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Newsstand: February 12, 2015
Prepare for another Arctic front. Winter isn't over yet. In the news: the number of opiate-addicted infants in Toronto has hit a 20-year high, parents and business owners are upset about smelly but legal grow-ops, and campaign finances have been released for the 2014 elections.
The number of infants going through opioid withdrawal at birth has increased 15-fold in the last 20 years, but most of that increase has actually come in the last five years. Researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Studies and Saint Michael’s Hospital, who recently published a study on the subject, found that the increase is largely due to the higher number of painkiller prescriptions. Debbie Bang, a nurse at St. Joseph’s in Hamilton and the head of the addictions services program there, told the CBC that the uptick in women needing help with opioid addiction has skyrocketed, from between one and two percent of those she sees to 20 to 25 percent. Doctor Suzanne Turner, lead author of the recent study, said that the increase “speaks to the fact that doctors need to be aware there is the risk of addiction if women are prescribed opiates prior to pregnancy, and if they’re of child-bearing age, those risks should be assessed.”
A legal marijuana-growing operation near a Markham school has parents upset. They say the smell is too strong and that their young children sometimes come home with the stench of marijuana on their clothes. Conservative MP Paul Calandra, who represents the riding of Oak Ridges-Markham, agreed with the angry parents who showed up to a meeting Wednesday night, but said it would take some work to get the operation shut down. This same problem garnered attention last month at a commercial complex in Mississauga, where a business owner complained that a nearby grow-op was making some of his staff feel ill.
Following the release of information about spending in the 2014 provincial election, there’s a renewed push to impose limits on the spending power of third-party organizations. Interest groups spent nearly $9 million in last year’s election, up from $6.7 million in 2011. The biggest individual spender was Working Families, an anti–Progressive Conservative group that spent $2.5 million. Unions, galvanized by Tim Hudak’s pledge to cut 100,000 public-sector jobs, spent the most on third-party advertising as a whole. York University professor Robert MacDermid, who released a report during the 2011 election, said that not putting a cap on third-party organizations “makes a mockery” of the spending limits imposed on political parties.