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SCAN drama at the library

I went to a community meeting at the library on Thursday night about the proposed SCAN legislation (Bill 106) introduced by Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi. (Who, incidentally, recognized me, shook my hand, told me he had read my blog, and said his mother would be proud that I had said he was polite.)

According to […]

Bank Street Bully Update

Over the past couple of days, thousands of people have visited this blog to read about the Bank Street Bully, and many of you subsequently blogged about it on your own blogs. It has generated a lot of discussion, both on this blog and others.

Apparently a number of you also contacted the Ottawa Police […]

Bank Street Bully

I arrived at the corner of Bank and MacLaren this afternoon as three police officers were trying to put an unconscious, handcuffed woman into the back of a van. She looked like a rag doll.

Then they changed their minds and laid her out on the sidewalk and sent for an ambulance. The female officer slid […]

Harm reduction in the context of real life

A couple of weeks ago I attended a panel discussion about “harm reduction in a socio-political context,” sponsored by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

During the audience Q&As, a young man named Max Rowsell took the microphone. He told us that he has been using opiates intravenously for three years, and he just found […]

The Sex Trade Worker Rally

After work today, GC and I attended two very different events: Marion Dewar’s Lying in State at City Hall, followed by the Sex Trade Workers Rally on Parliament Hill.

The lineup inside City Hall led directly to Marion Dewar’s five children, where we could offer our condolences before filing past the closed casket and signing […]

A hypothetical question for you

Supposing there were an addictive little pink pill that would:

1) make you feel good all the time
2) have no negative side effects
3) not impede your ability to function in the world
4) only cost you ten cents a day, and
5) be legally obtainable on an ongoing basis

Would you take the addictive little pink pill? Why […]

The addiction stranglehold

Conservative politicians seem to think it’s a simple enough matter to quit doing drugs. Just quit, that’s all. Just stop doing them. Just say no. They believe a more punitive approach to drug use will yield the desired results. If we wield a big enough stick, addicts will decide drugs aren’t worth it, and will […]

It’s not about the bus

I made the mistake of reading several hundred comments on the Yahoo Canada News site yesterday, as people responded to the gruesome decapitation on the Greyhound bus.

The right-wing redneck racists were out in full force with their appalling opinions and atrocious spelling. They were clamoring for the guy’s head. Literally. They were blaming immigration […]

Greyhound Bus Decapitation

I’m sure you’ve heard by now of the horrific beheading of a sleeping passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba. The stranger sitting next to him just suddenly started repeatedly stabbing him and then hacked off his head and carried it around.

I can’t even imagine how traumatized those poor travelers must be. I felt […]

Crackheads, crackpots, police and politics

Ottawa’s drug problem has been getting a fresh surge of attention lately. Between the W-FIVE piece last week entitled Capital Shame, the controversy about expanding the harm reduction programs, and our Medical Officer of Health, David Salisbury, resigning, we’re in the spotlight.

I went to a public meeting at City Hall about the drug problem […]