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TODAY:

It seems there's a new weapon of choice for Canadian criminals — bear spray

Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto caught in limbo in U.S. immigration detention

How we can take care of people who need help to break addictions to powerful painkillers

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Bear spray spree

There's a new weapon of choice for some Canadian criminals — bear spray.

Police in Thunder Bay, Ont., issued a plea Wednesday for the public's help in solving an unprovoked attack with the extra-hot capsaicin aerosol. A 21-year-old man was driving slowly down one of the city's main drags at 2:30 a.m. with his car windows open when a stranger approached him and sprayed him in the face.

Bear spray is sold at retail stores in Canada, and it's available for as little as $39 a can. The victim managed to drive away and then stopped to call 911. Paramedics treated him on the scene and then transported him to hospital.

There have been close to a dozen other such incidents across the country in recent weeks:

The noxious substance was used in a home invasion in Laval, north of Montreal, in March.

And in Vancouver, in early January, a man pepper-sprayed a group of Syrian refugees, at a Muslim Community Centre event that was designed to welcome them to Canada.

In November and December, police in and around Calgary contended with a series of attacks and robberies, including a spraying inside a washroom at a junior high school.

Surveillance video captured a robbery suspect using bear spray on an employee at a store in Okotoks, Alta., in November 2017. (Glenn Kiddle/Big Rock Communications Ltd.) In Prince Albert, Sask., the chili-pepper-derived aerosol has long been a favoured weapon of street gangs , with 117 incidents in 2015 — leading to just two charges — and 83 such attacks in 2016.

Bear spray — like the animals themselves — is ubiquitous in many parts of Canada, available for as little as $39 a can from outdoor stores.

And it is perfectly legal — provided that you use it against animals.

Devices that deploy a liquid, spray, powder, gas, or any other substance "for the purpose of injuring, immobilizing or otherwise incapacitating any person" are classified as prohibited weapons under the Criminal Code.

Federal government statistics don't provide a specific breakdown for offences related to bear or pepper spray, but in 2016 police departments across Canada reported 12,487 "possession of weapons" incidents and charged 7,512 individuals.

Adrienne Arsenault on assignment

Adrienne Arsenault travelled to Texas to investigate the story of Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto, who is being held along with his son in immigration detention in El Paso after seeking U.S. asylum.

If the light catches it at a certain angle, the little statue in immigration lawyer Carlos Spector's El Paso office is a blinder of a beacon.

It's of Mexican political hero Benito Juarez. He was a man of poor, rural roots who became a lawyer and Mexico's first Indigenous president. He's a hero to many and forever a symbol of Mexican nationalism.

And his head is now outrageously shiny.

The statue on the desk of U.S. immigration lawyer Carlos Spector depicts Benito Juarez, Mexico's first Indigenous president, who is considered a kind of patron figure for the nation's people. (Adrienne Arsenault/CBC) That's because people have been hopefully, and with no small amount of futility, rubbing the statue's head for good luck for decades.

Spector has a ritual with this statue. He runs his thumb across the forehead when he heads out of the office, "Because I'm getting ready to go into battle and face denial and rejection and abuse by the courts and immigration offices. And it takes a toll on your soul to lose every day."

For 30 years, Spector has been fighting for the rights of those seeking asylum in the U.S. He reasons he can only last another few years. Looking back is exhausting and depressing.

"Politically, the process is retarded," he said in his dizzyingly hot office, the fan above his head offering more noise than relief. "We're back to where immigration law and protection was in the '20s and '30s."

Lawyer Carlos Spector says U.S. immigration law has regressed 'back to where immigration law and protection was in the '20s and '30s.' (Adrienne Arsenault/CBC) Spector recounts a story that happened in May, where people who were speaking Spanish in a store near the Canadian border were picked up by border patrol officers who overheard them. He doesn't have many other details at hand, because, he says, this isn't the first or the worst of what is happening. It's just the soundtrack of his days.

We were meeting to talk about the fate of Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto. He is in immigration detention in El Paso, Texas, with his 25-year-old son Oscar. They are being held while his decade-long case for asylum is grinding through the courts.

Emilio, a journalist, had applied for asylum in the U.S. after writing about Mexican corruption on the part of the government and the military. That's a dangerous thing to do, and when the military raided his house one night in revenge, he ran.

Journalist Emilio Gutierrez-Soto, centre, and his son Oscar during an interview with CBC's Adrienne Arsenault in a small meeting area in the El Paso Processing Centre, a U.S. immigration detention facility. (Carmen Merrifield/CBC) To write about Mexican corruption is important and noble — and deadly. At least a dozen Mexican journalists have been killed in the past year. Some were already under what is considered a "protection program" run by the government.

It seems to be that in name only. Were Gutiérrez-Soto to be deported, Spector is clear: "He's dead."

It's more than the story of this one man that horrifies Spector. He is astonished by what is happening on the border and he thinks the U.S. President is failing to understand something fundamental about why people are crossing over from Mexico.

"You have to help those countries develop strong democratic institutions and develop a system of accountability. Then people will stay."

Spector argues the level of repression in Mexico against journalists, alongside the U.S. response of denying asylum to those like Gutiérrez-Soto, has had a chilling effect on free press in Mexico. And if people cannot feel as if they have a place to take their fears and grievances and whistleblowing, then they have no safety.

Fleeing becomes the only way out.

Certainly for Gutiérrez-Soto, there is no way out of a terrible limbo. Mexico would mean death, but immigration detention with no end in sight isn't life either.

WATCH: Adrienne Arsenault's feature on Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto tonight on The National on CBC Television and streamed online

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Prescription addiction - w hen numbers become human

Tara Carman on the human side of the prescription drugs investigation she and Vik Adhopia have been reporting on this week.

When Vik Adhopia and I started our investigation into Canada's missing prescription drugs, we weren't sure where it would take us.

We crunched all the numbers around what went missing and why, but for me the question became who's using these drugs.

What we found was a lot of people who are in pain.

They had been prescribed opioids, become addicted, and were then cut off by doctors.

A memorial to those who have died of drug overdoses in an alley off East Hastings Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. (Craig Chivers/CBC News) Vik's story on The National tonight features one such story — the mother of a young man who started taking painkillers after his wisdom teeth were extracted. The National tonight features one such story — the mother of a young man who started taking painkillers after his wisdom teeth were extracted.

He became addicted and his doctor wouldn't continue prescribing. So he turned to dangerous street sources and died of an overdose.

I heard similar stories in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, a place where some of those whose addictions started with prescription painkillers ultimately end up. Sadly, it's a common theme there.

As a result, an important part of The National's report became how we can best take care of people who need support to get off these incredibly powerful drugs.

WATCH: Vik Adhopia's story on the people affected by Canada's problem with addictions to prescription drugs, tonight on The National on CBC Television and streamed online

READ: Tara Carman's feature on CBCNews.ca

Here's last night's story from The National on the missing prescription drug problem in Canada:

Lost and stolen controlled drugs are ending up on Canada's streets, and it's becoming a bigger problem across the country. CBC News looks at how these drugs are disappearing and the impact its having on Canadians. 8:03

Quote of the moment

"Europe has many challenges, but that of migration could determine the fate of the European Union."

- German Chancellor Angela Merkel warns her parliament that the EU is facing a make-or-break moment as populist politicians — including members of her own coalition — push for tough new border measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a government declaration on Thursday at the Bundestag in Berlin. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

What The National is reading

Putin, Trump will hold first summit in Helsinki on July 16 ( CBC)

CBC) German man suspected of killing 21 co-workers by poisoning their food ( Deutsche Welle)

Deutsche Welle) Heat wave could force changes to Parliament Hill Canada Day show ( CBC)

CBC) U.S. tariffs hit mills making steel for new Canadian naval vessels ( National Post)

National Post) Will an alleged war criminal become president of Myanmar? ( Asia Times)

Asia Times) Fire rips through central Nairobi, killing 15 ( CBC)

CBC) 'Unbearable' smelling airline passenger causes emergency landing, dies of tissue necrosis ( Fox News)

Fox News) Elon Musk accused of stealing farting unicorn image ( BBC)

Today in history

June 28, 1981: Terry Fox Dies

Shortly before 5 a.m., a month before his 23rd birthday, Terry Fox passes away in a hospital in New Westminster, B.C. "Terry has completed the last kilometre of his marathon," says a tearful Alison Sinson, the deputy director of nursing. "He died surrounded by love — the love of his family … and the love and prayers of an entire nation."

One month before his 23rd birthday, Terry Fox passes away in a B.C. hospital.. 2:23

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