OTTAWA—The CRTC received more than 10,000 complaints from consumers
about Bell Canada telemarketers, including at least one alleged death
threat, the Toronto Star has learned.
While both the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Bell Canada
refused to say how many complaints were received from the public, the Star
confirmed it was 10,000-plus and that the telemarketers’ calls
continued for about a year before the agency finally moved against Bell.
Bell was recently fined $1.3 million for calling tens of thousands of consumers on the Do Not Call list.
The calls from the telemarketing
companies on contract — some of them in India — were at times aggressive
and abusive, documents show. In some cases telemarketers cursed at
people who showed no interest in their sales pitch and even threatened
them.
...
Don Newman, CBC columnist and former host of Newsworld'sThis is a reasonable
"Politics" attacked the idea characterizing Fox news in the U.S. as
"hugely polarizing." Fox "mainly spews out propaganda that is
dangerously misleading and often factually wrong....It
specializes in drive-by attacks and misrepresentations, and is
positively Orwellian at times, claiming to be 'fair and balanced' while
implying that its competitors aren't."
This looks fantastically bad. Can't wait to see it
Yes, I do want to see this.
The preliminary study picks up where investigators left off. It
explores the possible therapeutic effects of the drug on the intense
anxiety experienced by patients with life-threatening disease, such as cancer.
A number of the hundreds of studies conducted on lysergic acid
diethylamide-25 from the 1940s into the 1970s (many of poor quality by
contemporary standards) delved into the personal insights the drug
supplied that enabled patients to reconcile themselves with their own
mortality. In recent years some researchers have studied psilocybin (the
active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”) and MDMA (Ecstasy), among
others, as possible treatments for this “existential anxiety,” but not
LSD.
Gasser, head of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy,
which he joined after his own therapist-administered LSD experience, has
only recently begun to discuss his research, revealing the challenges
of studying psychedelics. The $190,000 study approved by Swiss medical
authorities, was almost entirely funded by the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies, a U.S. nonprofit that sponsors
research toward the goal of making psychedelics and marijuana into
prescription drugs. Begun in 2008, the study intends to treat 12
patients (eight who will receive LSD and four a placebo). Finding
eligible candidates has been difficult—after 18 months only five
patients had been recruited, and just four had gone through the trial’s
regimen of a pair of all-day sessions. “Because LSD is not a usual
treatment, an oncologist will not recommend it to a patient,” Gasser
laments.
The patients who received the drug found the experience aided them
emotionally, and none experienced panic reactions or other untoward
events. One patient, Udo Schulz, told the German weekly Der Spiegel
that the therapy with LSD helped him overcome anxious feelings after
being diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the experience with the drug
aided his reentry into the workplace.
The trials follow a strict protocol—“all LSD treatment sessions will
begin at 11 a.m.”—and the researchers are scrupulous about avoiding
mistakes that, at times, occurred during older psychedelic trials, when
investigators would leave subjects alone during a drug session. Both
Gasser and a female co-therapist are present throughout the eight-hour
sessions that take place in quiet, darkened rooms, with emergency
medical equipment close at hand. Before receiving LSD, subjects have to
undergo psychological testing and preliminary psychotherapy sessions.
Another group is also pursuing LSD research. The British-based
Beckley Foundation is funding and collaborating on a 12-person pilot
study at the University of California, Berkeley, that is assessing how
the drug may foster creativity and what changes in neural activity go
along with altered conscious experience induced by the chemical. Whether
LSD will one day become the drug of choice for psychedelic
psychotherapy remains in question because there may be better solutions.
“We chose psilocybin over LSD because it is gentler and generally less
intense,” says Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the
University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a trial to test
psilocybin’s effects on anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Moreover,
“it is associated with fewer panic reactions and less chance of paranoia
and, most important, over the past half a century psilocybin has
attracted far less negative publicity and carries far less cultural
baggage than LSD.”
Angry Greyhound passengers were contemplating legal action against
the bus company Tuesday for being left to fend for themselves for some
14 hours in a small town in northern Ontario.
Many of the more than 100 westbound passengers who were stuck in
White River, Ont., on two buses said Greyhound added insult to injury by
giving them the runaround when they sought answers.
“It was just a brutal experience,” Paul Hitchin said Tuesday after finally arriving in Calgary.
“I’ve never seen a company do something like that to people and not care anymore.”
Posts
All Comments
