Former Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital superintendent Wu Kang-wen (
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
PETITION DRIVE: A proposal to allow the use of medical cannabis has collected more than 5,000 signatures on the Public Policy Network Participation Platform Regardless of whether the government permits medical cannabis, the drug’s status as a category 2 drug would not be changed, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said on Saturday after a petition calling for medicinal cannabis to be allowed gained more signatures. A proposal on the National Development Council’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform has collected more than 5,000 signatures, exceeding the threshold needed for the proposal to be considered by the government. The public must understand that the only difference between narcotics and drugs is whether they are used in a legal manner, the ministry said. Using morphine, a category 1 narcotic, as
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT: ’Ordering the businesses to suspend operations was easy, but no one wants to take the responsibility for reopening them,’ the mayor said The Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) instruction that local governments can decide whether hostess clubs and dance halls can reopen is a typical example of the central government’s unwillingness to take responsibility, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday. Ko made the remark in response to media queries on the sidelines of a blessing ceremony held at Taipei’s Sung Shan Tsu Huei Temple (松山慈惠堂) yesterday morning. The CECC on April 9 ordered all hostess clubs and dance halls to suspend operations after a case of locally transmitted COVID-19 involving a hostess in northern Taiwan was confirmed the day before. Minister of Health and
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members are calling for KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) to “lead the charge” by joining a possible mayoral by-election amid a bleak outlook for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) in a recall vote scheduled for June 6, party sources said on Saturday. If Han of the KMT is recalled — which would trigger a mayoral by-election — it would deal a serious blow to the party, in which case a strong mayoral candidate would be needed to shield the party from further damage, a KMT legislator said on condition of anonymity. If the party’s candidate in a mayoral
MORE BASEBALL FANS: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said that the CECC is considering allowing up to 2,000 spectators at CPBL baseball games No new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday, marking the 27th consecutive day without new domestic cases in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. CECC specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said that 66,460 suspected cases have been reported from Jan. 15 to Thursday, and 440 have tested positive for the disease. Among the infected patients, 308 (70 percent) were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, 96 (21.8 percent) had pneumonia and 36 (8.2 percent) had serious pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome, he said. A total of 361 patients (82 percent) have left isolation after testing negative three consecutive
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