Time to read about cigarettes, vaping and weed
Drab brown will be the colour forced on all cigarette brands, along with graphic images of smoking-related disease. Naturally, the tobacco industry doesn’t think plain packaging makes any difference, beyond bolstering contraband. Vaping remains exempt from this.
A window opens for vape drapes
Canada’s chief medical officers are worried about vaping teens, and an e-cigarette installation was shut down at Yonge-Dundas Square—but ads are still proliferating.
Sleeping in an illegal pot shop will no longer stop it from being shut down. The curious case of the CAFE dispensary circumventing the law because somebody lived there will end with the closing of a loophole. Meanwhile, a Toronto man who uses a wheelchair filed a human rights complaint about the first round of legal weed stores being inaccessible.
Queen’s Park gets a guillotine
May Day in the new era of the Ontario PCs comes with outrage grist like this display painted bloody red, with the implication that it oughta be off with the premier’s head:
“I make no apologies for getting the message out.” Doug Ford faced questions about why Ontario News Now went with him on a trip to New York that most non-government outlets knew little about. But he had fun at Fox News.
Looking out for number one (and number two)
The popularity of the poop emoji has inspired cartoonish municipal campaigns to promote proper flushing. And now Vancouver is making both “Poo” and “Pee” available for selfies:
Jason Botchford dead at 48. After starting his sportswriting career at the Toronto Sun, he spent 13 years as the Canucks beat writer for the Vancouver Province, before leaving for The Athletic. Botchford, who also appeared on TSN, died of apparent heart failure.
Finally, the masseur of McLuhan
Quentin Fiore, who died on April 13 at age 99, was an American designer who brought visuals to Marshall McLuhan’s Toronto-based observations. Their collaboration was defined by 1967’s The Medium is the Massage, which then became a long-playing record: