'Interesting times': Political heavyweights assess Doug Ford's win in Ontario

Guests: Howard Hampton, Janet Ecker, David Peterson

SOUNDCLIP

A new day has dawned in Ontario's. [Cheers] A day of opportunity, a day of prosperity and a day of growth.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That is Premier Designate Doug Ford after landing a hefty win last night. After 15 years of liberal rule Canada's largest province has now chosen a different path with the Progressive Conservatives winning a majority. So what might this all mean for Ontario and for the rest of Canada? We're having that discussion in just a few moments. Also today there's a potential new tool in the fight against Canada's opioid crisis.

SOUNDCLIP

The very best thing I could suggest to anyone, if you are using opoids and want to get off, is try using weed. Weed is more natural. You eat well. You get sleep. And honestly if I can do it, if I can get off opoids using weed, I think any can.

PC: Could marijuana actually help get addicts off opioids? And what are the risks? We'll talk about that in half an hour. You may have seen the obituary from small town Minnesota one that was read around the world.

SOUNDCLIP

It was shocking. Bitter obituary and it has been seen around the world. The article concluded she will not be missed by Gina and Jay, her kids.

PC: And they understand that this world is a better place without her. Brutally honest or just plain brutal? With the changing nature of the way we speak of the dead reflects in the way we live today. Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

I could not have done this without you. And I can tell and I know that my brohter Rob is looking down from heaven - I am just getting chills talking about him right now. I know Rob. He is celebrating with us tonight. We owe so much to Rob's legacy. [Cheers]

PC: That Is Ontario's next Premier paying tribute to his late brother Rob Ford the controversial former mayor of Toronto. Doug Fords win was decisive with the Progressive Conservatives making significant inroads into many parts of Ontario and sweeping much of the 905, the suburbs that ring Toronto. For the NDP, the momentum, the polls appear to be showing just did not translate into enough seats to win. And for the Liberals, repudiation. The governing party support dropped to a historic low. It is reduced to just seven seats losing official party status. An historic moment for the Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, while he is riding of Guelph, becoming Ontario's first ever green member of the provincial parliament. I'm joined by three former Ontario politicians to discuss the results. Howard Hampton is the former leader of the Ontario NDP from 1996 to 2009. He's in Winnipeg today. David Peterson was the Liberal Premier of Ontario from 1985 to 1990. He's in Toronto and Janet Ecker is a former Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario Legislature from 1995 to 2003. She was a senior cabinet minister in the government's Premier's My Carers and Ernie E's and we have reached her in Ajax Ontario hello to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning.

PC: Janet Ecker. Let's start with you. What does a Doug Ford victory, and soon to be government, mean for Ontarians?

JANET ECKER: Well I think one of the critical factors is going to be trying to get the province's finances back in order. I think that was one of the concerns. One of the issues that people had that they thought that the debt and deficit, wasted money and I won't go through that. The whole litany we've all glum throughout the campaign and heard all of these issues but I think [unintelligible] I think it's certainly a very important factor in Doug Ford's win. And I think also, people wanted change. I mean that we just heard that over and over and over again. They went through at everybody the leaders had a very very tough campaign and the voters rejected Premiere Wynne, took a look at Andy Horwath and landed on Premier Ford.

PC: David Peterson what are you expecting from a Ford government?

DAVID PETERSON: I am not sure it that is clear. I think Janet makes some good points. I think they are trying to get their hands around the finances. But if you measure that against what they have said in terms of cutting taxes and offering spending in certain other areas it doesn't all add up very well. So I think combination of the promises and the implied promises are going to create some problems. And then there's just you know the general feeling that it is good for a change. One whether these governments are they start to justify their own mistakes to longer they're there and a new group comes in and changes things around, and changes the priorities, and then they'll get a break for a couple of months as they start of this process. And then they're running to their own mistakes, they're on priorities and starting to justify this. So this is a cycle in politics and frankly not an unwholesome cycle in politics. The only thing that bothered me Piya, was when you were telling the story about the Liberal Party and then the story of this strange obituary in the same show, I just thougth they are related in any way.

PC: People read into those. We'll talk about the liberals in just a minute David Peterson, but Harold Hampton, let me bring you into our conversation. Why do you think this PC majority means for Ontario?

HOWARD HAMPTON: Well I think there is an old Chinese: You're condemned to live in interesting times. I think this is going to be a very interesting experiment because in many ways. Mr. Ford is committed to doing some of the things which I think Kathleen Wynne and the liberals into trouble. So for example continuing down the path of privatization ofhydroelectricity is going to continue to be expensive, very expensive for people. And so delivering the electricity promise I think it's going to be an interesting challenge. Getting the finances in order and also cutting taxes is going to make for some very interesting times in health care and education because that's where most of Ontario's budget goes. And so you're not going to get the deficit down and also give tax cuts without making some serious cuts in health care and education. And I think those things go Kathleen Wynne into trouble in the sense that the freezes or the limitations on health funding caused real problems across the province. I think it in part destroyed our capacity to ring true with voters. So Mr. Ford has promised to a great number of things and many of them are contradictory. So it's going to be interesting to see how it all works out.

PC: Okay let's talk about the Liberals for a minute and the Liberal Party was badly beaten last night. Kathleen Wynne was deeply unpopular. But let's listen to what she had to say last night.

SOUNDCLIP

I am resigning as a leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. I know... We're not going to cry. I have spoken to the president and asked him to start the process of choosing an interim leader. It is the right thing to do. There is another generation and I am passing the torch to that to that generation.

[Cheers and applause]

PC: Peterson Your party, the Liberal party, was trounced last night. They stand at seven seats below official party status. Kathleen Wynne did hold out to her seat. We know we've heard that she was deeply unpopular personally as the premier, but what else went wrong for the liberals and what does that say where we are in Ontario and arguably the rest of Canada?

DAVID PETERSON: It's an interesting question and you could argue this was unwinnable by her. There are so many barnacles calls this ship of state and she's started in bad shape and ended up in bad shape. And part of that is just longevity and people's overwhelming desire for a change. I in my own view is that she would be viewed differently a year from now, or two years from now. But that's always the case because she's a very fine human being and a highly intelligent human being. Now then we ask the question: Does bode poorly for the state of liberalism in the country? I just want to remind you when I was elected in 1985 there was not one liberal government in the entire country and we started a wave and we came back and then things do change and there is a countercyclical balance between the federal and provincial movements. I don't think liberalism is in trouble, as I think at the end of the day shall we say the moderate middle the traditional space of the liberal fiscal rectitude along with liberal view of the world, is the way Canada mostly is. But it depends on circumstances, leaders and times when this all comes together. So I am not despondent about the state of liberalism no. That doesn't mean that the party does not have very serious problems because they do. They dont have official party status. I dont know the financial state of the party but that's going to have to be dealt with and they're going to have to deal with the question of leadership. Now Kathleen's is in an interesting position. She won his seat and in some ways that would have been more easier, just to have lost to seat and let someone else worry about it. But she's there. She is the leader. She's going to have to transition her power and then deal with the leadership and arrange for orderly transition that's going to take some time to rebuild.

PC: OK I'm going to hold you up there because I want to get to other guests then. Janet. Ecker what do you read beyond the Kathleen Wynne's unpopularity in the defeat of liberals?

JANET ECKER: Well I think premier Pearson makes some good points about the barnacle of government. When you are out there for a long time. All of this mistakes, people's perception of his mistakes, tend to build up and people do want change. I think the concern about people getting ahead or people struggling feeling like with hydro rates and various other issues,that they weren't getting ahead the way they should. They were not feeling that the economy was working for people. You couple that with the antipathy that Premier Wynne tends to generate. You know when you meet her one on one she's a very personable talented woman. What was being projected as premium became increasingly irritating for voters. I do think that had a fair bit to do with it. You know the Liberal Party has significant challenges now but every party has faced that, federally or provincially I mean the federal Conservative Party as they used to joke and it was true was down with party of two, and came back. I think you'll see that things may change again but right now I think for premium Ford the talent is doing a transition that is going to be not easy. Of course he himself is relatively male I mean it's amazing that someone can be brought in as leader and put campaign together end up winning the campaign. But the good news is I think the quality of many of the candidates when I was going through all of the bios yesterday I was quite impressed with men and women who decided to put their name forward. I mean in my riding here right [unintelligible] business, government, political, community experience. Peter Beth Levany, of course Christine Elliot, Caroline [unintelligible] and the list goes on. And so I think that's going to help in what will be no question. A transition is always a challenging time for any new government.

PC: We will talk about the NDP in just a sec but Howard Hampton you know some analysts in Ontario and in the rest of Canada have compared Doug Ford at least the populism that he seems to conjure up to Donald Trump's. Is that a fair characterization and if so what does that say about our provinces?

HOWARD HAMPTON: Well certainly there are some similarities and I think you those people who have made their observation do so with some rationale. Look there's always been that sort of populist element to politics in Ontario. You could go back to the days of Mitch Hepburn for example. So there's always been that character in Ontario politics. What does it mean going forward? Well as I said earlier I think you know there are some contradictions in what Mr. Ford has said and what they set out for an agenda. And so when I say these are going to be interesting times, as a government they will have to set a course and they're going to have to make some decisions. They're going to have to abandon some of the promises they've made or simply say well we can't do that now. And how the public all react to that? I think as I say this will get interesting and I think the road ahead will be something the media will be quite interested in watching.

PC: Okay let's talk about the incoming official opposition the NDP scored what 40 seats last night. A big night for Andrea Horwath's. Let's listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

Today millions of people voted for change to the better. [Cheers] We have one more seats than we have held in a generation.

PC: Howard Hampton let me stay with you. You know many people within your party and beyond it said there's a positive message coming from Andria Horwath throughout this campaign just a week ago polls were showing at least in the popular vote that the NDP could have won this thing. Why wasn't the party able to break through on election night?

HOWARD HAMPTON: Well in a number of ridings it was a matter of 800 to 1000 votes there they would have won. And so there you are a bit down about that. But actually it's quite an optimistic time too because in many of these ridings it was a real breakthrough for a new Democrat to do that well. So if you just redistributed the vote a little bit we'd have done much better. The other point I think that's important is that you went from third to doing very well. I think the attack ads in the last 10 days did have an effect. I mean one of the realities of politics is people will listen to bad stories before they'll listen to good story. And so if you keep telling a bad story about someone for a week or two weeks some of that sinks in and they think it did and it hurt the NDP vote and I think it helps the Conservatives to win.

PC: Okay let's broaden this out beyond Ontario. Last night we saw former premier of Saskatchwan Brad Wall tweet that it's nice to have in Doug Ford, an ally gets a carbon tax. Jason Kenney from Alberta saying something similar. David Peterson whether it's the carbon tax or pharmacare, or gender based initiatives this incoming government interior does not seem to be in step with the Federal Liberals. So what will Doug Ford's win mean for the rest of Canada and its role in the federation?

DAVID PETERSON: This is an important discussion I think because there are issues at stake beyond local interests here, I say provincial interests. It's about the unity of our country and I can take it because you know they're talking about change there as well. You can see the federal provincial relationships in a fairly bad state now given what's happening in the western to NDP government fighting. It's straining confederation in ways that it hasn't been for a while. There's no question that with Kathleen leaving the Prime Minister has lost a soul mate. And we don't have any idea frankly about Doug Ford's view of these matters or his consideration or whether he feels Ontario has an important role in these discussions I would argure. I think my other colleagues share politics with, like how Janet has said, and I'm to have an important role is the only federation in the world where one piece is so important, worth 40 percent of the country. We have the wealth. We have the center of power and we have to use it wisely and well to build a stronger confederation. A weak Canada is not in our interest.

PC: Okay let me bring Janet Ecker NDP and David Peterson, sorry paroling you up there Janet. What does a progressive conservative government in a. one that is led by Doug Ford mean for the rest of the country and where we fit in?

JANET ECKER: Well I think Premier Ford certainly appreciates Ontario's more in the Confederation and the importance of Ontario is, as David said, 40 percent the economy. But I think he's got the right frame already which is let's get Ontario's pardon me back on a solid footing. Let's get the finances of the private back. Let's make sure that people were getting the business investment that we need to have here because you know Terry has to do well for the rest of Canada to do well. I mean obviously you are saying that the other provinces flexing their muscles in the Confederation. That's not a new thing. We've had that happen in Canada many many times. We do have some major issues for their country to face but one of the big things that I think that Ford can contribute to the national debate is to make sure that our economy is continuing that we're continuing to produce the talented workers that we need all across the country. So I think that would be very very important. I'd just like to respond to one. [unintelligible] I don’t think that we have challenges he had had a bad campaign but I think the party for candidate and her approach is not ever going to bring a union back to work. Let's get back to work and I think those two certainly resonated with voters when they were to team to run the party.

JANET ECKER: Harold Hampton I will give you an hour and Howard and I will give you 30 seconds to respond to where your fits into Canada now with Doug Ford led Progressive Conservative government.

HOWARD HAMPTON: I repeat what I said earlier I think were condemned to live in interesting times. The agenda that Mr. Ford has spelled out, first Of all on the environment. Second of all, in terms of some pretty substantial tax cuts which can only be paid for by cutting health care and education. These things are going to be really put on Ontario I think older step with where not only Canada wants to go but where much of the world wants to go. I mean the almost total recognition of the fact that climate change is happening and you can see it go to Northern Ontario. The fact that he doesn't seem to realise that most of the budget in Ontario goes to health care in education and you're not going to make significant cuts and you're not going to balance the budget without going after those systems.

PC: We're going to have to leave it there. I know there are many more discussions and debates. Thank you to all three of you for joining us today. Howard Howard Dean former leader of the Ontario NDP David Peterson former Liberal premier this province and Janet Ecker APC MPP in Ontario from 1995 to 2003. Thank you all three of you. Well the CBC News is next. And then fighting drugs with drugs. We'll hear about the potential promise of pot to help people kick their opioid addictions. I'm here at a pad. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

Could marijuana help people get off opioids, or are we swapping one addiction for another?

Guests: Dr. Sharon Levy, Dr.Evan Wood

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of the Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come, a tough obituary published last week in Minnesota has got people talking. Penned by children she'd apparently abandoned for their uncle, it allowed the grown up kids to finally have the last word and it's got us talking about the way the words we use to talk about the departed are departing from norms. The changing nature of obituaries that's up in half an hour. But first the promise of pot.

SOUNDCLIP

We are packing up the weed care packages I guess. Today we've got cookies and gummies and medicated sandwiches as well. And even some medicated caps, capsules, and joints as well.

PC: Those are care packages being prepared. But you probably heard some clues that they're not the kind of care packages most grandmothers might prepare for you. These are being put together by volunteers with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Cool thank you. My name is Neil Magnuson and this is the account of a substitution project and we are here in Vandus main office 380 East Hastings. Okay thank you. And we've been operating for 15 months now a little over that. And what we do is we give away cannabis, edibles, concentrates and joints to people to help them stop using the other street drugs that are killing people. Cannabis is a very effective substitute for many people when used properly, mostly in the edible form and because edibles are much stronger because it metabolizes through the liver. It's a much longer lasting high. I've been told many times by people over the years that are hard drug users or injection drug users that a couple of good strong edibles can get them right through the night without injecting any other drugs or not worrying about injecting other drugs. And I know dozens and dozens of people throughout the city that have crossed my path. Many of them working in dispensaries now that tell me that county saved their life, that they were on that path the injection drug use, and that they got off with cannabis. And so when this crisis hit, because of my experience in this neighborhood over the past 14 years with cannabis and edibles and how it helps people get off of hard drugs, I knew right away that this was the thing to do to address this crisis.

VOICE 2: I am Greg. They call us the holy rollers. We do the rolling of the joints to give away the packages. I just believe in it. I've helped detox away from Fentanyl and I've seen it work. So you got a good enough supply of edibles - it has to be edibles - they can stay off opioids.

PC: So the idea of doling out weed to people with substance abuse issues might seem counter-intuitive but the idea is gaining traction partly thanks to the anecdotal evidence like we just heard. But the idea is also backed up by other evidence including a study published in May in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. A study that suggested a link between cannabis legalization and lower rates of opioid prescription. And the University of British Columbia will be investigating the potential for cannabis to mitigate the harms of the opioid crisis. Thanks to a research endowment from one of Canada's biggest marijuana growers. Canopy growth ponied up 2.5 million dollars in the province of B.C. added another half million to create the canopy growth professorship in Cannabis Science. The research will be done in conjunction with the B.C. center on substance use and Dr. Evan Wood is the director of the center and he joins us from Vancouver. Hello.

EVAN WOOD: Hello.

PC: Well first off where do you see potential for cannabis to help in dealing with the opioid crisis.

EVAN WOOD: Well you know first off I should note that for the Putin crisis we need many things and this will just be a piece of the puzzle. You know we need more recovery supports. We need more medical support, more harm reduction. But something that's emerged in the scientific literature in recent years that's really attracted a lot of attention is that in states in the U.S. where there are medical marijuana laws there are lower rates of opioid overdose. And when you look at prescription opioid prescribing in states in the US that have medical marijuana laws have lower rates of prescription opioid prescribing. That alongside more basic science research showing that people are able to have reduced craving and reduce their opioid use when they're using cannabinoids has opened up a range of hypotheses where people are really looking to see is there something that can be done to reduce the harms of opioid use, if people are offered cannabinoids or other cannabinoid, cannabis or other cannabinoid preparations, as a strategy to reduce craving and ultimately people's use of opioids. So that's something that we've observed in Vancouver where some of the overdose prevention sites. Cannabis is being given out to people and qualitatively they're reporting less opioid use. And from the University of British Columbia perspective this is something we'd really like to rigorously evaluate.

PC: Do we know at this point, when we look at you know the picture you painted that's going on in some US states. If this is based on correlation or causation?

EVAN WOOD: At this stage I think it's still correlation and we don't have scientific certainty. And that's where traditionally this has been an area that health research funders have been hesitant to fund and it really presents an opportunity now through this philanthropic donation to explore this question in a very scientifically rigorous way.

PC: So there are people out there who are going to say this sounds absolutely, at best counter, intuitive and problematic because you're trading one addiction possibly for another, at least one drug for another. So why do you think this path is worth investigating?

EVAN WOOD: Well to be honest that's been one of the real harms with the war on drugs is that we've lumped all of these substances together. And without question psychoactive drugs have different potentials for harm and theoretically benefit than, say in the case of opioids if anyone listening has ever had a major surgery, they've benefited from opioids for pain control in that context. However we know particularly with synthetic opioids like fentanyl, they can be extremely extremely dangerous when they're used on the street. On the contrary cannabis. There's risks with cannabis certainly drug impaired driving. We'd all want to see avoided things like that. But relatively from an addictiveness perspective or certainly from a fatal overdose perspective. Cannabis is in a whole other world. So unfortunately because for decades we've lumped these things together just the talk of cannabis in some circles can really create strong feelings and antibodies. But from a scientific perspective it's a very different substance even than alcohol and if it has therapeutic potential and it can help play a role in reducing the overdose crisis then that's something we're very excited to investigate.

PC: And as we heard the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users is already exploring this in an informal way and there are other street level groups promoting the idea of cannabis use as a tool as a way to help people off harder drugs. What is your sense of thus far of the anecdotal evidence around this?

EVAN WOOD: Certainly anecdotally it appears that some individuals, not all, some individuals do not like the sense of of being high on cannabis and it wouldn't be appropriate for them. But for some people who are very compulsively using fentanyl and are just at extreme risk of overdose and getting high all the time on fentanyl that are just compulsive using the diagnosis of addiction is really based on the inability to stop or were cut down. For those individuals it does seem like a number and some proportion of severe opioid addicted people can control their use of opioids more when using cannabinoids. And again from a university perspective and the other piece of this is the endowment that's going to allow to create a professorship that will really enable us to explore this question and ask and answer it in a way that will hold up to the scientific scrutiny that a question like this really should be able to be able to look at.

PC: I'm glad you brought up the endowment because the majority of the money is coming from canopy growth which is a company. Well with a financial and business stake in promoting the benefits of cannabis medical or otherwise, so how do you reassure people that the research, the professorship will be undertaken will be untainted by that relationship?

EVAN WOOD: Yes that's a really important question and an area where universities grapple with this all the time because they partner with industry and they receive philanthropic donations from different circles. In the case of this gift it's actually pure philanthropy. It's a gift to the UBC development office rather than the industry liaison office which would normally come with some expectations of the donor. In this case there's no expectations for instance that the company be involved in vetting research or helping come up with a research design or that cannabis product be used in any research. This is a completely arm's length philanthropic gift in the form of corporate social responsibility. So it does lower the concerns in that area certainly conflict of interest can can persist in any way, but universities have ways of managing this and this is far out on the spectrum essentially as far as you can go in terms of just a donation to the university where the university can say thank you. We can say hey this is great that this company that's doing quite well financially has decided to make a gift to the university. But that sort of where their involvement would end in terms of developing or conducting research.

PC: And I guess the other concern for some people might be that by partnering with a major grower you may be, and even though that as you say they're going to keep their hands out of the research and the professorship, but inadvertently lending a hail to recreational use of pot.

EVAN WOOD: Yes I think you know the biggest thing with cannabis that we grapple within society I think is that people often don't take things from a pragmatic standpoint where this is the most commonly used illicit drug in our society. It will soon be legalized that's totally independent of this gift. And this is a circumstance where the burden of disease associated with substance use and all substances, alcohol, tobacco and the use of drugs like cannabis in society if you put that alongside the traditional university and health research investments on how to look at these questions in these challenges in society and have normal university mechanisms to address them, those have not been developed despite decades and decades of acknowledgement of this problem. So this gift enables the university to create a professorship and an endowment that will go on in perpetuity to really build an entire laboratory around and really help get out of the sort of unanswered questions that we grapple with in our society. And I don't feel that this is necessarily you know giving a tacit approval to cannabis use. Certainly I don't think that's cannabis expectation or the university's questions related to things like drug impaired driving or lung disease from cannabis smoking, or any of these things that get batted around where we really don't have good science and clear answers as well as possible medical benefits of the use. That's going to be the focus of this professorship and it'll be a great resource for society to look to and have somebody that's able to really look at these questions and provide thoughtful and answers and acknowledge what we do know and what we don't know.

PC: Dr. Wood thank you for your perspective on all of this I appreciate it.

EVAN WOOD: Thank you so much for your interest.

EVAN WOOD: Dr. Evan Wood is the director of the B.C. center on substance abuse. He's in Vancouver as he said the research around cannabis and its potential role in curbing the opioid crisis is still in its infancy and most of the evidence is still anecdotal. We spoke with clients and volunteers at the overdose prevention site, known as TOPS, in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside where there is a fledgling cannabis program. Joy says she struggled with an addiction to opioids for two years.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I started using opioids too for pain because I have a bad sciatic nerve pain. If you know anything about sciatica it is like the worst pain in the world and honestly the best way I got off for myself is - believe it or not - using marijuana. I eat edibles. I like edibles got THC. THC Is put into whatever food usually it's through gummies, candies, cookies kind of thing and that's definitely been a big helper getting off the opioids. I would never go back using opioids being I've started the weed program here that we have here at Top's. See THC especially when you eat in edibles, it's really effective. It's like I found it relaxes me. When I'm in major pain it relaxes me. It also helps with my sleep and the very best thing I could suggest to anyone after using opioids if they want to get off is try using weed. Weed is more natural. There's no chemicals. There shouldn't be any chemicals in it depending on where you get it from. You should always make sure whoever you get your weed from that is from like a good source. Also if you eat I would suggest with your edibles you know you eat well, you get sleep and honestly if I can do it, if I can get off opioids using weed, I think anybody can.

VOICE 2: My name is Derek Nash. I'm 59 years old. In August I will be 60. I decided when I started working here to get off the drugs. So I slowly cut down and got off them. First I heard it through the grapevine you know about the marijuana room and then I talked to the guy who makes all the cookies, the Cookie Monster he's called, and I started off just eating the cookies. And the first time I ate cookies I got pretty wobbly on two cookies you know. And then they then Sarah told me all about this CBD and THC and how it helped my withdrawals and stuff and it really does. I can say that 100 percent. It helps big time.

PC: Derek Nash and joy are volunteers of the overdose prevention site in Vancouver and both of them use cannabis to reduce their opioid dependency. Not everyone however is convinced that cannabis offers a pathway out of the opioid crisis. Dr. Sharon Levy is the director of the adolescent substance use and addiction program at Boston Children's Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She says there are lessons from the past that should make us very wary of embracing marijuana. And we have reached her in Cambridge Massachusetts. Hello.

SHARON LEVY: Good morning.

PC: What worries you about the idea of policymakers embracing cannabis as a way out of the opioid crisis?

SHARON LEVY: So actually I'd like to start by saying that I'm an addiction medicine specialist just like and I agree with Dr. Wood and many of his points including that there will not be one single solution to the opioid crisis. It's a difficult problem and we're going to need lots of different strategies to get ourselves out of it. I have concerns about the idea of liberalizing access to marijuana as a strategy for addressing the opioid crisis. And so, not only am I an addiction medicine specialist and I understand how difficult opioid addiction is and how important it is that we search for solutions, I'm also a pediatrician. When you think about public health strategies you have to think about the entire population. So while it's so important to give people access to things that might help them prevent opioid overdose you also have to remember that the large majority of the population is actually not addicted to opioids and when we open up access and potentially drive more marijuana use, could actually be causing a lot more problems than we're fixing with a policy like that.

PC: Okay you have pointed out to some historical examples of drug promotion and adoption gone wrong, including some recent history that suggests we should be concerned by this idea. Can you explain that?

SHARON LEVY: Yes. So actually there are a number of examples in which substances were promoted for their health benefits before we had real equipoise, in other words, before we really understood the benefits and harms of an individual substances. There are lots of examples over the past couple hundred years. I think one really striking example is electronic cigarettes. These came out really just a little bit more than a decade ago. And you know at the time they came out they were really promoted as having very meaningful harm reduction potential for adult smokers. So the idea was that we would take people who were addicted to nicotine who could not quit smoking and we would offer them a less harmful product that would allow them to switch on and give up their cigarettes. So this was even promoted in the U.S. by somebody who had served as a former surgeon general. And I would say that electronic cigarettes actually came out with a lot of fanfare. The message got interpreted as this product is safe. They're harmless and they may be good for you. And really what we've seen in the ensuing years is that the children and teens, who these products granted, they were not intended for them. But that's actually a group that's really gotten a hold of them. And we've actually seen nicotine use and nicotine addiction reintroduced into communities where we really had not been seeing it for a long period of time. So traditional cigarette use had really dropped amongst a large majority of middle class kids in the U.S. and now this very same group is starting to use these nicotine products in high numbers. And they, the researchers are starting to show us that they develop addiction quickly. Kids tend to develop addiction more quickly than adults and they typically become dual users. So we're actually also reintroducing ironically traditional tobacco products.

PC: Okay I want to bring up another example and this is about Purdue the drug manufacturer and the criticism that they promoted opioids, which has helped lead to the opioid crisis and the abuse of the drugs that they made. So when we look at this situation in British Columbia, where we have a marijuana grower funding research, do you have concerns about those things?

SHARON LEVY: Yes. I do have some concerns. I you know I think Dr. Wood meet a lot of good points and I think that you know unrestricted philanthropy addresses certain the most pernicious problems in a certain way. But there are other problems that I think are much harder to address. And that is, just as you're saying about Purdue, there's a certain, even without any intentionality, there a certain marketing strategy in promoting a substance as health promoting. And as you mentioned this is exactly what we saw with the opioids when it came on the market in the 1990s. They were really promoted as health promoting something that could treat pain and improve function. And that message - it's very difficult to control these messages - and that message got out in a way that these products are safe and benign. And we all know what happened people started using them in big quantities in the opioid addiction crisis really ensued. So you know I think we have to get controlling the message is something that's particularly difficult to do and when substances get promoted as something that are part taking care of a health problem we've seen before where that is that starts a trend of them being overused.

PC: Let's talk specifically about the connection between marijuana use and lowering opioid addiction, which is where this argument sort of the discussion started from. But there seems to be some credible evidence including that study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association back in May that liberalization of access to cannabis and I should mention or our marijuana laws are set to change here in Canada seemed to have some correlation with lower rates of prescription for opioids. So I get that it's trading one drug for another but there is the argument that one is well much better than the other.

SHARON LEVY: You know I think people will try and make that argument but I'd be highly skeptical of it. It is true that by and large it's because cannabis does not stop people from breathing. You don't have a tremendous problem with overdose with lethal overdose. And so that is certainly a benefit. But when you look at the long term harms of cannabis exposure. You know I think that we know enough about it to know that there are real harms that are actually quite serious. The best understood harms are those to younger people, to adolescents who use cannabis and if there is actually a developing body of research but really enough to understand that cannabis use during the adolescent years is associated with increased risks of mental health problems of lower functioning as adults. There have been some studies that have linked cannabis use to declines in cognitive functioning or drops in IQ or a lead time. So these are very serious problems and I don't know how you know. I mean people could say one problem is worse than another but I think that that's really rather subjective.

PC: Dr. Sharon Levy we'll have to leave it there. Thank you.

SHARON LEVY: Thank you.

PC: Dr. Sharon Levy is the director of the adolescent substance abuse and addiction program at Boston Children's Hospital. She's also an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and she was in Cambridge Massachusetts. Now if you have anything to say about this story or anything you've heard on the current today or any other day please do get in touch with us. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. You can post on Facebook our address there's Facebook./cbcthecurrent. Or if you would prefer to e-mail you can do that as well by going to our Web site cbc.ca/the current once you're there click on the Contact Us link. All right well coming up what will they say about you when you're gone. With more and more obituaries including the good but also the bad and the ugly what does the changing nature of obits say about the changing way we think about death and how we think about life. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. That conversation is coming up. We're back in a bit.

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From piety to prosperity: What obituary trends reveal about society's shifting values

Guests: Janice Hume, Sandra MArtin

PC: Hi I'm Piya Cahttopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. It was an obituary that had everyone on the internet, or just about everyone, saying 'oh dear'.

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Kathleen Dehmlow Schunk was born on March 19th 1938 to Joseph and Gertrude Schunk of Wabasso. She married Dennis Dehmlow at St.Anne in Wabasso in 1957 and had two children; Gina and Jay. I n 1962 she became pregnant by her husband's brother Lyle Dehmlow and moved to California. She abandoned her children, Gina and Jay who were then raised by her parents in Clements Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schunk. She passed away on May 30st 2018 and Springfield and will now face judgment. She will not be missed by Gina and Jay and they understand that this world is a better place without her.

PC: It's probably a good thing Kathleen Dehmlow is an around to read her own obituary. That is the actual death announcement published last week in the Redwood Falls Gazette in Redwood Falls Minnesota. It was written by the late Kathleen Dehmlow's son, Jay, at the suggestion of his sister Gina. After the unorthodox obituary went viral online, the newspaper took it down from its Web site, and the UK's Daily Mail tracked down the children who wrote it. In an interview Jay justified the brutal memorial saying: "They'll never know what we went through but it helped us to write this. We wanted to finally get the last word". Of course there is not the first or only dreadfully honest death announcement. In 2014 and surely in Victoria British Columbia wrote a less than glowing review of her late father George Ferguson. Here she is reading part of it for us.

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What to say about George? Certainly no one could accuse him of having been a loving son, brother or father. He'd gladly have stolen the shirt off your back. And he was generous to a fault with other people's money. Was he is small-time con-man with grandiose scheme? Probably. But another view of him is that he was the most exciting member of the family and as the families he married into. He was a poor man rhetoritican who beguiled certain women into buying into his promises injury.

PC: And here's why. Karen Shirley says she chose to write so frankly and colourfully about her dad after his death.

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PC: I had to make it an honest obituary, because I knew that anyone even knew would have sneered at one of the phony sort of obituaries that said he was a wonderful man. I actually was trying to give a picture of his life that was positive because if I'd be really honest it would have been a lot more negative. But I'm very happy with this picture. It's like a period is like. I think obituaries and headstone can be that for people who believe in closure, I think they can provide that too.

PC: Well the death announcement she wrote for her dad got a lot of attention it also went viral and it became an online hit.

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I think touched a nerve because obituaries have been the way that they are for so long and so many things have changed in our society. There are a lot of clichés in obituaries; so heavy hearts, peaceful passing, long battle. I choose this honest account of my father's life because I thought that when someone who had such an impact on so many lives died, he shouldn't die just with a whimper. It should be announced to the world that he died.

PC: That was Karen Shirley in Victoria B.C. Well our next guest knows a thing or two about reading obituaries. She once wrote hundreds of them for the Globe and Mail. Sandra Martin is the author of several books including Great Canadian Lives: A Cultural History of Modern Canada through the Art of the Obit and A Good Death: Making the Most of our Final choices. Sandra is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

SANDRA MARTIN: Hello.

PC: Are you surprised about how, well, bold and unflinching those two send offs were?

SANDRA MARTIN: No I'm not surprised I mean every so often someone uses death notice as revenge to all and that's what happens. They want the world to know and they're paying for it in a classified ad, which is basically what those were, that their parents or somebody else was not a great person. So it's fun but it's not really what I would call an obituary because to me obituaries are journalism and they're written by professional writers, and they're about news, and they're about people who are noteworthy, and it's about setting their lives in context. You can you interview people and you find out what this view of that person or that view but you don’t just take an all-out attack.

PC: Okay so you make a distinction between obituaries and death notices.

SANDRA MARTIN: I do.

PC: And so when you hear death notices like the ones that you just heard you think what, Sandra?

SANDRA MARTIN: I think it's revenge. You know you didn't like your mother you didn't like your father and you want to say that. But I agree very much with what the last person said in that we often do, in death notices, family place these notices and they really really don't want to write the truth about their family and they don’t want it often say how the person died. All these things that are just sort of smothered in clichés. That’s not what an obituary is about because that's journalism.

PC: When you go about writing obituaries - because everyone has their flaws and frankly some people are just jerks in the world - So when you had to write an obituary about someone who most people were like, if they told you the truth, like they weren't like the best person. How do you balance writing something that was in once honoring someone but also being honest and truthful?

SANDRA MARTIN: The worst person I ever wrote about I think was Clifford Olson the just horrible horrible sadistic murderer of children in B.C. And after he was convicted he spent many many years asking for a plea bargains and trying to- I mean he taunted the police with give me cash and I'll tell you where the bodies are. So what I did when I wrote his obituary was I thought about how the justice system has changed because of this odious man. In fact victims’ rights movement, because the parents of those children were so outraged and so traumatized by the way they had been treated by the justice system, that they advocated for change. So I put that in the obituary as well because that was an impact that Clifford Olson had.

PC: So the good name was the consequences of his brutal murders.

SANDRA MARTIN: Well yes. I mean there was nothing good about it but at least there was some play back in terms of how the justice system changed. So I put that in his obituary as well.

PC: How hard was it to do that?

SANDRA MARTIN: I you know it's work. How hard is it to cover any story? It's hard sometimes, you know, it's very sad but you are a professional and you do your job.

PC: You had been writing obituaries for a long long time. And I'm curious about what shifts you've seen over time and how people talk about those who have passed?

SANDRA MARTIN: Well it depends on what questions are asked of course. That's part of it but I think that there is a new frankness in obituaries. I think that there isn't that tendency to gloss over. You know in the Victorian era for example it was very very pious and then things change. I think that obituaries really reflect the times in which they're written. I think of them as the beginnings of a social history of a country and that's what I always tried to do, is try to set the person in the context of his or her lives. If I was writing on somebody in Canada who was born in, I don't know, their 20s, I would always ask did you serve in a war. That was something I wanted to know. Those are things that- But we don't say the kind of clichés anymore as in 'confirmed bachelor', 'enjoyed a drink or four'. I don’t know we are much more explicit about things like that.

SANDRA MARTIN: Arguably people say there is much more honesty out there because of the digital age and how we ask people how do you think the digital age has changed how you wrote obituaries and how you approach them; speed for one thing, the digital age means that there’s a 24/7 news cycle. So you hear someone has died. For example someone told me that the writer Mavis Colanta died and I confirmed it. And the first thing I did was they tweeted it. Now that is not the way it used to be. So you tweet it. Then it goes online and then you get another version that goes in the paper and the version in the paper is always the shortest.

PC: Has it though, do you think allowed us to be more honest and what we say about the dearly departed?

SANDRA MARTIN: I think it always depends on the writer and the editor but I always try to be honest and I had a rule that if I knew something about the person it had to be true of course ahead to confirm it. But if it had an impact on that person's life, if it meant that the life had taken a different direction then I would include it, even though you know the family sometimes got mad at me but I’m not writing for the family. I am writing for readers and I think that's important.

PC: So when you heard about their death and death announcement that we referenced out of Minnesota and those kids saying, look I just want to, A, have last word because we didn't much care of her and, B, I want people to know the truth about how much she hurt us. If what they say is true what do you say to that is that uncouth do you think these days?

SANDRA MARTIN: No I don’t think it’s uncouth but the difference between what I would do and what they did is that I would go and talk to other people. That's only one version of that person's life and I would always get as many versions as possible and then make a judgement.

PC: How do you deal with the unpleasant, the scandalous, you've covered many famous and infamous people after their death and writing obituaries. When you were writing their obituaries beyond the [unintelligible] how did you manage that?

SANDRA MARTIN: How did I manage?

PC: The scandalous information the unpleasant information.

SANDRA MARTIN: Factually. You know often you're writing about people and you don't know them at all of course, and you are against time. So you're trying to find out everything you can and one person will tell you one thing is just a series of interviews as you would follow any story. And then you write it up it's you know to me obituary are about life and death is the precipitating incident. That's it. That's all. That's why you're writing it because the person has died but I'm not really writing about the death. You're writing about the life and I found their lives always fascinating and I loved finding out new things about people. And I loved reading death notices in the paper and saying oh that person sounds interesting. And then uncovering a story about somebody I'd never heard of.

PC: Like?

SANDRA MARTIN: Oh well there was a woman whose name was Kay, I had forgotten her last name right now but I'd forgotten her. She grew up in Manitoba and she went to France and she was bilingual and she was working for the British Embassy of France and then she went to England and she was a spy during the Second World War and I thought she was in tremendous. There are people who are going to have to write death notices for family members. There are people who deliver eulogies and if we sort of look at them all together what advice would you give to someone who's well worried, first of all that their fail me might go rogue on them after their death.

SANDRA MARTIN: I think we should all read our own death notices because first of all you're going to get the facts straight. You might leave things you don't want mentioned but at least you will remember what you think your birthday is. And so do it yourself, do it for the death notice but the obituary is a decision made by a newspaper or a media outlet to run a story on that person's life. So you can't write your own obituary but you could certainly write your own death notes. You could ask if you want a funeral. You can ask for your funeral arrangements please have so-and-so deliver the eulogy. Thank you Senator Emerton. Thank you. Sandra Martin is the author of several books including Great Canadian Lives a Cultural History of Modern Canada through the art of the orbit as well as a good death. Making the most of our final choices and Sandra Burton was here in our trip to a studio. Well our next guest says orbits are windows into a society's shifting norms and shifting values. Janice Hume is the head of the University of Georgia journalism department and she's the author of obituaries in American culture. We have reached her in St. Simon's Island Georgia hello.

JANICE HUME: Good morning.

PC: So what do you make of these you know blunt, less orthodox death notices like the ones we heard earlier?

JANICE HUME: We are seeing more and more of them but I still think they're quite the anomaly. The vast majority of obituaries do exactly what Senator were saying is providing a synopsis about like. And it is what we will remember about that person's life, especially an average person oftentimes the obituaries the only news story that runs about a person. So that's what we're going to remember and if we are cultures that value individual lives then obituaries are really important.

JANICE HUME: In a historical context. I mean is there anything different about the [unintelligible] death notice? No historically absolutely. I studied obits, I read eight thousands of them from 1818 to 1930 and really looking at how they've changed over time, how they are reflections of our cultural values and you know as their values change so do the things that we want to remember about someone. And it's very interesting.

PC: And what I suppose you're looking at is you know obituaries are written now versus say 70 80 more years ago. What sort of differences are you extrapolating from in terms of our culture?

JANICE HUME: Well if you look at way back to the eighteen hundred people remembered more for attributes of character and I literally counted the words when I did the when I did the study. So men were remembered for being patriotic, brave, gallant, vigilant, bold, devoted to duty and then women were remembered for being patient, resigned, obedient, affectionate, amiable, pious. And again that reflects what society valued about life. Well we moved into the 20th century and, for men instead of being remembered for being patriarchal brave, they remembered for being rich, for wealth, for [unintelligible] millionaire capitalists those were the words that were used in these mainstream newspapers headlines of obituaries often read and those in the early part of the 20th century career cut short. And that those headlines were even news for children for boys’ career cut short chat. And so the way we remember people changed and in the way we speak the language of death also changed. The cause of death changed.

PC: And so when you look at old bits now especially in the digital era however the ones online or even the ones that are still read newspapers are different from the ones that appear only in print?

JANICE HUME: I think the major difference is less about the text of the obituary and more about the comments that are added to it by friends and family and strangers and in others. The really fascinating Part of it interactive in the digital era is so many more people are brought into the I guess the process of memorial. So you have an obituary that was probably written by family member, if we are talking about an average person. That could be a journalist, could be a family member. This information goes in and then people weigh in, electronically. And so what you find is that people talk to the dead. People will write on someone's obituary or a message to the deceased. Well there has never been obituaries out you know as long as there were newspapers that is something new. They'll give them instructions 'say hello to Aunt Margaret for me'. They will say 'I miss you'. They'll tell stories that nobody else understands but the person who is writing and the deceased, which is interesting from a journalistic standpoint in that usually journalists don't put information in the newspaper that the vast majority of their readers can't understand. So the dynamic of those messages that are tackled on the obits are interesting as well.

PC: And given those shifts in how we talk about how we publish and the kinds of things we say how do you think online obituaries changed the way we grieve them or doesn't?

JANICE HUME: I think in ways a very healthy and in ways that unhealthy like the example that we're talking about today. But I think it's healthy in that it can build community and make people who are specializing in grieving will tell you that telling stories is part is a healthy part of the grieving process. And people do they go online for these obits and they tell stories about the deceased. In community building, if you see Death of a soldier for example you'll find people or parents or soldiers from you know far away geographically will chime in, and make connections with that family' Saying we're here for you we've been through the worst when we did after the book I did a study. Aren't these online obituaries with a co-author and what we found which I found to be fascinating is that the connections that people have with their co-workers would never really have appeared necessarily in a traditional obituary, which really are always more about the family and the survivors. But you have co-workers coming online and grieving and telling stories and thanking the deceased for being a mentor for example. And so I think the healthy part of the online obituaries is this ability to share, to grieve, to build community, to tell those stories that help us our process at the dent of someone who is close to us.

PC: Professor Janice Hume thank you for your take on all this today I appreciate your time.

JANICE HUME: Thank you.

PC: Professor Janice Hume is the head of the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. We reached her in St. Simon's Island Georgia. We'll have a moment now and let you know about a story we're working on for next week on The Current. Syrian Saydnaya Prison has been described as an architectural instrument of torture. So when Amnesty International was looking to build a war crimes case against alleged perpetrators of torture within the prisons walls, it turned to an unusual group for help. Forensic architecture. They used the so-called ear witness testimony of former detainees to create an interactive model of the prison, a model to be used as evidence at the ICC the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Next week guest host Connie Walker will speak with the architect who led the Saydnaya project forensic architecture Deputy Director Christina Varvia. So this is the technique that we developed which we call the architecture of memory and it's something quite interesting. It kind of borrows from ancient techniques so monuments of memory palaces of buildings spaces in order to remember more. But in this case what we see is that memory is also spatial that memory is somehow kindred itself in two objects into textures in two particular kind of properties of space. And so what we find is when we ask people to recreate the space of a certain event when we ask questions of the dimensions of a certain room the dimensions of a door the texture of the walls the dimensions of tiles etc. for the person to retrieve the kind of information they have to move back in to that memory space. And all of a sudden they remember more details about it and somehow the memory of the space is tied together to the memory of the experience, to the memory of the event that happened there. So when we asked another one of the ex-detainees to describe how big how big was a little hatch on the door of the cell and he described it in relationship to in relation to his own head. So more so he said the size of the hatch is roughly within the width of my head and he said the way that I know is that someone asked me to place my head within this hatch and then began to torture me through it, to beat me through words. So this kind of shows you how there is no understanding of space for this person other than the really bodily experience of kind of being against that particular feature of the door and that’s the only way that he could relate to it. So this is a memory that came from this very particular question. Very simple question. How big was the hatch?

PC: You can hear more about forensic architecture director deputy director Christine Varvia next week on The Current. Well that is The Current for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q Director Ari astrict is on the show to talk about his new psychological thriller. It is called Hereditary. By the by we do like hearing from you so do get in touch with us. There are many ways you can tweet us @ThCurrentCBC. You can find us on Facebook Facebook.com/thecurrent and you can e-mail us by going to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Once you there click on the Contact Us link. Sunday at noon you can catch me in my regular gig and posting at the open here on CBC Radio One this weekend I'll be speaking with Coy Healy. He is a Grade 11 student in Calgary and quizzed determined to succeed because he wants to do something that neither of his parents and none of his 10 siblings have ever done: graduate.

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Every time my family compares me to other people in my family, like my sisters, I've been compared to my sisters so many times. Like oh I'm just going to drop out of school or I'm just going to drink. I'm just going to have kids. Oh you're going to have kids at 16. You are you going to do this and this. You're going to mess up your wife and things like that. And I was told this by my family. My family told me this and every time they told me I got mad. I'm going to finish high school. I'm going to get my diploma and then I'll walk that stage and you're going to see I'm nothing like them.

PC: How do you branch out from your family tree. I'll be asking that question on Out in the Open this Sunday at noon here on CBC Radio One. Or you can listen to it online cbc.ca/open. Now some sad news to give you before we leave you today. Celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain has died. CNN Which broadcasted Bourdain's popular culinary travel show Parts Unknown confirmed Mr. Bourdain's passing, stating the cause of death was suicide. Anthony Bourdain was 61 years old. The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti spoke with him last October when he came on the program with one of his culinary idols, Jeremiah Tower. Here is Anthony Bourdain speaking about the legacy of Mr. Tower and his groundbreaking San Francisco restaurant Stars. I am Piya Chattopadhyay. Thank you for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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ANTHONY BOURDAIN: Everybody immidiately wanted to go to Stars. It became the epicenter. It became the most important restaurant in America. Jeremiah was very much about sightlessness and glamour. A wild mix of people. I am talking about a lead, I am talking about this democratic space that would be fabulous and exciting and filled with a diverse group of people who are interesting. And along with that a new dining model, a new concept of a restaurant that you would walk down a urine smelling alley in the middle of nowhere and walk up a flight of stairs and find yourself in this incredible space that felt like the most important place on earth and you eat fabulous American food. It was not so much about Jeremiah leaving [unintelligible] as what Jeremiah going to do next.

AMT: Anthony in describing that time Jeremiah's influence you have called him the first [beep] chef.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN: [Laughs] He made things better for all of us in this regard because no one ever thought of the chef before. It was really maybe the first time where people thought 'wow the chef is interesting and sexy and I would like to know more about them. Nobody ever wanted to know more about the chef. So that [beep] quality, first of all it improved all of our social lives. We could bask in his reflected glory and become glamorous our souls but need people in arrested in the shelf as a living breathing entity with a face and an opinion. That was a really important change because people before didn't really care what the chef's specialty was or what the chefs felt they loved about food and honestly we wanted them to try. That power shift really started there.

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The Current Transcript for June 8, 2018

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

'Interesting times': Political heavyweights assess Doug Ford's win in Ontario

Could marijuana help people get off opioids, or are we swapping one addiction for another?

From piety to prosperity: What obituary trends reveal about society's shifting values

Friday June 8, 2018 Full Transcript

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