Canada

Canada's Conservative government is pushing a pair of tough on drugs and crime bills that would institute mandatory minimum sentencing, but the Liberals and the NDP are starting to push back.

Canada's medical marijuana laws have been declared unconstitutional in part, and now Health Canada has one year to get it right, a British Columbia judge has ruled.

Canadian marijuana reform advocates are not going to be able to use deficiencies in Canada's medical marijuana program to invalidate the broader pot law -- at least not in British Columbia.

There were municipal elections across British Columbia Saturday, and drug reformers continued to hold power in Vancouver, were returned to the mayoralty in Grand Forks, and won a seat on the city council in Victoria.

"Prince of Pot: The US v. Marc Emery" is a new documentary on Canada's most famous marijuana activist. We review it this week.

A Canadian federal appeals court upheld an earlier lower court ruling that medical marijuana providers can provide their product to more than one patient. Previously, providers were limited to one patient, and patients could not group together with one grower.

Research results from the North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative (NAOMI) are in, and the researchers say heroin maintenance is safe, effective, and economical.

Canadians go to the polls in national elections this month, but there has been little talk of drug reform, and two pro-reform parliamentary candidates were forced off the ballot after videos of past drug use surfaced on YouTube.

Health officials in Quebec are planning to open a safe injection site in Montreal, then Quebec City, and maybe more.

For the past three years, a select group of heroin addicts in Vancouver and Montreal have received pharmaceutical grade heroin as part of a pilot heroin maintenance program. Now, the NAOMI program is winding down, the researchers are assembling their reports, and the addicts are back on the streets.