Health Care Supply and demand in health care. p6
Fitness guidelines given for ‘early years.’ p5
THE NEWS
Gardening Camellias and a local cup of tea. p25
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Big push for legalizing marijuana by M o n i s h a M a r t i n s staff reporter A call by B.C.’s Chief Medical Health Officer for marijuana to be decriminalized in Canada is welcomed by patients at the Taggs Medical Cannabis Dispensary in Maple Ridge, who see his support as crucial on the path to eventually legalization. In a paper published in Open Medicine, an international, peerreviewed medical journal, Dr. Perry Kendall and his Nova Scotia counterpart Dr. Robert Strang endorsed taxing and regulating cannabis as an effective way to improve health and safety in Canada. “There is clear evidence to demonstrate that the so-called war on drugs has not achieved its stated objectives of reducing rates of drug use or drug availability,” said Kendall, who co-authored of the paper with Dr. Evan Wood. Colleen Flanagan/ THE NEWS
See Legalize, p11 Mark Joinson is president of the Always Growing Green Society, which runs the Taggs dispensary in Maple Ridge.
Penny dumped in ’12 budget Old Age Security change shelved until 2023 by P hi l M e l nych uk staff reporter
H
ead, heart, hands and health. See story, p3
Next fall, your pocket will feel lighter as the penny joins the $2 bill and disappears from Canadian currency. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in Thursday’s federal budget that Canada is joining the U.K. and Australia in drop-
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ping the penny from production. One reason, it costs 1.6 cents to produce and it buys only a twelfth of what it used to. About time, says Fay Arnold, a Maple Ridge senior who used to work in a bank and as a waitress. “It’s a nuisance,” she said while waiting to get her hair done. “We don’t need the penny.” She wasn’t as happy, though, with other parts of federal finance. Seniors are still struggling with meagre pensions, women in particular. Arnold
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scrapes by on a minimum Canada pension along with Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement of just more than $500 a month each. Kamp “How can you possibly live on $1,200 a month? “There’s an awful lot of seniors
living by themselves, women especially, that are having an awfully hard time of it.” However, pensioners for the next decade at least, escaped any big changes. The eligibility age to collect Old Age Security won’t begin to change to 67 until 2023, leaving the younger generation stuck with collecting at a later age. “If you were born in 1958 or later, this will affect you, but not before that,” explained local MP Randy Kamp. See Budget, p4
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