Using cannabis even once can significantly increase a person’s risk of suffering from a psychotic illness later in life, according to research published this week in the British medical journal The Lancet, wrote The Globe and Mail July 27. Alan Young, a criminal law professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School who has led efforts to liberalize Canada’s marijuana laws, said evidence suggests that marijuana may trigger mental illness in users who are predisposed to it, but questioned whether researchers have ever shown a causal link between the two. "If that were the case, after 40 years of heavy marijuana consumption in the Western world, we should be seeing an epidemic of schizophrenia," Young said. "That’s what makes these claims so hollow."
FES graduate researcher will be guest speaker at film presentation
Horizons of Friendship, a Cobourg-based international development organization, hosts a summer film and speaker series every Thursday during the month of August, wrote the Northumberland News July 26. The films air at the Horizons office, 50 Covert St. in Cobourg in the second-floor resource room, starting at 7pm, with a speaker to follow each screening. On Aug. 16, the group will present Greening of Cuba, a documentary on Cuba’s organic agriculture movement, with guest speaker Annie Strgar (MES ’04), whose current graduate research at York University compares sustainable urban agriculture techniques in Cuba and Toronto.
Ferguson ranked as one of Canada’s best lawyers
Midland,Ont., is home to one of Canada’s best lawyers, wrote the Midland Free Press July 27. Rod Ferguson (LLB ’68, LLM ’02) has been named as one of the best personal injury lawyers in the country by the National Post in its Best Lawyers in Canada on-line database.
After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1968, Ferguson was called to the bar in 1970 and moved to Midland in 1972, joining Gord Teskey’s law firm. Over 35 years, he’s developed a civil litigation practice serving large geographic areas in central Ontario. Appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1982 and certified a specialist in civil litigation in 1989 by the Law Society of Upper Canada, he completed his Osgoode master of laws degree at York in 2002.