Nicola Jones

The New York Times wanted to know if it's a good idea to give CBD oil (the non-high cousin of THC in cannabis) to kids... and so did I. So here's a feature about that. I was quite surprised to see the relatively good hints that it might be a good idea for not just seizure sufferers but also, maybe, autism spectrum disorders. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/parenting/cbd-oil-children.html It's also worth noting that this is one of the first times that Facebook groups have been an invaluable resource for sources and stories... there is quite an unbelievable amount of online chatter on Facebook regarding giving kids CBD.

I headed out around Pemberton on Easter weekend to see if our little tourist town was being over-run by tourists or not. My story for the Tyee: https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/04/22/Tourist-Towns-Cracks/ The origin for this story was intense chatter on Facebook, with some people obviously very concerned about tourism, and others upset by the dramatic reactions (ie swearing, yelling...) of some people to others who they perceived (often wrongly) to be tourists. What is/was acceptable? As a local I wasn't even sure if I should be taking my kids kayaking, or going for a bike ride... the lines aren't clear.

My good friend and colleague Lesley Ogden was throwing around some numbers in emails about ventilator capacity in BC hospitals, and the Tyee was interested in creating some sort of map of that. I was floundering around trying to work out if/who might be a possible source of such information (and dreading calling hospital to hospital, reaching people who were obviously too busy to speak to me and may or may not want to release numbers anyway, let alone numbers that would be strictly comparable between facilities), when the government went and did it for us. They released this excellent report on ICU beds and ventilator numbers which, while subject to a lot of possible change, painted a reasonable picture of what's available and how things might go. The wonderful art crew at Hakai magazine did the rest (Hakai and the Tyee have teamed up for the pandemic): https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/04/02/COVID-BC-Hospitals-Mapped/