Commentary
Commentary
Invigilators should unionize
On March 8-9 and 17-18, McGill students employed as invigilators in the Fall 2009 term will vote on forming a collective bargaining unit within the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM). Invigilators face many compelling reasons to vote...
Commentary
End the stigmatization of medical drugs
The word “drugs” is not a neutral term. It comes loaded with other meanings, many emerging from the discourse around the “War on Drugs” and enforcement of their illegal status. “Drugs” are dangerous, drugs are bad, and drugs destroy your...
Commentary
End unbalanced drug penalties and enforcement
The American Senate Judiciary Committee weakened the mandatory minimum sentencing laws for cocaine last week. Mandatory minimum sentence laws are legislative enactments that force judges to give a minimum penalty for certain crimes. Under the new sentencing guidelines, crack cocaine...
Commentary
Take a hike, tuition hike!
W hen Quebec’s minister of education Michelle Courchesne announced last month that a major tuition hike for university students in Quebec was in the works, many hung their heads in disappointment. This is par for the course for the Parti...
Commentary
The politics of recognition
Moral decisions should not be made based on expediency
On March 4, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution that pressed the Obama administration to recognize the Armenian massacres of the early 20th century as genocide. While one would hope that the nuances...
The French connection
Des illusions d’optique obsédantes
Avec la collaboration très spéciale de Petit Crouton et de Cracky Crack
Every week Joël Thibeault writes this column for learners of French. Cette merveilleuse température qui nous enchante depuis quelques jours vous donne l’envie d’explorer notre très charmante et pittoresque ville. Vous osez une escapade à l’extérieur de notre fameux ghetto...
Little bitter
Naturopathic medicine is whack
What’s legal and causes the death and permanent disability of thousands of men, women, and children each year? Alternative medicine: the greatest natural disaster plaguing today’s society. Canadian federal and provincial policies toward naturopathic drugs and herbal remedies need to...
Commentary
Interview with an addict
Amy G. is a recovering drug addict. During her recovery from addiction – a process that never really ends – the boundaries between counsellor and addict, sponsor and sponsoree, have blurred. She has worked officially and unofficially in recovery for...
Comment
Stop punishing addicts
Drug policy discussions often take the form of a binary: treatment versus enforcement. Carrots and sticks. This is however, a problematic and wildly uneven binary. Treatment is not a carrot. Treatment is a long and arduous process that, at its...
Comment
Putting the "I" back in medicine
Self-medication should be a right
Self-medication is the use of drugs or alcohol to reduce emotional distress. It’s widely accepted that using drugs for these reasons can lead to addiction. However, the link between self-medication and addiction should not negate our natural, inherent right to...
Binary is for computers
Black market hormones
Bootleg prescription drugs put trans folks’ lives in danger
A couple of summers ago, I met a transwoman in New York City who was planning on ordering estrogen and an anti-androgen over the Internet. She had conducted meticulous research and claimed to have figured out the proper dosage, given...
Commentary
Quebec must treat all Quebeckers equally
The notion of “reasonable accommodation” is supposed to protect the rights of minority groups. Rather than protecting them, however, “reasonable accommodation” perpetuates a privileged notion of who is Canadian or Quebecois and who gets to shape Canadian and Quebecois culture:...
Commentary
The news about Iran
Western media narratives obscure human rights abuses
In the midst of social and political change occurring in Iran, the mainstream American media and state news agencies across the world seem to share the peculiar tendency to report on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy production. When the Iranian...
Hyde Park
Swiss reject animal lawyers
Referendum follows dead fish’s suit against fisherman
L ast month, Swiss lawyer Antoine Goetschel affirmed the importance of human rights while defending his client. “It’s about fairness and defending a minority,” he said. His client? A dead pike. A Swiss animal advocacy group felt that the fish...
Commentary
Change the anthem
SASKATOON — On March 3, the Conservative government presented its new agenda in a speech from the throne. Although it was mostly about the gloomy economy, there was also this nugget: “Our government will also ask Parliament to examine the...