The new policy was implemented to reduce the policing, prison, theft and related costs of addiction, while removing drugs as the prime profit center for organized crime.Sales of the drugs to its patients allow the agency to offset its own costs, and some of the country’s health care budget as well.

Any taxpayer can make an appointment with a drug counselor to discuss the place of drugs in their lives, and receive a report outlining resources available to them.The most controversial amenities are the drugs themselves, many of which can be ordered from the drug counselor in quantities sufficient to last one week, at deliberately low prices.

The drugs are all of a pure pharmaceutical grade, and include cocaine variants, a standard-strength heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy and others noted more for abuse than their medical uses.There are socially respectable drugs on the list as well, and many of the agency’s patients do not fit the profile associated with “street people”.

Each ‘client’ must personally report to a secure neighborhood clinic, using a pass card to enter, where they are met and searched by security personnel.

Following a required fifteen minute appointment with a counselor, they pick up their weekly allotment from an onsite dispensary. A schedule of potentially addictive drugs known to be abused is provided;non-addictive drugs are not sold or dispensed.

Janet Wall, a spokesperson for the trial program in Toronto is quick to point out that this is not the junkie’s dream that it may appear to be.

“First, they have to be able to purchase the drugs –nobody rides for free- we simply undercut street prices.Second, they have to be responsible, that’s the key to the entire program. Responsibility begins with being a taxpayer, that’s absolutely a condition; they have to be a documented citizen.They have to undergo monthly blood tests to determine their health status and degree of usage.”

“This is a counseling program above all” she said, “and they must report on their circumstances continuously.Why are they doing this?Have they tried to quit in the past?What is their plan of action now? Responsibility means they will be removed from the program permanently if they ever resell their drugs.If they are convicted of driving while impaired, their car and license will be confiscated by a prior written agreement. Any criminal conviction disqualifies them. If they choose to continue or expand their abuse of drugs, they will be refused long-term care in government facilities, although they can continue to purchase drugs. So it’s a tradeoff they make, they have to come to terms with what they’re doing. ”

When asked whether the program was indeed paying for itself, Ms. Wall reiterated that it was doing far more than that.

“Drugs themselves are not illegal any more in Canada, but manufacturing, importing and dealing in them remains so.And we are taking the profit out of that sector significantly; we are retrieving net revenues 8 to 10 times higher than the actual costs of our program.There has been a huge decrease in policing costs, in homeless and mentally ill people in the streets, drug-related theft.And we’re not seeing people in hospitals for the wrong reasons nearly as much as we used to.Criminals are moving elsewhere; they can’t make a dollar here anymore.”

“Our supplier laws are much tougher now too,” she smiled “the government hates competition.”

Asked whether U.S. authorities are continuing to demand that Canada end the program, Ms. Wall smiled and said it was not her place to speculate on those matters.

“I deal with people, not politics.” She said. “Maybe Americans need another Lincoln who can emancipate the rights and responsibilities of the human body. Regardless, the citizens alone are accountable for their actions or abuses in that regard. It’s always been that way, this isn’t new.We’re just being more practical and expedient from the government’s perspective.”

The Canadian government will decide this year whether to maintain the trial as a permanent program dealing with the costs of drug abuse.

The process began when a downtown Vancouver church with less than a hundred members struggled with severe funding and vandalism problems, and offered its historic church for sale to clear its debts.  A Vancouver Humanist group that had been leasing premises inquired, and instead of purchasing the church agreed to merge the two congregations and to assume the church’s overhead. Its name has been changed to The Humanist Church and the arrangement is attracting increasing interest across Canada.

“It’s been a wonderful experience.” observes Martin McGlade, who convinced his local Humanist chapter that they had much to learn from traditional religion. “Most Humanists are atheists or agnostics at best, but we have always lacked true community, ceremony or a sense of destiny and belonging. We are learning here that tradition and ritual are fulfilling to our membership, and at the same time our Humanist philosophy is becoming accepted by the older congregation.”

In addition to rescuing a Vancouver landmark from possible demolition, the Humanist group has retained the church’s pastor and staff for continuity, and to teach them church operations and procedures.  After its exposure on national television, two other churches in Toronto and Ottawa are now sharing premises and expenses with local Humanists.

Pastor John Meagher of Ottawa’s Humanist Church commented that “Christian and Humanist ethics are almost identical, and we are learning from each other that liberal Christianity and an inclusive Humanism have much to share and to teach each other.”

Meagher foresees more churches merging with Humanists. “When Martin Luther initiated the Reformation, it began as heresy, as some might view our merger. The young people I speak to now want to discuss life and our species and our planet, and leave heaven and hell to the fundamentalists. Our existing congregation did not find that a barrier at all.”

The Humanist Society of Canada is rumored to be discussing a nation-wide merger with a group of churches from various Protestant faiths, many of them in decline and fraught with disputes over the ordination of women or gay marriage.

Humanist Society spokesperson Mary Duchene relishes the idea of establishing at least one church in every city. “We have enough Humanists per city to keep at least one church full and financially healthy, and our collective Humanism is proving more acceptable than simple atheism.” she said.

“Humanists affirm their relationship with Humans, with our planet and species governance the key issues. Many people embracing Humanism agree that we must fully respect what the traditional churches have carried to us. Many realize that we are already in ‘heaven’, enjoying life and our Earth, and the older people are finding that intriguing as well, everybody is a little wiser and more comfortable.”

Sophie Sanchez was a part time trucker, serving on a volunteer Denver municipal committee that was seeking ways to commercialize Loney Air Force base. It had been mothballed three years earlier.

No comprehensive deal was reached however, and the state decided to award leases to inquiring businesses on a piecemeal basis. Sophie applied to rent a small hangar for use as a freight warehouse, hoping to exploit the fact that North Denver sat at the junction of major highways in the middle of the country.

Tired truckers brought her service to capacity almost immediately.

Sohie offered a hub for palletized freight to truckers who preferred to turn around in Denver and return to their home city, key advantages to these “independents”. The likelihood of having to make a long return trip empty was greatly reduced, and for the same distance covered they returned home profitably instead of enduring another cheap motel on the wrong coast, often waiting days for a possible load.

Word of this option spread quickly within their tightly knit world, and Sophie leased four more hangars with a fleet of forklifts within a year.

The Loney Hub is now the largest freight terminal west of Chicago, and occupies more than 60% of the old air base in eleven oversized buildings, including a renovated mess hall and trainee barracks that can house up to 450 truckers each day. It is the largest truck stop in the world and the independents who use it can’t say enough good things about Sophie and the beehive she has founded.

“She saved my life” confides Jack Waling of Seattle “because the road wasn’t being kind to me. Too many dead legs and pills to make it through the night, after a week of waiting. Bad food and bad company, never at home. Bad money too, fuel and the competition were killing me.”

He pointed affectionately with both hands at the mess hall.

“I have a dozen good friends in there now, a warm bed in a clean room tonight, shower, breakfast and a full load back to Seattle tomorrow morning. And as long as I deliver there will always be loads for me, I’ve got standing now. Sophie’s an angel and she built this up to save us.”

Sophie herself is more modest. A trimly elegant woman of 45 with a grade nine education, her office is up where the former control tower grants her a bird’s eye view of the hundreds of long haul units backed up to her hangar-sized warehouses. The barracks and mess hall buildings hum and glow in the night air as they might have in wartime.

“This whole thing was an accident” she says, “My husband and I were tired of the road and just wanted to run a small warehouse to make a living, be at home for our kids. Now they work here with me.”

“We were just lucky in that Denver’s so well positioned, with the major highways going through it, and independents need a way to compete against containers – the railroads – with the price of fuel now it’s become a desperate way to make a living, dead legs killing everybody, so much waste. We’re reviving palletized freight again and bringing some order and certainty to our lives.”

Freight hubs at airports are not a new concept. FedEx pioneered the idea in 1973 when its cargo planes flew to Memphis and back from their home city each day. It’s a simple but powerful concept that eliminates the threat of returning home empty.

But FedEx and UPS are package delivery services, despite their claims, and the railroads depend on commodities and container movement. There was no hub for traditional freight mounted on pallets – which is the bread and butter of independent truckers.

Later that evening Sophie checked into the mess hall as she does each day, to gauge the size and mood of her clientele. The long tables are loaded down with every variety of the meat-and-potatoes fare that truckers favor. Beer is available with dinner on the condition that no other alcohol or drugs will be brought into the Loney Hub.

No money changes hands, every trucker is given an account with no questions asked, there are very few bad debts. Two meals and a mandatory room cost less than $50 each day, and basic loading and storage fees are assessed. Meanwhile 220 Loney employees run forklifts and complete the paperwork around the clock.

By breakfast the trucks will be loaded, documented, and fueled, fresh for their familiar ride home in daylight.

During her walkthrough Sophie is given continuous waves of applause as she is recognized. One trucker stands up to say something, but can only gesture his thanks.

His tablemates shout their approval in his stead.

(By S. de Sturber, 2011)

(TFN, Calgary) Two major environmental advocacy groups have reversed their policies on nuclear power amid its possible use within Canadian oil sands projects.

At a joint news conference in Calgary, Greenpeace Canada and the Sierra Wilderness Society have together announced support for nuclear power generation in defence of the Earth’s atmosphere, and its proposed use in Northern Alberta for extracting bitumen from vast oil sands deposits.

Greenpeace spokesperson Reiner Gerlach explained that “The coal ash disaster in the Tennessee Valley, that released 100 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez spill, has demonstrated that nuclear power is indisputably required for some decades, to give time for renewable energy technologies to scale up to actual needs. We cannot sacrifice the atmosphere in the meantime by burning so called ‘clean coal’, and Greenpeace now supports the replacement of all existing and planned coal plants with nuclear energy as a matter of urgency.”

Sierra President Alan Watts commented in the same release that “Sierra now recognizes that the Canadian oil sands can, from one perspective, be viewed as the world’s largest contaminated soil site and we advocate the use of nuclear power as the best way to extract the oil with the least burden on the atmosphere and global warming. Like Greenpeace, we do not want to put forward Luddite policies that in the end may condemn us to gradual asphyxiation from coal burning. Nuclear power is clearly safer now than it was decades ago and we must assume this smaller risk, if we are to avoid a despoiling of the commons from burgeoning coal projects.”

The two groups have modified their policies on nuclear power to separate out the problem of nuclear waste disposal, which is now viewed as a “human character issue, not properly an environmental matter”. Gerlach stated that “the disposal of nuclear waste can be managed safely, and if we subsequently foul our own nests, we could not truthfully blame nuclear power generation for that failure. Nuclear waste products remain within our control, whereas coal waste ash and gases clearly are not.”