Latest news with #drugPolicy
CTV News
08-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Windsor city councillors call for more action on open-air drug use
Windsor city council wants to crack down on people using drugs in public. CTV Windsor's Bob Bellacicco explains. Two Windsor city councillors say there needs to be more action when it comes to open-air drug use. Ward 3 councillor Renaldo Agostino says other municipalities have implemented plans dealing with drug use on city streets. 'In some cases they are taking the drugs away, they're taking paraphernalia away. In some cases they are laying charges. A lot of it comes with compassion. A lot of it comes with education,' says Agostino. Other communities across Ontario, including Sarnia and London, have stepped up their efforts to clean up open drug use from their streets and Agostino wonders if the same can be done in Windsor. That's a question he'll bring up at council. 'What this is about is gaining back some control of our streets,' he says. Ward 8 councillor Gary Kaschak says he'd like to see a blitz in Windsor. 'The open drug use is just not good. We've seen an instance of that even in Ward 8 here in Windsor and people don't want to see that,' says Kaschak. While Windsor police haven't committed to a formal enforcement blitz, they acknowledge the community concerns surrounding open drug use. 'Whether it is downtown or any other place in the city we will strategically place our officers where they're needed,' says Const. Bianca Jackson. Since Strengthen the Core was put in place last year, officers and auxiliary officers have become more visible. 'We are doing our best to collaborate with our community partners to make sure the vulnerable in our community get the services they need for their health, care and well-being,' Jackson. A one-day blitz in Sarnia conducted last week led to five arrests for open drug use including one charge of trafficking. While there is frustration over drug use and the lack of arrests, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley feels when the health heart hubs open those days could come to an end. 'You'll be 30-days off drugs and alcohol before you go into this place but you'll get everything. Housing component, you'll get health care component, the addiction treatment. That is the key and I'm hoping the province will do that right across the province,' says Bradley.
The Independent
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Michael Gove's ex-wife says she ‘definitely' had impact on politician's drug policies
Sarah Vine, the ex-wife of Lord Michael Gove, has revealed that the couple used to argue about the legalisation of drugs — a topic she believes she 'shifted' his opinion on. The life peer admitted in 2019 to using cocaine whilst working as a young journalist, something he says he 'deeply regrets'. Appearing on BBC Politics Live on Monday (23 June), Ms Vine was grilled on whether Lord Gove, whom she was married to from 2001 to 2022, changed any of his policies because of her. She replied: 'We had a lot of arguments about the legalisation of drugs, which I shifted him on a little bit. I take a very liberal view, I'm slightly more pragmatic, but he did listen to me on things.'
The Independent
12-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk
The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Thursday that would solidify federal policies cracking down on the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs in a bid by lawmakers to combat the nation's opioid epidemic. The HALT Fentanyl Act makes permanent a 2018 emergency rule that classifies knockoffs of fentanyl as Schedule I controlled substances, which results in harsher sentences for possession of the drug. The bill passed the House 321-104 and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. The legislation, which applies to what are known as known as 'fentanyl-related substances,' garnered support from nearly every Republican and many Democrats despite concerns that the bill does not address the root issues at hand and will add to problems in the criminal justice system. Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed passage of the bill and promised more legislative action to come. 'I don't need to tell anybody about the horrible impact of drug overdoses in this country, many of them caused by fentanyl,' Thune said on the Senate floor. 'In the coming weeks, we'll be taking up legislation to address another aspect of the fight: securing our borders,' a nod to Republicans' tax package, which includes billions of dollars in additional immigration enforcement and border security funding. Proponents of the legislation argue that the bill will make it easier to stop drug traffickers by making the federal emergency rules permanent. Opponents say the framework does little to stem the epidemic and warn it will make it harder to conduct important research. Congress has regularly renewed the emergency rules since 2018, meaning there is no immediate change to federal policy. The bill does not include increased funding for law enforcement to conduct anti-drug trafficking efforts, nor funding for public health efforts meant to reduce fentanyl addiction and deaths. The bill's supporters say that the reclassification will give anti-trafficking efforts clearer standards to operate under as law enforcement combats the trade. Federal, state and local law enforcement have sought to break up the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by targeting Mexican drug cartels and local gangs. The Trump administration has declared stemming the flow of fentanyl precursors from China a priority in trade talks with Beijing, an effort that follows a spate of initiatives by the Biden administration to reduce the importation of such substances into the U.S. from China and other illegal supply chains. 'A loophole that the cartels have tried to use to drive their illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing one part of the fentanyl chemical structure to create fentanyl analogs,' said GOP Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, one of the bill's co-sponsors, during Wednesday's debate on the House floor. 'The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws,' said Griffith, who argued that the bill would help prevent further fentanyl deaths and increase the potential for research into the drug and related substances. And lawmakers appealed to the human cost of fentanyl smuggling. 'We must give our law enforcement the tools to combat this problem. This bill does exactly that,' said GOP California Rep. Jay Obernolte, a co-sponsor of the bill. Obernolte recounted the stories of families impacted by fentanyl overdoses in his district and noted that more than 100,000 Americans died of an overdose last year, mostly from fentanyl. The bill 'gives our law enforcement agencies the tools that they need to begin dealing with this problem,' Obernolte said. Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone said during debate that he opposed the bill because it uniformly criminalizes fentanyl related substances. Pallone said it will impede potential research into their benefits rather than provide an 'offramp to substances found to have potential medical applications.' Pallone also chided Republicans for saying they aimed to tackle the opioid epidemic while supporting the Trump administration's cuts to federal agencies tasked with research and public health policy. 'This Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on Schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing,' Pallone said. 'The bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge.' Schedule I drugs are substances considered by the Drug Enforcement Agency to have 'no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.' Possession of a Schedule I drug is considered a felony and can be prosecuted as drug smuggling. Drugs currently classified as Schedule I include heroin, marijuana and methaqualone. Fentanyl itself is classified as a Schedule II drug, which the DEA designates as having 'a high potential for abuse.' Schedule II substances include cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and Adderall.
CTV News
11-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Calls for fentanyl task force
The opposition is calling on the NDP government to step up its enforcement of fentanyl trafficking and organized crime.
Medscape
09-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Youth Overdose Deaths From Synthetic Opioids Surge
While youth overdose deaths from any substance rose by 40% between 2018 and 2022, deaths involving only synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, increased by 168% and surpassed deaths from polydrug combinations, a new study showed. METHODOLOGY: The National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, and Multiple Cause of Death datasets were used to examine trends in overdose deaths among US youth aged 15-24 years from 2018 to 2022 across ages, sexes, races and ethnicities, and regions. Researchers identified drug poisoning deaths through the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision . . Fatal overdoses involving synthetic opioids alone or in combination with benzodiazepines, cocaine, heroin, prescription opioids, and other stimulants were analyzed using multiple/contributing cause of death fields. Investigators calculated the prevalence and rates of overdose per 100,000 youth using annual US Census Bureau population estimates by race and ethnicity. TAKEAWAY: Youth overdose deaths from any substance increased from 4652 to 6723 (10.9 to 15.2 per 100,000 people) between 2018 and 2022. Fatal overdoses involving only synthetic opioids increased from 1.6 to 4.3 deaths per 100,000 youth over the same period, whereas deaths involving synthetic opioids and heroin decreased by 85%. In 2022, males had 2.5 times the rate of fatal overdoses involving synthetic opioids alone compared to females (95% CI, 2.3-2.8), with both sexes showing similar increases over the study period. By 2022, fatal overdoses involving only synthetic opioids among American Indian/Alaska Native non-Hispanic youth increased to 2.3 times the rate compared to White non-Hispanic youth (95% CI, 1.6-3.1). The highest annual changes in rate of overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids and other stimulants (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.5; 95% CI, 1.3-1.7), synthetic opioids only (IRR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.4), and synthetic opioids and cocaine (IRR, 1.2; 95% CI, 1.2-1.3). IN PRACTICE: 'Before we looked at the data, we thought we would find that the majority of fatal youth overdoses involved fentanyl combined with other substances, such as prescription opioids or cocaine. Instead, we found the opposite — that most deaths were caused by fentanyl alone,' study co-investigator Noa Krawczyk, PhD, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York City, said in a press release. 'These findings highlight the changing risks of the drug supply and the need for better access to harm-reduction services to prevent deaths among youth,' the investigators wrote. SOURCE: This study was led by Megan Miller, MPH, Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York City. It was published online on May 20 in Pediatrics . LIMITATIONS: This study was limited by potential residual misclassification in mortality coding practices, small sample sizes for examining youth who identify as more than one race, and lack of information about sexual orientation. DISCLOSURES: This study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Krawczyk reported receiving compensation for expert witness testimony as a part of ongoing opioid litigation. The other investigators reported having no relevant financial disclosures.
