A selection of my articles published in magazines, newspapers, journals, and webzines.
The Facts about Tasers — and the Lies
Police adore Tasers. Medical researchers and coroners have become cozy with the manufacturer. Taser International has been threatening legal action against Canadian media. Whose claims can we trust?
Shortly after the horrifying, videotaped death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport tore through our public consciousness, another frightening thing happened. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police leaped up and gave Tasers a ringing public endorsement.
It was the most crass act the association could have committed, reminiscent of how the National Rifle Association parachutes gun proponents into the post-mortems of mass shootings.
“Forgive us if we sound biased,” announced association president Gord Tomlinson to the press.
But should we forgive them?
Well, there is one crucial aspect to the police side of this story that’s so far been underdiscussed.
Beggar or Businessperson? — A self-help guide for the disoriented citizen
I’ve just made a video. Check it out right here… A self-help guide for disoriented citizens who aren’t sure if they belong in a gutter or behind a display window.
The De-indoctrination of Sgt. Nikolai Lanine
Nineteen years ago, former Soviet soldier Nikolai Lanine lost many friends in Afghanistan. Last August, he lost a relative in the Canadian army. Now, he worries that we’re making the same mistakes the Soviets did, and part of the problem, he argues, is our “Sovietized” media.
Nikolai Lanine didn’t know Corporal Andrew Eykelenboom. Nevertheless, at his funeral in Comox, Lanine was overcome with memories and emotions.
Having just moved to Victoria in 2000 with his Canadian wife and two sons, Lanine hadn’t met his young cousin-in-law from Edmonton before he was killed in Afghanistan last August. So while feeling terribly for the family’s loss, the painful memories and emotions being stirred up inside Lanine came mainly from another place and time altogether.
Nineteen years earlier, Lanine had been drafted into the Soviet Union’s army and sent to Afghanistan. Many of his friends died there. Certain he’d long ago left that behind, it was a nightmarish experience of deja vu to
An Interview with Dr. Abram Hoffer
At 88, Dr. Abram Hoffer is still dispensing wise nutritional advice and damning critiques of our health care system. On beginnings, orthomolecular medicine, psychedelic research, a revolutionary treatment for schizophrenia, and the state of present-day psychiatric care.
No Canadian psychiatrist has been simultaneously more dogged by controversy and more beloved by his patients than Victoria’s Dr. Abram Hoffer.
In an era when most psychiatrists believe in medicating for life, Hoffer has been a one-man “underground railroad” helping unchain patients from tranquillizing drugs.
Yet that’s not the reason he’s controversial.
Upon going to work as Director of Psychiatric Research for the Province of Saskatchewan in 1950, Hoffer and colleague Dr. Humphry Osmond became trailblazers.
They were one of the earliest institutional teams using psychedelics for therapy. They provided Aldous Huxley with the mescaline that led to his famous treatise, “The Doors of Perception”, which in part inspired Timothy Leary’s Harvard research and the psychedelic 60s. Hoffer also visited Prague, helping
Let There Be Pills For All
Mental health, like so much else in our society, has become infected with prejudice, power and money. (Originally published at rabble.ca.)
The Senate report on mental health, “Out of the Shadows at Last”, bulges beyond 500 pages and packs in many recommendations for bulking up Canada’s beleaguered public mental health care system with “options” and “choices” for people struggling with psychological difficulties. Unfortunately, one crucial, politically-motivated omission turns the report into an insult to these very people, and a threat to the civil liberties of us all.
What the Senate got right
Since the advent of modern psychiatric medications and the closing of major mental institutions, there’s been a desperate, growing need for community-based supports. Drugs aren’t the magic cure-all it was once believed they would be.
What we’ve actually got, of course, are decades of social service cutbacks for everybody. Today, a prolonged battle with severe emotional problems is often an express ride to life on the street.
Most of the Senators’ recommendations
Why We Love to Hate Ian Thow
Last year Ian Thow, vice-president of Victoria, BC’s local Berkshire Investment Group branch, skipped the country and left dozens of local creditors and investors in the lurch for tens of millions of dollars. While some had wealth to spare, it’s difficult not to feel for those who mortgaged away homes and retirement savings.
However, this April, Berkshire reached confidential settlements with a good number of Thow’s victims, and continues to negotiate.
So maybe we can finally speak more frankly, without feeling as if we’re salting open wounds with personal insults.
Were these investors really only “victims”? And what was the general public’s role in this massive scam that endured for years?
On one level, it’s open-and-shut: Thow apparently told these people he’d invest their money, and instead pocketed it. He’s a criminal; everyone else a victim. That’s the story as presented, anyway.
But examining public perceptions of this prominent man over the years reveals a more
(still) Paving Paradise
The next casualty of the uncontrolled development destroying the Capital Region could be the rural Highlands. The public can see the importance of a broader vision—why can’t our politicians?
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It might have been just another business-as-usual meeting of the Capital Regional District board about urban development. But normal polite procedures cannot contain it, and the tension starts blowing through like whistles of steam.
“He’s lying,” a biting voice from the public seats whispers in my ear.
“She supports it because she’s subdividing,” says another person, pointing.
After Highlands mayor Mark
Slave Ships at Ogden Point?
They float into Victoria’s night glowing like fifteen-story Christmas trees. With visions of big-spending passengers on shore leave, businesses and politicians eagerly welcome cruise ships. This February, our local daily ran a full-page spread, including the 184-ship schedule, lauding the “great news” of the record-breaking coming year.
But a recent report sounds an alarming foghorn into our collective delirium about the modern ship industry.
The root problem is widely recognized: Today, over half of commercial ships register in nations like Liberia or Panama to enjoy relative freedom from taxes and environment, labour and safety regulations. Even our ex-Prime Minister, shipping magnate Paul Martin, does it.
The Real Lesson of a Teen’s Death
What killed 13-year-old Mercedes-Rae Clarke after she ingested an unknown drug she bought on the street? We won’t know until the coroner’s investigation concludes-if ever. But the day after her death in September, that didn’t stop our regional chief medical officer Dr. Richard Stanwick, Victoria police inspector Clarke Russell, and even coroner Lisa Lapointe from telling us all, anyway.They suspiciously fingered a spiked or ineptly-concocted amphetamine.
While speaking for Clarke’s family, Stanwick suggested to the Victoria T imes-Colonist that “she got some really bad stuff.”
“[Y]ou want every child to hear about it and hopefully learn about it,” added Lapointe. “Teenagers are so naïve.”
Russell attacked: “They’re handling drugs that are extremely volatile and made with crap. When you take somebody’s life, your life should be taken.”
Basically, our authorities used the tragedy to sermonize wrathfully against seedy dealers of makeshift drugs.
It was an odd conclusion to reach, however; especially considering no one else reportedly even got sick from that mystery
Our Mental Health System Needs More Honesty, Respect
When it comes to solving the problems in our mental health system, too many people are losing touch with reality. And I’m not referring to the patients.Consider the recommendations from the recent coroner’s inquest into the police shooting of Saanich’s Majencio Camaso. The jury suggested police should obtain more training in handling unstable people, and mental health emergency response teams should become more omnipresent.
Sounds good. Except it’s assumed that, if only people undergoing psychological crises are safely picked up, there’s somewhere to take them where they’ll receive effective help.
What city are those jurors living in?