5381 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

This is back up Thursday:

 

[Mike K.]

Globe awarded for its national coverage of Victoria’s street problems.

The Globe and Mail has won four Jack Webster Awards for work on topics that include the toxic opioid crisis, the national soccer team, a deadly festival attack in British Columbia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada.

The awards, which recognize excellence across journalism in B.C., were announced at a ceremony in Vancouver on Monday evening. Globe journalists had been nominated in four categories, and won in each of them, making the publication the most decorated news outlet at the event.

Nancy Macdonald took home the prize for Best News Reporting of the Year for her in-depth feature about Pandora Avenue in Victoria. Her coverage illustrated the stark transformation of a leafy downtown boulevard in the provincial capital into a street marred by desperation because of the effects of fentanyl.

- https://www.theglobe...webster-awards/

Here’s the now-award-winning article: https://www.theglobe...pandora-avenue/

[Sparky]

^ Paywall.

[Mike K.]

Pay the man his 50 cents!

 

I'm not kidding, the Globe is just 49 cents a week right now.

[Sparky]

Geez you sound like LJ.

[Victoria Watcher]

Victoria council has rejected a motion that would have asked Island Health to shut down supervised drug-consumption sites in the city.

In a 7-2 vote on Thursday, council squashed a motion brought by Coun. Marg Gardiner that would have seen Mayor Marianne Alto write to the health authority to request the end of operations for any drug-consumption sites in the city.

Several councillors agreed with Gardiner that the illicit drug problem is getting worse, the drug mix is more toxic, and people are preying on vulnerable people who use the facilities.

But council drew the line at laying the blame at the feet of supervised-consumption sites like The Harbour.

Alto noted that The Harbour, operated by Island Health in the 900-block of Pandora Avenue, offers a variety of health-related services, not just supervised drug consumption.



https://www.timescol...t-down-11455266

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 November 2025 - 01:29 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Pretty sure the author means quashed a motion.

[LJ]

^ Paywall.

Here you go skinflint...

 

https://www.removepaywall.com/

[Mike K.]

Now we shed tears over drug runners? No concerns about the misery and human suffering of the drugs once at their destination, but concern over men down on their luck who turned to drug running and were killed by the US?

Here is how this CBC article begins:

One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound with deadly drugs for American communities.

A little emotional, right? How could the US just randomly kill these good men?

But then, further down in the article:

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs…

- https://www.cbc.ca/n...ctims-9.6970471

[Mike K.]

Good men, just misunderstood.

M3m told us the US was about to invade Venezuela, implying the Americans were randomly sinking little boats and engaging in war.

Same article as link above:

One of the first to die

Luis (Che) Martínez was killed in the first strike. A burly 60-year-old, Martínez was a longtime local crime boss, and he made most of his living smuggling drugs and people across borders, according to several people who knew him.

He had been jailed by Venezuelan authorities on human-trafficking charges after a boat he had operated capsized in December 2020, killing about two dozen people, law enforcement officials said at the time. Among those who died in the accident were two of his sons and a granddaughter, relatives told AP. AP was not able to determine the disposition of his criminal case, but Martínez was eventually released from custody and returned to smuggling people and drugs, according to acquaintances.

Though they detested what he did for a living — and the control Martínez and similar criminals exerted over their villages — several residents said they appreciated how Martínez contributed annually to the town’s festival of the Virgin of the Valley, the patroness of fishermen, and he spent lavishly in local shops and restaurants. He also bet heavily on cockfights, a popular pastime, a bird breeder said.

[Victoria Watcher]

Though they detested what he did for a living — and the control Martínez and similar criminals exerted over their villages — several residents said they appreciated how Martínez contributed annually to the town’s festival of the Virgin of the Valley, the patroness of fishermen, and he spent lavishly in local shops and restaurants. He also bet heavily on cockfights, a popular pastime, a bird breeder said.

 

 

Lol.

[Victoria Watcher]

https://x.com/kevinv...182963470311598

 

[Victoria Watcher]

https://x.com/DanMaz...141933428015538

 

[Victoria Watcher]

Jen Gerson: Stigma is good, actually

 

It's a question of what we stigmatize, and why.

 

 

https://www.readthel...tm_medium=email

 

 

 

Sometimes writing columns about stuff that happens in this country is, if you’ll forgive the cliché, a little like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

We’ve collectively normalized so much sincere and well-meaning insanity, that inevitably people in positions of power and authority are going to say things that sound indistinguishable from a carnival circus organ. And the only thing I have to do in response is to make note of how far out to sea on the tides of madness we’ve drifted.

 

Take B.C., for example; after years of experimentation with safer drug supply and decriminalization, even the NDP government has had to walk back its most liberal policies on this file. Initially, decriminalization was touted as a way to decrease “shame and stigma” around drug use. However, earlier this month, Premier David Eby admitted the attempt had resulted in utter failure. Decriminalization, for example, had created a “permissive structure” in which rampant and open drug use — and the attendant crime and social disorder — had become utterly normalized in sections of the province, and in particular, in Vancouver.

 

Of course, the usual progressive suspects are pushing back against Eby’s embrace of the patently obvious.

 

 

[...]

 

The people who drove cigarette smokers out of bars and insisted on printing packages with nasty images of blackened lungs ought to understand this. We’ve only recently undergone a generational project to use shame, stigma, and access barriers including consumption taxes to radically and successfully reduce the harmful behaviour of cigarette smoking.

 

This is good! We may never totally eliminate smoking, but we did a damn good job reducing the habit. It was a great victory for both individuals and society as a whole!

 

Yay us!

 

Yet, I’ll note, nobody is overdosing in a Vancouver Starbucks bathroom because he mainlined nicotine patches.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 November 2025 - 06:16 AM.

[Mike K.]

Smoking became less desirable as the price of cigarettes went up. Nobody quit, or chose not to take up the habit, because you couldn’t smoke at a bar.

Today I think a pack is $25 to $30, so unaffordable for most people to have a pack or half pack/day habit.

[Victoria Watcher]

I think a pack is more like $13 or $15.

 

https://canadasmokes...ices-list-2025/

 

But then 25% are counterfeit/untaxed and much less.

 

 

 

Canada Goose Cigarettes Price – A Fair Deal for Quality

At $49.99 for 8 packs, Canada Goose cigarettes strike the perfect balance between affordability and quality. That breaks down to just over $6 per pack, which is incredibly competitive compared to retail stores. Buying online also saves you time and effort — no long lines, no inflated prices, and no middlemen.

https://canadasmokes...garettes-price/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 November 2025 - 08:10 AM.

[Mike K.]

I think a pack is more like $13 or $15.

 

https://canadasmokes...ices-list-2025/

 

But then 25% are counterfeit/untaxed and much less.

 

 

 

Canada Goose Cigarettes Price – A Fair Deal for Quality

At $49.99 for 8 packs, Canada Goose cigarettes strike the perfect balance between affordability and quality. That breaks down to just over $6 per pack, which is incredibly competitive compared to retail stores. Buying online also saves you time and effort — no long lines, no inflated prices, and no middlemen.

https://canadasmokes...garettes-price/

 

Those must be untaxed.

 

At the grocery store I see what people are paying, and the prices are nuts. $28 was the most recent cigarette purchase I saw at the till for a single pack. Don't ask me what it was, but I had to do a double take.

[Matt R.]

Yah $20-25 is normal. Taxes go up regularly on cigarettes.

[Victoria Watcher]

https://www.reddit.c...where_you_live/

[LJ]

So maybe if we made drugs more expensive rather than free people might actually stop?