Author: Adam Clare

Beer and Games in Toronto

The game scene in Toronto is booming and this is a good thing. Games can bring people together in many aways, sometimes through online interaction, butI think the best connections come from playing games in person with other people. Indeed, a new cafe called Snakes and Lattes has opened in Toronto that caters to playing games with friends and strangers.

Now, a friend of Things Are Good is combining a scavenger hunt with beer. It’s to promote small breweries and encourage people to explore the streets of Toronto. Readers of this site will probably remember that we think beer is good. Just don’t drink too much in one sitting.

“This is an opportunity for people to show off their knowledge of both beer and Toronto in a fun and competitive way,” said Mirella Amato, Owner of Beerology. “While the focus of the event is on beer, it is also about discovering Toronto in a new light, making it a fun addition to Toronto Beer Week.”

“Urban adventures test skill as much as determination, and this is an event that will appeal to adults with a broad range of ages, knowledge, and interests, so there is something for everyone,” adds Rachel Young, Co-founder of Camaraderie. “Team work and collaboration are definitely encouraged.”

Here’s their facebook page.

Fresh: A Movie About Good Farming

Last night I went to a screening of Fresh, hosted by the West End Food Co-op in a local park. Most movies made about food recently have dwelled on the fact that industrial farming is killing us – a bad thing no doubt about it. Here’s more on industrial farming.

The good thing about Fresh is that it establishes what’s wrong with farming quickly and succinctly then spends the rest of the film celebrating good farming that’s happening. It’s an inspiring film that will make you love fresh food, crop rotation, and help you see that we can escape the control of industrial farming operations.

Smoke Weed for Pain Relief

Smoking marijuana can make life better for those who suffer from chronic neuropathic pain. This new research from McGill University shows that even small amounts of THC can make a noted difference in chronic pain levels. The article also shows how difficult it is to do research on marijuana in today’s political climate, so good on the researchers for sticking to their science!

The finding comes from what researchers in Montreal believe to be the first outpatient clinical trial of smoked cannabis, involving 21 people with chronic neuropathic pain.

The results, which included improvements in mood and sleep, were published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
…

“Even with this kind of fixed dosing and limited exposure, we were able to show in a blinded fashion that the patients did obtain some analgesia, improvements in sleep quality and on one of the subscales of the quality-of-life measure, we found that the anxiety was mildly improved as well,” Ware said.

“This may help in developing policy, or improving policy, or improving doctors’ willingness to consider this as an approach when all else has failed.”

Side-effects — the euphoria associated with smoking pot — were “very, very rare,” Ware said.

“I think because the doses we used were very low,” he explained.

The Star has more

New Approach to Drugs in Toronto

Toronto has become the first city in the world to include harm reduction in its approach to drug use. At the very least this is a huge symbolic step forward for Canada (particularly since the regressive rulers in Ottawa are attempting failed Reagan-era dug policies) and for North America, since Toronto is the first government on the continent to endorse harm reduction.

The Vienna Declaration, which slams the criminalization of illicit drugs as a major factor fuelling HIV infection rates, came to the fore during this year’s AIDS conference. Its authors called on policy-makers around the world to refocus their approaches to illegal drugs and HIV-AIDS prevention – especially in light of new statistics that show HIV infection rates have climbed back to 1982 levels, largely thanks to infection in injection-drug users.

The declaration has thousands of prominent signatories – including doctors, epidemiologists and former heads of state, but few of the governments at whom it’s targeted. On Thursday, council passed a motion to endorse the declaration by a wide margin, 33 votes to 7.

Read more about it here.

If you’re in Toronto please vote for a mayoral candidate that supports caring about people so you can keep reading good things about your city.

A Well of Change

Well of Change is a website that encourages people to give more than money to organizations that need help. Their visions is to” create widespread systematic change that will revolutionize how people support the not-for-profit organizations they care about.” The site is run entirely by volunteers and they recently held an event at MaRS in Toronto.

“Who wants to learn yoga?” “I’ve got Indian cooking over here!” “Can you teach my kid how to play drums?” People ring out with their requests at this “Skills Drive” organized by social enterprise and MaRS client, Well of Change.

Well of Change is devoted to raising money not by tapping into people’s wallets, but by exploiting their skills and hobbies. At the beginning of the evening, participants network and brainstorm all the skills they have, whether borne of professional training or basement tinkering.

They then put a dollar value on their skills and participants bid on them: $40 for pilates lessons, $90 for a good carpet cleaning. The lesson takes place and the money goes straight to a charity of your choice. As a buyer, you’re paying for a service and as a skills provider you’re donating with your time instead of your money.

Read the rest of the article here.