‘serious criminal penalties’, the
government states, including if the drug is being used for
medical purposes. Central and provincial government will
also continue public education programmes about the
new legal framework, as well as responsible use, health
and safety, and the dangers of drug-impaired driving.
‘The implementa tion of this progressive public policy
BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOW NINE TIMES MORE
LIKELY TO BE STOPPED and searched for drugs
in England and Wales than white people, says
a report from Release, Stopwatch and the
London School of Economics and Political
Science. While the use of stop and search
overall has fallen there has been a ‘shocking
increase in racial disparities in the policing and
prosecution of drug offences’, says The colour
of injustice: ‘race’, drugs and law enforcement
in England and Wales. Drugs searches account
for 60 per cent of stop and searches, although
in some areas the figure is far higher – more
than 80 per cent of searches by Merseyside
Police in 2016-17 were for drugs.
Report at www.release.org.uk
ADMISSIONS UP
‘We will help
keep cannabis
out of the
hands of youth
and profits out
of the pockets
of criminals.’
marks an important
shift in our country’s
approach to
cannabis,’ said justice
minister and
attorney general,
Jody Wilson-
Raybould. ‘With a
strictly regulated
market for adults we
will help keep
cannabis out of the
hands of youth and
profits out of the
pockets of criminals.’
‘While we still
Jody Wilson-Raybould
have a lot of work to
do, we are confident
that the more than two years of work that went into this
process have resulted in legislation that will help us
achieve our public health and safety objectives,’ added
border security minister Bill Blair.
4 | drinkanddrugsnews | November 2018
BUCKING THE TREND
BUCKINGHAM UNIVERSITY intends to ask
students to sign a contract pledging not to
take drugs, its vice-chancellor Sir Anthony
Seldon has written in the Mail. ‘Old fashioned
maybe,’ he wrote, ‘but never more needed.’
The university already invites police and
sniffer dogs on to campus to deter drug use.
PREVENTABLE DEATHS
PRISONERS ARE DYING ‘PREVENTABLE’ DEATHS –
particularly as a result of the ‘alarming levels of
drug abuse in jails’, says the prisons and probation
ombudsman’s annual report. Acting ombudsman
Elizabeth Moody said she was ‘gravely concerned’
at the destructive impact of NPS, with some
prisons and their health providers ‘struggling to
learn’ from investigations into deaths. Earlier this
year the prison service took over the running of
HMP Birmingham from G4S after inspectors
found an estimated one third of prisoners using
illegal drugs and the highest levels of violence of
any local prison (DDN, September, page 5).
Prisons & probation ombudsman annual report
2017-18 at www.ppo.gov.uk
THERE WERE MORE THAN 68,000 HOSPITAL
ADMISSIONS DUE TO LIVER DISEASE in
England in 2016-17, according to the latest
PHE figures, with admission rates
‘significantly increasing’ every year for the last
five years. Rates were 1.7 times higher in the
most deprived areas than the least deprived,
while the male admission rate for alcoholic
liver disease was more than double that of
women. Meanwhile, PHE’s ‘Drink free days’
campaign is encouraging women to take more
alcohol-free days to reduce their risk of
developing breast cancer. ‘Many people are
not aware that alcohol can cause breast
cancer as well as numerous other serious
health problems,’ said PHE’s director of
alcohol, drugs and tobacco Rosanna O’Connor.
Liver disease profiles: October 2018 update at
www.gov.uk; Drink Free Days at
www.drinkaware.co.uk
OVERDOSE ANALYSIS
some prisons and their health
providers are ‘struggling to learn’.
ElizabEth Moody
A new tool looking at overdose deaths and
how to prevent them has been launched by
EMCDDA. More than 9,000 lives were
reported to be lost to drug overdoses in
Europe in 2016 – ‘and this is an
underestimate’, says the centre.
Preventing overdose deaths in Europe at
www.emcdda.europa.eu
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