PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA NOW!

New Report From Rep. Katie Porter Reveals How Big Pharma Pursues 'Killer Profits' at the Expense of Americans' Health

"It's time we reevaluate the standards for approving these mergers. It's time we pass legislation to lower drug prices. And it's time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies."

by

Brett Wilkins, staff writer

A new report from Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) reveals how Big Pharma uses mergers and acquisitions to increase profits at the expense of Americans' healthcare. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.) 

Rep. Katie Porter on Friday published a damning report revealing the devastating effects of Big Pharma mergers and acquisitions on U.S. healthcare, and recommending steps Congress should take to enact "comprehensive, urgent reform" of an integral part of a broken healthcare system. 

"In 2018, the year that Donald Trump's tax giveaway to the wealthy went into effect, 12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development."
—Report

The report, entitled Killer Profits: How Big Pharma Takeovers Destroy Innovation and Harm Patients, begins by noting that "in just 10 years, the number of large, international pharmaceutical companies decreased six-fold, from 60 to only 10."

While pharmaceutical executives often attempt to portray such consolidation as a means to increase operational efficiency, the report states that "digging a level deeper 'exposes a troubling industry-wide trend of billions of dollars of corporate resources going toward acquiring other pharmaceutical corporations with patent-protected blockbuster drugs instead of putting those resources toward' discovery of new drugs."

Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are often executed to "boost stock prices," to "stop competitors," and to "acquire an innovative blockbuster drug with an enormous prospective revenue stream." 

"Instead of spending on innovation, Big Pharma is hoarding its money for salaries and dividends," the report says, "all while swallowing smaller companies, thus making the marketplace far less competitive." 

Today, our office released a bombshell report exposing the devastating effects of Big Pharma’s mergers and acquisitions. Featuring exclusive interviews with former Immunex, and later Amgen employees, our report shows how consolidation curbs innovation at the expense of patients.

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) January 29, 2021

Our report is clear: Consolidation destroys scientific cultures that once celebrated creativity and transforms them into places that cater to the whims of shortsighted shareholders.

But our investigation also shows how we can chart a new path forward https://t.co/1jxtK9J6rh

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) January 29, 2021

The report calls M&As "just the tip of the iceberg of pharmaceutical companies' anti-competitive, profit-driven behaviors":

Pharmaceutical companies often claim that lowering the prices of prescription drugs in the United States would devastate innovation. Yet, as prices have skyrocketed over the last few decades, these same companies' investment in research and development have failed to match this same pace. Instead, they've dedicated more and more of their funds to enrich shareholders or to purchase other companies to eliminate competition.

"In 2018, the year that [former President] Donald Trump's tax giveaway to the wealthy went into effect, 12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development," the report notes.

Some key findings from the report:

• Big pharmaceutical companies are not responsible for most major breakthroughs in new drugs. Rather, innovation is driven in small firms, which are often spun off of taxpayer-funded academic research. These small labs are then purchased by giant firms after they've assumed the risk needed to develop a blockbuster drug;
• Instead of producing lifesaving drugs for diseases with few or no cures, large pharmaceutical companies often focus on small, incremental changes to existing drugs in order to kill off generic threats to their government-granted monopoly patents; and
• Mergers in the pharmaceutical industry have had an overall negative effect on innovation, taking what little competition existed in the industry and completely destroying it.

"Competition is central to capitalism," Porter said in a press release introducing the report. "As our report shows, Big Pharma has little incentive to invest in new, critically needed drugs. Instead, pharmaceutical giants are free to devote their resources to acquiring smaller companies that might otherwise force them to compete."

"Lives are on the line; it's clear the federal government needs to reform how it evaluates healthcare mergers and patent abuses," Porter added. 

To that end, Porter's report recommends the following actions:

• Removing incentives that prioritize investors and Wall Street over patients;
• Reevaluating the standards used by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for healthcare mergers;
• Altering the presumption that most mergers and acquisitions are legal unless contested by an individual or group;
• Lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Congress should pass legislation that reins in skyrocketing costs. This can begin with drug price negotiation legislation, such as the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, but must extend to include a larger class of drugs and cover all payers and the uninsured; and
• Preventing anti-competitive abuses of the drug patenting system. Congress should pass legislation, such as the such as the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Through Promoting Competition Act, and the Stop STALLING Act, to stop abuses of the regulatory process.

"It's time we reevaluate the standards for approving these mergers," the report concludes. "It's time we pass legislation to lower drug prices. And it's time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies. Together, these strategies can help us bring more innovative, and critically needed, cures and treatments to market."

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India's farmers are right to protest against agricultural reforms


The massive campaign organized by India’s farmers against laws to deregulate the agricultural sector has entered its ninth week. The government in New Delhi, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has tried to negotiate a compromise. But its attempts to placate the farmers have thus far failed.

© AP Photo/Altaf Qadri Proponents of the new laws claim they will help India's agricultural sector, but small, rural farmers fear losing their livelihoods.

The strength of the mobilization has now compelled the government to suspend the laws for 18 months and form a new committee including representatives of the government and the farmers to address their grievances.

The farmers’ leaders insist that the laws must be completely repealed. Reportedly, more than 50 of their members have died, taking their lives in desperation or succumbing to illness during the cold winter nights. The thousands of farmers encircling the capital insist they will remain until their demands are met.

They are right to protest.

The agricultural sector only contributes about 15 per cent of national income, yet more than half of India’s workers depend on it for their livelihood. The vast majority are small farmers, sharecroppers and landless laborers who struggle to stay afloat on precarious wages, shrinking plots and the vagaries of the monsoon.

The costs of production continue to rise. Growing indebtedness, either to informal moneylenders or formal banks, has tragically compelled thousands to take their lives over the past two decades. Inadequate public investment in roads, irrigation and cold storage and poor credit facilities have severely constrained the productivity of Indian agriculture. Systematic reform is long overdue

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© (AP Photo/Bikas Das) A protest march in Kolkata in support of farmers. Protests in support of the farmers have taken place across India.

Last week, the Supreme Court of India stayed the implementation of the agricultural reforms, appointing an expert committee to find a solution. Yet its members support the laws, leading the farmers’ representatives to dismiss them as pro-government mediators.

The court has damaged its already weakened credibility by failing to articulate plausible constitutional grounds for its sudden and arbitrary involvement. High judicial intervention has inflamed the situation, rather than ending it.
Why the farmers revolted

Advocates of the three landmark reforms passed by the Indian parliament last September claim they will expand the choice farmers have. They argue that allowing large corporations to dominate the sector will spur land consolidation, investment in mechanization and generate economies of scale that will enhance productivity.

Instead of selling their crops to the government at a minimum support price in local state-regulated markets, farmers can now sell their harvest via contracts to a much wider range of private actors in a national market. As a result, farmers’ incomes will rise and food prices will decline.

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© (AP Photo/Bikas Das) Many farmers fear the new laws will jeopardise their livelihoods.

Yet, consider the fine print of these laws and the larger economic realities facing small farmers in India. The vast national marketplace in the making will only be available to those who can afford to get their produce across state borders.

The majority of farmers will still have to sell their crops locally. There is also a very real risk that agricultural deregulation will lead to farmers being paid less than the minimum support price. That has already happened in some Indian states where similar reforms were tried.

The new laws also expose small farmers by removing the courts from resolving disputes that are likely to take place. India’s legal system is infamously backlogged, but compelling small farmers to seek redress through local administrative processes leaves them vulnerable to the influence large corporations. Massive power asymmetries will encourage corporate oligarchies.

Canada has traditionally pushed for greater deregulation of Indian agriculture at the World Trade Organization. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarks a few weeks ago defending the farmers’ right to protest peacefully drew a sharp rebuke from New Delhi. It also led commentators in Canada to criticize the prime minister for placating a political constituency at the expense of national economic interest.

But what may be in Canada’s national interest could easily come at the expense of millions of small farmers, sharecroppers and landless workers, who are right to fear being forced off the land to face harsh economic insecurity.

Reinvigorating democracy

When he was first elected in 2014, Prime Minister Modi famously promised to create 10 million good jobs in construction, manufacturing and infrastructure every year to absorb India’s growing labour force.

Yet aggregate economic growth has significantly declined during his tenure. Private investment has stagnated while unemployment has risen. Hence, tens of millions of migrants continue to travel to the cities in different seasons to work in the informal sector, returning to their villages to sow and harvest various crops to make ends meet.

© (AP Photo/Manish Swarup) A farmer participates in a protest on a highway at the Delhi-Haryana state border in New Delhi, Dec. 3, 2020.

Historically, India has struggled to replicate the expansion of labour-intensive industrialization that enabled the economic transformation of North America, Western Europe and East Asia. The greater capital intensity of production in our 21st-century economies makes it harder than ever.

All of this was known before the government introduced these laws through an executive order over the summer while India struggled to contain the pandemic. Rather than consult farmers’ unions and state-level governments, the BJP government transformed the executive order into legislation in September. It then rammed the legislation through parliament via a voice vote, refusing opposition demands for the laws to be sent to parliamentary committee for further scrutiny.

The high-handed passage of these laws was characteristic of the BJP, whose deeply majoritarian ideology has sought to undermine the legitimacy of opposition, status of minorities and separation of powers in the world’s largest democracy. The dramatic political mobilization of India’s farmers, whose legitimate concerns were never heard, provided a desperately needed check.

Highly organized and strategically encamped at key entry points surrounding New Delhi, the farmers’ protest movement is the most powerful India has witnessed in decades. It is forcing the BJP government to relearn the art of democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sanjay Ruparelia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Pompeii's museum comes back to life to display amazing finds

POMPEII, Italy — Decades after suffering bombing and earthquake damage, Pompeii’s museum has been reborn, showing off exquisite finds from excavations of the ancient Roman city

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Officials of the archeological park of the ruins of the city destroyed in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius inaugurated the museum on Monday.

Known as the Antiquarium, the museum gives Pompeii a permanent exhibition space. Visitors can see sections of frescoed walls from the sprawling city's unearthed villas, examples of some of the graffiti unearthed by archaeologists as well as household objects ranging from silver spoons to a bronze food-warmer, items of the everyday life that was snuffed out by the volcanic explosion.

First opened in about 1873, the Antiquarium was damaged by bombing during World War II and again in 1980, when a deadly earthquake rocked the Naples area. Since the quake, the museum had been closed, although it was reopened in 2016 as a space for temporary exhibitions.

The Antiquarium's displays also document Pompeii's history as a settlement several centuries before it became a flourishing Roman city.

Due to Italy's COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, currently only visitors from Italy's Campania region, which includes the Naples area and the Pompeii ruins, can see the museum.

Pompeii is one of Italy's top tourist attractions, and when mass tourism eventually resumes, entrance tickets to the ruins will also include a visit to the Antiquarium.

The re-opening of the museum after so many decades of travail is “a sign of great hope during a very difficult moment,” Pompeii's long time director, Massimo Osanna, said. He was referring to the harsh blow that the pandemic's travel restrictions have dealt to tourism, one of Italy's biggest revenue sources.

On display in the last room of the museum are poignant casts made from the remains of some of Pompeii's residents who tried to flee but were overcome by blasts of volcanic gases or battered by a rain of lava stones ejected by Vesuvius.

“I find particularly touching the last room, the one dedicated to the eruption, and where on display are the objects deformed by the heat of the eruption, the casts of the victims, the casts of the animals," Osanna said. “Really, one touches with one's hand the incredible drama that the 79 A.D. eruption was.”

Large swaths of Pompeii remain to be excavated. While tourism virtually ground to a halt during the pandemic, archaeologists have kept working.

Just a month ago, Osanna revealed the discovery of an ancient fast-food eatery at Pompeii. Completely excavated, the find helped to reveal dishes popular with the citizens of the ancient city who apparently were partial to eating out, including what was on the menu the day that Pompeii was destroyed.

—-

D'Emilio reported from Rome.

Andrea Rosa,Frances D'Emilio, The Associated Press

Ex-lottery VP says Eby 'disinterested' in corporation's anti-money laundering efforts

VANCOUVER — Attorney General David Eby appeared "disinterested" during an anti-money laundering briefing by top British Columbia Lottery Corp. officials and disparaged the author of a crime analysis report, a former corporation executive told a public inquiry Monday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Robert Kroeker, ex-vice president of corporate compliance, testified Eby appeared largely disinterested in the Crown corporation's presentation of its anti-money laundering programs and observations during a meeting in October 2017, shortly after the New Democrats formed a government.

Eby had been critical of the lottery corporation's handling of money laundering at casinos before the party came to power in 2017, and he made cracking down on dirty money one of his signature issues as attorney general.

Kroeker said during the meeting he provided Eby with the results of a link analysis document that examined possible connections between known players at provincial casinos and organized criminals, but the minister was not impressed with the work of the corporation's intelligence unit.

"He seemed largely disinterested in it and at the conclusion of my explanation he looked down and he noted the author was Brad Rudnicki, who was our analyst, and he said to me, 'What would a guy with a name like Rudnicki know about Chinese money laundering?' " said Kroeker.

When asked about Kroeker's testimony, the attorney general's office said it would be inappropriate for Eby to comment on matters before the commission while it's underway.

Kroeker said he could not recall exact details of the document discussed at the meeting with Eby but its overall themes examined possible suspicious cash activities inside casinos and connections to organized crime.

"This was prepared by our intelligence analyst and it shows linkages between our players and others, including people who we knew to be associated to criminal activity or crime groups, and transactions that looked questionable, real estate transactions," said Kroeker.

Bud Smith, the lottery corporation's former board chair, also briefed Eby at the October 2017 meeting, Kroeker said.

"Mr. Smith ran him through essentially all of the controls we had," said Kroeker. "How they function and what they were doing."

But he said Smith told him the lottery corporation was not an enforcement agency.

The inquiry heard Monday that many of the people playing with large amounts of money in casinos were business people from China who had homes in Vancouver, but no evidence suggested the money was linked to crime.

Eby's government appointed B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen in May 2019 to lead the public inquiry into money laundering after three reports outlined how hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal cash affected the province's real estate, luxury vehicle and gaming sectors.

Kroeker, a former police officer who was terminated as vice-president of corporate compliance at the lottery corporation in July 2019, testified that he played an integral part in setting up B.C.'s civil forfeiture office.

— By Dirk Meissner in Victoria.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Goade becomes first Native American to win Caldecott Medal

NEW YORK — Illustrator Michaela Goade became the first Native American to win the prestigious Randolph Caldecott Medal for best children's picture story, cited for “We Are Water Protectors," a celebration of nature and condemnation of the “black snake” Dakota Access Pipeline.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"I am really honoured and proud," the 30-year-old Goade told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I think it's really important for young people and aspiring book makers and other creative people to see this.”


Tae Keller's chapter book “When You Trap a Tiger,” in which a young Korean-American explores her identity and her heritage through her grandmother's stories, won the John Newbery Medal for the outstanding children's work overall of 2020. Keller, who was raised in Hawaii and now lives in New York, drew upon Korean folklore and family history for “When You Trap a Tiger,” also named the year’s best Asian/Pacific American literature.

“The book really did grow from the recognition of my grandmother as this full person with so much life and so many stories to tell,” Keller, 27, told the AP. “I also did a great deal of research into Korean folklore and Korean history. There was a lot I heard growing up, but I had never had a fuller, deeper understanding of it all. I think that was the most rewarding part of writing this book.”

Jacqueline Woodson, whose previous honours include a National Book Award, won her third Coretta Scott King Award for best work by a Black author for “Before the Ever After.” And a tribute to Aretha Franklin, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T," received the King award for best illustration. The book was written by Carole Boston Weatherford, with images by Frank Morrison.

The awards were announced Monday by the American Library Association.

“We Are Water Protectors,” written by Carole Lindstrom, was conceived in response to the planned construction of the Dakota pipeline through Standing Rock Sioux territory. Goade, a member of the Tlingit and Haida Indian tribes in Southeast Alaska, was sent a copy of the manuscript through her agent in 2018 and responded immediately to its political message and message of water as a universal force.

“I love how it balanced lyricism and poetry with a powerful message,” says Goade, who used everything from watercolours to Gouache paint as she conjured moods ranging from the water's sensual blue waves to the harsh black of the snake/pipeline and the burning red of the snake's tongue.

The Newbery medal was established in 1922, the Caldecott in 1937. Goade, whose other books include “Encounter,” is the first Native American to win in either category. Her next book is the picture story “I Sang You Down from the Stars,” a collaboration with author Tasha Spillett-Sumner that comes out in April.

Goade's win was widely cheered on social media, including by Lindstrom, who tweeted to the illustrator: “I have no words to describe how proud of you I am. I love you so so much. You are so extremely talented and just an amazing person inside and out.” Dr. Debbie Reese, founder of the educational resource American Indians in Children’s Literature, noted that previous Caldecott awards had gone to stories about Natives that were created by non-Natives, citing Paul Goble's “The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses" and Gerald McDermott's “Arrow to the Sun.”

“What I see in this year’s winners is a respect for Native writing,” Reese told the AP. “We are so much more than what the mainstream understands, and slowly — and hopefully surely as we move into the future — editors and readers are coming to understand who we were, and who we are.”

Daniel Nayeri's “Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story)" won the Michael L. Printz Award for best young adult novel, and Mildred D. Taylor, known for “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” among other works, was given a “Literature Legacy” award.

Kekla Magoon, who has written or co-written “X: A Novel" and “How It Went Down,” won a lifetime achievement award for young adult books.

Ernesto Cisneros' “Efrén Divided" won the Pura Belpré prize for outstanding Latinx author. Raul Gonzalez's “Vamos! Let’s Go Eat” received the Belpré award for illustration. The Stonewall Book Award for best LGBT literature was given to Archaa Shrivastav for “We Are Little Feminists: Families."

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On the Internet: ala.org.

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press

'#ScienceUpFirst:' Social media campaign targets COVID-19 misinformation with science

EDMONTON — Microsoft founder Bill Gates did not create the virus that causes COVID-19 and he is not forcing microchips into your body through vaccinations.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Those pieces of misinformation are examples of what a group of Canadian scientists and health professionals is trying to discredit through a new campaign tackling inaccurate theories about the pandemic.

About 40 misinformation debunkers are using the hashtag #ScienceUpFirst to provide science-based evidence on social media.

"There's been misinformation about all kinds of things that you can do to treat COVID with crazy treatments like cow urine and bleach," said Prof. Timothy Caulfield, Canadian research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta.

Caulfield is spearheading the #ScienceUpFirst movement.

"And now we're in the middle of trying to roll out the vaccine and we know that misinformation is having an adverse impact on vaccination.

"Things like the vaccine will change your DNA. No, it won't. The idea that the vaccine is associated with infertility. No, it's not," Caulfield said Monday in a phone interview.

"There is just an incredible amount of misinformation out there about COVID. I've been studying misinformation for decades. I've never seen anything like this."

He said the campaign was already trending on Twitter on Monday, the day of its launch.

Caulfield is known for taking actor Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness brand Goop to task in his book "Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?'' as well as for a Netflix series called "A User's Guide to Cheating Death."

The initiative is in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Science Centres, COVID-19 Resources Canada, and the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.

"There's been research that has shown that the spread of misinformation is having an adverse impact on health and science policy, it's led to increased stigma and discrimination, and it's just added to the chaotic information environment that we all have to deal with," Caufield said.

"The evidence tells us that debunking does work if you do it well, so we're trying to do it well. We're trying to listen. We're trying to be empathetic in our approach. We're trying to be creative in our messaging and, hopefully, even if we move the needle a little bit, we can make a difference."

A spokesperson for #ScienceUpFirst says the campaign is pushing to involve Canadian athletes and celebrities to get the word out about tackling misinformation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2021.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

PEACE,ORDER & GOOD GOVERNMENT (POG)

Canadians want online hate and racism curbed, even at cost of freedom of speech, poll finds

Most Canadians want the government and social media companies to do more to curtail hateful and racist behaviour online even if it diminishes freedom of speech and privacy, according to a national opinion survey.

The poll found a majority of respondents believed hateful and racist online content has increased over the past few years. Of daily social media users, 55 per cent said they have seen or experienced racist content online; 50 per cent sexist content; 46 per cent homophobic content; 46 per cent physical threats and 26 per cent sexual harassment.

© Provided by National Post The poll found broad support for ideas such as requiring social media companies to inform police of serious hate speech.

The findings add to fraught debates over free speech and censorship, the power of Big Tech, the boundary between opinions and abuse, and how best to maintain free speech in an omnipresent online world.

The poll was commissioned by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, a Crown corporation, and conducted by Abacus Data, an Ottawa-based public opinion research firm that surveyed 2,000 randomly selected Canadian residents from January 15 to 18.

By a two-to-one margin, respondents were more worried about online hate speech than they were about restrictions on freedom of speech and privacy protection.

Respondents were asked: “When it comes to regulating hate speech online, which of the following comes closest to your view?” They were given two options.

“I worry more about the impact of hate speech and racism on people it harms and the impact on society overall than on limits to people’s freedom of speech or protecting privacy,” was selected by 69 per cent of respondents.

Thirty-one percent of respondents selected: “I worry more about governments and social media companies being able to limit the rights of citizens to express themselves and protecting the privacy of users than the impact of hateful or racist behaviour online.”

The view was widely supported across demographics, according to the Abacus data, including all age groups and genders. The largest split on the sentiment was along ideological lines.

Of those describing their politics as being on the left, 81 per cent said they were more worried about hate speech and racism than limiting freedom of speech; 70 per cent of those describing their views as in the centre chose the same option, as did 50 per cent of those describing their politics as being on the right.

Further, 60 per cent of all respondents said the Canadian government should be doing more to prevent the spread of hateful and racist content online; 17 per cent rejected that idea and 23 per cent said they weren’t sure.

The idea of government intervention was rejected by eight per cent of the left, 15 per cent of the centre, and 38 per cent of the right.

Overall, almost all respondents believed online hateful and racist content is a problem in Canada: 49 per cent described it as a big problem, 44 per cent as a minor problem, and seven per cent as not a problem.

“Hate speech and racism are things that have always been with us, but social media platforms allow them to be disseminated under the veil of anonymity to much wider audiences,” said Mohammed Hashim, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. “The fact that most Canadians see this as a problem is all the more reason why our government needs to make online hate speech regulation a policy priority,” he said.

The survey was done independently, and the government was not informed or consulted in its creation, he said.

That wide swaths of the Canadian public said they support government and tech companies being more interventionist isn’t surprising but should also be concerning, said Cara Zwibel, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Fundamental Freedoms Program.

“The tension between protecting freedom of expression and making sure that people are not subject to discrimination or hate are conflicts that have existed for a long time but have a different kind of scope and urgency because of the internet,” she said.

“This is a really complicated issue and I’m apprehensive of what the government is planning and what approach it might take.”

There can be nuance to unpopular opinion versus something seen as hateful, and the view may be different in a courtroom than on social media, she said.

“I don’t dispute that online expression can result in real-world harm. I do think it is a really tricky area to effectively regulate without potentially causing a lot of unintended damage,” Zwibel said.

The poll floated ideas on how to respond to online hate, and found broad support for each of them.

Ideas included: Requiring social media companies to quickly remove racist or hateful content when it is identified; requiring social media companies to inform police of serious hate speech; strengthening laws to hold perpetrators accountable for what they do online; increasing police training and resources to deal with online hate; and requiring social media companies to reveal the identity of users who spread hateful or racist material.

Any substantive move by government to impose restrictions on internet communications would undoubtedly be challenged in court as an infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The poll found a majority of respondents believed hateful and racist online content has increased over the past few years. Of daily social media users, 55 per cent said they have seen or experienced racist content online; 50 per cent sexist content; 46 per cent homophobic content; 46 per cent physical threats and 26 per cent sexual harassment.

POG IS THE TRANSLATION OF THE LATIN MOTTO 

ON THE CREST OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA 

Canadians support government crackdown on hate and racism on social media, poll finds

A poll conducted in the wake of the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump supporters and far-right groups has found that most Canadians want government action against online hate.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault speaks during a discussion at the Prime Time 2020 conference in Ottawa, Thursday January 30, 2020.

Commissioned by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the poll results also show that almost three-quarters of Canadians are concerned about the rise of right-wing extremism and terrorism.

The results were released Monday by the CRRF, a Crown corporation, as the Liberal government is preparing to introduce measures to regulate social media content.

“The fact that most Canadians see this as a problem is all the more reason why our government needs to make online hate speech regulation a policy priority,” said Mohammed Hashim, the foundation's executive director.

Read more: Neo-Nazis, extremists capitalizing on COVID-19, declassified CSIS documents say

During the 2019 federal election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would require social media companies to remove illegal content such as hate speech within 24 hours or face "significant financial penalties."

The pledge remains unfulfilled, but the government said last week it would soon introduce legislation to regulate internet content.

Under the proposal, online platforms would have to "monitor and eliminate illegal content," said Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault's spokesperson Camille Gagné-Raynauld.

"That includes hate speech, terrorist propaganda, violent content, child sexual exploitation and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images," she said.

"We will also ensure that victims are heard and protected by providing them with a simplified, safe and independent complaint process."

Pressure on social media companies to crack down on hate

The Abacus Data poll, which surveyed 2,000 Canadians between Jan. 15 and 18, reported that 58 per cent felt hateful content on the internet was increasing, and 60 per cent wanted greater federal regulation.

Support for requiring social media companies to remove racist or hateful content within one day was pegged at 80%, while 10 per cent were opposed, the poll said.

It also reported approval of other measures, such as requiring social media companies to remove users who shared racist or hateful content on their platforms.

Read more: How the Toronto-registered websites of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban were taken down

Facebook, Twitter and other tech giants have responded to major incidents of extremist violence such as the New Zealand mosque attacks by deplatforming users for violating their rules.

The siege at the U.S. Capitol during the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s election victory triggered another purge of far-right groups like the Proud Boys from mainstream platforms.

But Bernie Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said allowing companies to police themselves had not worked.

“They self-regulate and they’re not doing a good job,” he said.

He said right-wing extremists were exploiting online platforms, which he called a “tool for some of the most pernicious hate groups on the continent and around the world.”

“They exist only because they are able to use these platforms,” he said. “That is why they’re growing. That is why we saw what happened in Washington. There have to be rules.”

Read more: Over 6,600 right-wing extremist social media channels, accounts linked to Canada, study finds

Twenty-five per cent of those polled were extremely concerned about the rise of right-wing extremism and terrorism, while 23 per cent were very concerned, 23 per cent were somewhat concerned and 20 per cent were “not that concerned.”

Youths aged 18 to 29, racialized Canadians and those on the political left were most likely to be concerned. Among the political right, 60 per cent were concerned and 36 per cent unconcerned about the issue.

The poll found that a third had seen online content inciting violence, while six per cent had experienced it. For racialized Canadians, the figures were significantly higher, at 41 per cent and 11 per cent.

“Across every item, racialized Canadians are more likely to report experiencing or seeing content online,” the poll said.

Overall, 49 per cent thought online hate and racism was a “big problem,” while 44 per cent considered it a “minor” problem. Youths and left-leaning Canadians were most likely to see it as a problem.

“We are encouraged that Canadians appear to be willing to support a strong framework for ensuring we minimize hate and harassment — even in the darkest corners of virtual society,” Hashim said.

The poll’s margin of error was 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca

Canadians support government crackdown on hate and racism on social media, poll finds (msn.com)

Group: Pakistani Baloch dissident buried amid high security

QUETTA, Pakistan — A Pakistani dissident and civil rights activist who died in exile in Canada last month was returned to Pakistan and laid to rest in her home village in southwestern Baluchistan province under tight security, activists said Monday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Only immediate family members of 37-year-old Karima Baloch were allowed to attend her funeral Sunday in the village of Tump in Baluchistan.

Her supporters claim that Pakistani troops had sealed off the village and prevented them from attending her burial. Her remains were brought to Pakistan from Canada earlier Sunday.

Baloch’s body was found Dec. 22 near Toronto’s downtown waterfront, a place that she liked and often visited, a day after she was reported missing. Toronto police have not treated her death as suspicious though there were allegations by her supporters that she was killed.

TWO SAUDI SISTERS IN EXILE ALSO SUICIDED BY DROWNING IN LAKE ONTARIO

A fierce critic of Pakistani spy agencies that are often accused of abducting activists in Baluchistan and elsewhere in Pakistan, Baloch was granted asylum in Canada in 2016. Her death has raised suspicions among rights activists, who on Monday denounced authorities for holding the funeral in near secrecy.

“It is appalling to see how Karima Baloch’s dead body was treated," said Mohsin Dawar, a lawmaker from Pakistan's former tribal regions who campaigns for Pashtun minority right but like Baloch, has also criticized Pakistani spy agencies.

“It is not difficult to understand how this will deepen the divide and fuel separatism," he tweeted. "Is this the strategy to deal with the Baloch insurgency, to sprinkle salt on the wounds of Baloch?"

There was no immediate comment from the government, but a video that surfaced on social media shows soldiers turning back several mourners who are heard in the footage saying they wanted to pay their last respects to Baloch.

Angered over the situation, a Baloch nationalist group — the Baloch Solidarity Committee — issued a call for a daylong strike and complete shutdown in Baluchistan on Monday. Its statement said Pakistani troops spirited Baloch's coffin away on its arrival from Canada and foiled a move by her supporters to hold her funeral in Karachi, instead taking her remains to her home village.

Later on Sunday, hundreds of Baluch activists rallied in Karachi, denouncing the government for not allowing that Baloch's funeral be held in the city.

They chanted antigovernment slogans and demanded justice for Baloch, who they say was a “voice of the Baloch people” that was “silenced.” The activists insisted she did not die a natural death though they offered no evidence to support their allegation.

Baluchistan has for years been the scene of a low-level insurgency by small separatist groups and nationalists who complain of discrimination and demand a fairer share of their province’s resources and wealth.

Although there are also militant groups in Baluchistan that stage attacks on soldiers, separatists also often attack troops in the province, prompting authorities to detain suspects. Human rights activists often blame security forces of illegally holding people. Such detainees are usually not charged and do not appear in court, which draws protests from their families and rights activists.

___

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Abdul Sattar, The Associated Press

cbc.ca

Vaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report

Duration: 02:56

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1848045123534

A report by Vaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report (msn.com)tVaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report (msn.com)he International Chamber of Commerce says that developed countries will still be hit hard by COVID-19 if poorer countries don't get better access to vaccines.

Government stuck on 'narrow' approach to tackling wealth inequality, economist says

© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, pictured here in November 2020, kicked off consultations this week for her first budget.

The government is barely scratching the surface when it comes to using its taxation tools to fight against wealth inequality, according to an economist frequently cited by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland before her political career.

Freeland's updated mandate letter, published earlier this month, directs her to "identify additional ways to tax extreme wealth inequality." But so far, that seems limited to "very gingerly" closing some stock option loopholes, Miles Corak said in an interview on CBC Radio's The House.

If the government wants to make substantial efforts to reduce wealth inequality and its "corrosive" effects on social mobility, Corak told host Chris Hall, the first place to start is to stick with the taxation principle of "a dollar is a dollar" and treat income and capital gains the same way. Currently, only half of capital gains — the increase in value of investments, such as stocks — qualify as taxable income.

"That's a huge benefit to the well-to-do," Corak said. "That is the elephant in the room."

Corak, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is best known for his work contributing to the "Great Gatsby curve" — a chart showing the relationship between inequality and lack of social mobility. That research was frequently referred to by Freeland in her former career as a journalist and author.

Government approaches leave much off the table: Corak

But as the deputy prime minister begins consultations ahead of her first budget as Canada's finance minister, Corak said the government's actions may not be living up to the economic inequality challenge Freeland described seven years ago before entering politics. It depends, he said, on how the government interprets its own promises around taxing extreme wealth inequality and making the rich pay their "fair share."

If the budget "just focuses on a very narrow interpretation of those phrases, I think a good deal will be left off the table in a way that Minister Freeland, the author, might somehow regret," Corak said.

The idea of closing stock option loopholes and even beefing up enforcement by the Canada Revenue Agency is not as significant as the wealth tax proposed by the federal NDP or debated in the United States, Corak said.

To truly attack wealth inequality he said, more ambitious action is needed, including eliminating the taxation gap between capital gains and income, and implementing something like an inheritance tax.

The economist said Freeland was an informed observer of the challenges facing many Canadians, and she was a principled person sincerely acting to benefit Canadians.

"But she's also a capable politician," he said. "And sometimes in politics, where you stand depends upon where you sit. And she sits in the seat of the minister of finance."

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Freeland says consultations launched to help rebuild Canada's economy post-COVID-19 (msn.com)

WAGE THEFT

Provinces sitting on millions in unspent federal pandemic spending, report says

OTTAWA — A new report on billions of dollars the federal government has sent to provinces to help safely reopen the economy suggests much of the money is sitting unused.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Today's report also suggests that federal efforts to stretch the financial impact of those dollars is falling short as many provinces have bucked cost-matching requests.

The analysis by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says six out of 10 provinces haven't spent all the money the federal government has sent their way, including for things like personal protective equipment.

Author David Macdonald says some of the money may yet be spent, but notes the longer it remains unspent, the less likely it ever will be spent.

Macdonald's analysis is based on a review of provincial and federal spending announcements, reconciling duplications, as well as provincial spending documents.

Federal and provincial governments are allocating hundreds of billions in direct spending and liquidity support to help workers, families, front-line workers and businesses make it through the pandemic.

The federal treasury has managed the lion's share of COVID-19 spending — accounting for about $8 in every $10 of aid, according to the federal Finance Department's math.

"They are the ones spending the money, they're the ones creating the funds and to a large degree setting the agenda of where they would like those funds to go," Macdonald said.

Included in the spending is $24 billion the federal Liberals sent to provinces in the fall under the "safe restart" agreement that was supposed to help make it safer for daycares, schools and businesses to reopen.

The report notes that money is sitting idle from a fund aimed at topping up the wages of workers deemed essential like those in long-term care facilities and grocery stores. Provincial governments were supposed to chip in for part of the top-up.

Macdonald says six out of 10 provinces haven't used the money available to them, with Alberta leaving the most on the table by far at almost $336 million.

He also says some return-to-class money hasn't been spent, particularly in Quebec.

Other provinces like Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick appear to have ignored a federal request to match funding to cash-strapped municipalities, Macdonald says.

There is no immediate explanation for why, but Macdonald says it was possible that the federal government decided to give smaller provinces a break on the cost-matching requirements to ease the strain on their own finances.

He notes that larger provinces did pony up matching dollars.

Combined, the underspending and lack of cost-matching raise questions for the government about its plan to spend between $70 billion and $100 billion over three years to prod an economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Macdonald says the stimulus bump from the planned spending could be diminished if provinces don't spend money sent to them, or don't match funding when asked.

That may require the Liberals to put tight rules on forthcoming spending, he says.

"If provinces aren't willing to go along, there may well be provinces that would be left out of, say, new federal spending on child care and new federal spending on long-term care if they're unwilling to go along with federal priorities or federal standards," he said.

"Otherwise, the provinces are clearly going to call the federal bluff."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

'Thank god for Canada': Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill is a triumph for the Great White North

© Provided by National Post Portrait of Harriet Tubman taken just after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

The new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has fast-tracked efforts to feature famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill, a change that was first announced in 2016. Below, an updated version of a post first published in 2016 arguing the Canadian case for why there could be no greater figure on the world’s most circulated banknote.

If Canada could have hoped for anyone on a United States Treasury Note, it would have to be Harriet Tubman.

Here was a woman who lived in Canada, who risked her life to turn people into Canadians and stands as a testament that when it came to basic human freedom, the so-called “land of liberty” couldn’t hold a candle to a cold, agrarian British colony. “I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, I brought ’em all clear off to Canada,” Tubman told her biographer in 1869.

Tubman will be taking the place of seventh president Andrew Jackson, one of four men featured on U.S. money who owned slaves — and a president who ironically hated central banking.

“We’re ecstatic that we can call her one of our own,” said Rochelle Bush, historian for Tubman’s former church in St. Catharines, Ont. Between the 1851 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and the opening shots of the Civil War 10 years later, Tubman was a well-known attendee at the Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church.

That is, when she wasn’t slipping back over the border to smuggle more people to Canada via the Underground Railroad. In total, Tubman freed roughly 300 former slaves by bringing them to Canadian soil, and hundreds of their descendants remain in the country to this day. Within Tubman’s own family tree, in fact, Bush estimates there are roughly 100 descendants living in Ontario and British Columbia.

As Bush noted, it’s a further testament to Canada that some of these Tubman descendants look black, while others look white. “Thank god for Canada; interracial marriage was accepted,” she said. In several former slave states, meanwhile, interracial marriage would not be legalized until 50 years after Tubman’s death.

Canada’s history is not free of chattel slavery. Notably, James McGill, the founder of McGill University, owned black household slaves. But as a component part of the British Empire, Canada was subject to London’s 1834 effective abolition of the practice , which occurred a full 31 years before slavery was completely abolished in the U.S.

Nevertheless, U.S. history has long been unusually coy about pointing out where the Underground Railroad actually ended. Often, textbooks will merely say that slaves were fleeing “north.” While early passengers on the Underground Railroad were initially able to stop their journey in the free Northern states, that ended in 1850 with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, a notoriously coercive measure that made it a crime for Northerners to shelter escaped slaves, even if they lived in a state where slavery had already been rendered illegal. From that point forward, the Underground Railroad had to be extended beyond U.S. borders into British territory

.

Tubman has already been adopted as a figure important to Canadian history. She was briefly in the running to feature on Canada’s $10 bill, and has been named by Parks Canada as a person of national historic significance. Saint Catharines is also home to the Harriet Tubman Public School, complete with a life-sized bronze statue of Tubman.

Kathleen Powell, manager of the St. Catharines Museum, similarly touted that “someone from St. Catharines” would be on a U.S. banknote (which, incidentally, currently costs CDN$25.40).

The honour will soon make Tubman among the most recognizable visages in the world, up there with Albert Einstein and the ubiquitous portrait of Mao Zedong. United States currency is used well beyond the country’s borders, and greenbacks remain the official or unofficial means of monetary exchange in several Central American countries and unstable corners of Africa. And among this vast array of international transactions, it’s the $20 that changes hands the most.

“There’s more $20 bills than human beings out there,” said Douglas Mudd, director of the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado. The choice of Tubman is of sort of a no-brainer, said Mudd. In her 90 years, Tubman ran the gamut of United States history; a former slave, an abolitionist, a Civil War hero and an early suffragist. And, like any archetypal American hero, she always carried a gun. “In one person, she covers a number of different bases,” he said.

And, unlike a lot of the more political choices for U.S. money, support for Tubman is definitively nonpartisan. The conservative National Review, for one, praised the addition of a “gun-toting, Jesus-loving spy” in place of “overheated pompous populist” Andrew Jackson.

Appearing on a U.S. treasury note has a way of thrusting people into immortality. Alexander Hamilton was an influential Secretary of the Treasury, to be sure, but it was likely his face on the $10 bill that kept his legend strong centuries after his death. It was the prospect of taking Hamilton off the money, in fact, that inspired a revival in the Founding Father’s life story, including the hit Broadway musical Hamilton.

Canadians, of course, have a bad habit of smugly talking up their country in the presence of Americans, but Bush said it’s entirely fine now to “proclaim it to everybody” that the woman on the $20 bill appreciated Canada’s policy of not forcing those of African heritage to work for free.

Of course, in addition to former slaves, Canada also took in the people who had once owned them.

After the Civil War, in which Tubman served as a valuable Union spy and armed scout, British North America accepted many exiled Southerners from the defeated Confederacy, including Confederate president Jefferson Davis . “Canada was the gateway to freedom,” said Bush, “not only for freedom-seekers (the name for Underground Railroad refugees) but for Confederates as well.”

Union wants meat-plant workers on early COVID-19 vaccine list

CALGARY — The president of a union representing employees at some of the largest meat-packing plants in the country says there needs to be a discussion about making the COVID-19 vaccine more readily available to essential workers

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Thomas Hesse of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 says he realizes there's a shortage of the vaccine right now. But once that is remedied, he says, workers at large operations such as the Cargill meat-packing plant in High River, Alta., and the JBS Canada plant in Brooks, Alta., shouldn't have to wait too long.

"In the coming months at some point someone's going to make a decision about who gets the vaccination. Will there be a priority? Will there be any prioritization of any so-called essential workers?" he asked in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The two plants, which together normally process about 70 per cent of Canada's beef supply, were hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks last spring.

Cargill's plant, south of Calgary, shut down for two weeks in April because of an outbreak that initially affected 350 of its 2,200 workers. Eventually nearly half the workers contracted the novel coronavirus and two employees died.

COVID-19 forced JBS to reduce its production to a single shift a day for a month, which added to a backlog of cattle at feedlots. The plants brought in safety measures that included temperature testing, physical distancing, and cleaning and sanitizing before they returned to normal operations.

Packing-plant employees are still at risk, Hesse said.

"In a Cargill or a JBS or other manufacturing facility in Alberta, there'll be a couple of thousand workers in a big box still working in relative proximity," he said.

"These are essential workers. They're at higher risk. This is clearly an occupational disease. Many of them want to have access to a safe vaccine."

Hesse said the union plans to hold a town-hall meeting Sunday to hear members views and what to do if getting a vaccination becomes a condition of employment.

An official with Cargill said the company is working with health authorities and medical experts to make sure its employees have access to vaccines when they become available without jeopardizing the priority being given to health-care workers

"We will prioritize our front-line workers whenever we can, as they continue to work tirelessly to keep our food system going strong," said Daniel Sullivan in an email.

"Because we know vaccines don't work without vaccinations, we also will join local health authorities in promoting the importance of vaccination among our employees."

JBS USA said it will offer all its employees a $100 bonus, including those in Brooks, if they get vaccinated in the future.

"Our goal is to remove any barriers to vaccination and incentivize our team members to protect themselves, their families and their co-workers," said CEO Andre Nogueira.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2021

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Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Canada's Richest 44 People Add $53.6B In Wealth As 20% Of Low-Income Jobs Vanish

UBI, LIVING WAGE, &  WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK

FOR THE 99%

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

Canada is facing the spectre of “the greatest rise in inequality on record” as investors’ portfolios soar in value while hundreds of thousands of people join the ranks of the unemployed, anti-poverty group Oxfam Canada says in a new report.

The country’s 44 billionaires ― as listed by Forbes magazine ― have collectively added $63.5 billion in wealth since stock and bond markets began recovering in March of 2020, Oxfam found.

Worldwide, the ultra-rich have recovered from the pandemic’s economic shock, Oxfam said, but for the world’s poor, the group estimates recovery will take a decade.

Canadians at the lower end of the economic ladder are facing a major challenge to their wealth, with employment in Canada down by 636,000 jobs since the pandemic began, and another 488,000 people working less than half their usual hours, according to Statistics Canada.

In a recent report, economists at CIBC found one in five lower-income jobs in Canada had disappeared over the past year, while the country added almost 350,000 higher-income jobs at the same time.

“Women and marginalized racial and ethnic groups are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” said Diana Sarosi, director of policy and campaigns for Oxfam Canada.

“They are more likely to be pushed into poverty, go hungry or be excluded from healthcare. And yet, they are more likely to work frontline jobs that increase their exposure to the virus.”

Oxfam is calling for countries around the world to institute an emergency one-per-cent “excess profit” tax, an idea Canada’s New Democratic Party has also championed.

If it was levied on just the 32 global corporations that saw the largest profit increase amid the pandemic, Oxfam says it would have raised US$104 billion (C$132 billion) in 2020. That would be enough to cover pandemic unemployment benefits and child support in all lower- and middle-income countries, or nearly enough to cover the European Union’s aid to the unemployed, the group said.

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Singh Says Conservative Premiers 'Completely Failed People' On Paid Sick Days

Canada isn’t faring quite as badly as some other countries, Sarosi said, but it stands out in a bad way on sick leave policies.

Only two provinces ― Quebec and Prince Edward Island ― had mandatory sick leave days for workers prior to emergency measures put in place during the pandemic, though many employers offered some number of paid sick days.




The federal government introduced a Canada Sickness Recovery Benefit (CSRB) last fall, offering $500 per week for up to two weeks, but some health agencies said that’s not enough on its own to make a difference, as it pays less than a full-time minimum wage job and doesn’t address job security issues for workers who take time off.
Growing gender gap

Sarosi is particularly concerned about a growing gender gap in the pandemic, noting women ― and disproportionately women of color and those with disabilities ― are taking the brunt of the economic hit. She notes 70 per cent of the job losses in the pandemic have been among women, largely because they were concentrated in the low-wage industries that got hit hardest.



She says reforming Canada’s child care industry should be a major part of the reforms, noting that women, in particular, were thrust into new caregiver roles during the pandemic.

“Child care was unaffordable for families before the crisis hit, and now it’s even worse,” she told HuffPost Canada.

“In European countries, women have access to affordable child care and here it’s just completely left to market forces.”

Quebec’s subsidized child care model is one Canada could emulate, Sarosi said. The program, which costs parents between $7.30 and $20 per day, has been lauded by policy experts who say it’s the reason why a higher share of women in Quebec are in the workforce, compared to other provinces.

“It really is an investment. All the money that has been put in the system has been recuperated through increased tax revenue so the system paid for itself,” Sarosi said.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canad

Opioid overdose deaths occur less often in areas with more cannabis retail storefronts, study shows

© Provided by National Post Canada legalized cannabis use in 2018 and since then, licensed cannabis retail outlets, called dispensaries, have been popping up with regularity.

The more legal cannabis dispensaries a region has the fewer opioid deaths they suffered, according to a detailed new study published in a top-tier medical journal. Most sharply reduced were deaths from fentanyl overdoses.

In areas with one legal storefront cannabis dispensary, opioid death rates were an estimated 17 per cent lower than average. In areas with two dispensaries, there was an estimated 21 per cent reduction in mortality rates, the study found.

The results — based on U.S. data — suggest marijuana use as an alternative to opioids in pain management could improve health prospects.

What the study doesn’t do, however, is specifically declare a direct cause of lower opioid death rates.

“Our findings suggest that higher storefront cannabis dispensary counts are associated with reduced opioid-related mortality rates at the county level,” the authors write. “While the associations documented cannot be assumed to be causal, they suggest a potential association between increased prevalence of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries and reduced opioid-related mortality rates.”

The study by Greta Hsu, at the University of California, Davis, and Balázs Kovács, at Yale University, was published this week in The BMJ, a respected medical journal previous known as the British Medical Journal.

It follows a Canadian study published this week that found legalizing cannabis led to a “marked decline” in the volume of opioids prescribed across Canada.

The Canadian study, published in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy journal, concludes that “easier access to cannabis for pain may reduce opioid use for both public and private drug plans.”

Another Canadian study, published last month and based on a large prospective examination of Canadian medical cannabis patients, found cannabis use significantly reduced the use of prescription opioids.

Published in the journal Pain Medicine, the Canadian academics concluded: “The high rate of cannabis use for chronic pain and the subsequent reductions in opioid use suggest that cannabis may play a harm reduction role in the opioid overdose crisis, potentially improving the quality of life of patients and overall public health.”

The BMJ study focusses on the extreme outcomes of opioid use.

“This association holds for both medical and recreational dispensaries, and appears particularly strong for deaths associated with synthetic (non-methadone) opioids, which include the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs,” the study says.

“This study highlights the importance of considering the complex supply side of related drug markets and how this shapes opioid use and misuse.”

Canada legalized cannabis use in 2018 and since then, licensed cannabis retail outlets, called dispensaries, have been popping up with regularity. Although cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal law, an increasing number of U.S. states have legalized its use and sale, some for recreational use but more frequently for medical use.

Deaths from overdoses of opioids — a class of drugs that include heroin, prescription pain relievers such as oxycodone, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a particularly powerful pain killer — have risen sharply in many countries, including Canada. Fentanyl, in particular, has caused wide alarm.

The researchers, using U.S. data, said highly addictive opioids represent more than two thirds of all U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2018. According to Canadian government data, there were 17,602 apparent opioid-related overdose deaths in Canada between January 2016 and June 2020.

Researchers have looked at what impact cannabis dispensaries have on the use, abuse and impact of other drugs in the past, and have returned with mixed results.

In response, the two U.S. researchers drilled down to a more local level to compare data in U.S. counties that actually have dispensaries, rather than look at statewide or nation-wide data.

Their study also took into account how many dispensaries were operating in each county, probing how the count of cannabis dispensaries relates to opioid deaths.

Their data set spanned from 2014 to 2018, the first year that structured data on dispensaries was available, and ending with the most recent period for detailed health statistics.

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