What's the media's role in the psychedelic renaissance?
Sofie Mikhaylova
One brisk November 1938 afternoon in Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hofmann successfully synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide for the first time. The compound was set aside and forgotten for five years until Hofmann resynthesized it, accidentally absorbed some, and took the world’s first acid trip. The discovery of acid, or LSD, changed the course of social […] More »
Travel can be nearly impossible for Canadians who take methadone
Mikaela Toone
Charlotte Munro and her mom smiled for a selfie high above the frothy water of Niagara Falls. Amidst a difficult year where Munro endured both opioid withdrawal and a near-deadly infection, the weekend trip should have been a respite. But the getaway quickly turned sour because she was forced to forgo packing one essential item—her medication. […] More »
In Montreal, harm reduction groups push for decriminalization
Madison McLauchlan
A pride flag flaps defiantly in the wind above a welcoming front porch. A basket of free naloxone kits hangs on the front door. On the wall upstairs, a poster reads “Activities to avoid dying sad/to make you happy” and lists acupuncture, bowling, and picnics. This is the home of Dopamine Montréal. Just like its […] More »
Maybe you remember Zora. I used to see her on St. Laurent selling jewellery and T-shirts and scraps of paper scribbled with art. In and out of bars and cafés, always alone, a storming shadow. Our eyes met once and I smiled. She stared, walked on. So, when I saw her on Sunday, sitting in […] More »
There are few things left that I can still derive joy from, the night bus being one of them. Whenever I can’t sleep and feel terrible about the state of all things—which is often—I remember that I can just walk out of my apartment in the middle of the night and wait at the […] More »
If others don't notice my stutter, can I really call myself a stutterer at all?
Isabel Armiento
I was walking home from the grocery store when a well-dressed man politely stopped me to ask for directions. “Could you tell me which way to Bloor and…” He struggled to get the next word out, a pained expression on his face, but I knew better than to try to finish his sentence for him. […] More »
AI art can be fun to generate, but that doesn’t mean it’s ethical
Sarah Samuel
A picture may not be worth a thousand words anymore. Generative AI art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which rely on artists’ existing work to generate images through textual prompts, became available to the public last year. Since then, conversations about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will render creative jobs obsolete have gripped many […] More »
Incarcerated people in Canada are often without access to information. Prison librarians are working to change that
Leslie Sinclair
“I still remember everything about it,” Zakaria Amara says, sketching the library inside Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison located in Bath, Ontario. He maps the librarian’s glass office inside the door from a controlled-movement hallway. An inspirational sign about reading hangs on the wall (he can’t recall what it says exactly). Next, the law […] More »
Canada has made changes to be less discriminatory toward queer blood donors, but is it enough?
Maddy Mahoney
Photo by Dieter Meyrl Last spring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and six other suited-up politicians held a press conference announcing a long-awaited change to Canada’s blood donation system. Given that the change they were making—eliminating the blood donor screening question that deferred men who’d had sex with other men in the last three months—was really […] More »
Are you always on top of the Canadian news cycle? Are you well-versed on a wide variety of news topics? Are you always looking for progressive topics and angles? Are you enthusiastic about independent publishing? If so, we want you! This Magazine is looking for a News Editor! Our News Editor is responsible for overseeing […] More »
Illustration by Brintha Koneshachandra Dear Mom, The other day, I was making us breakfast and I reached into the fridge to grab the container of yogurt to eat with our puri. Now, you would think, having done essentially this every weekend of my entire life, I would not screech, “Ugh! Mom, where is the yogurt?! […] More »