Government-sanctioned and supported "supervised injection centers," where addicts can bring their illicitly obtained drugs and shoot up with little fear of arrest or a fatal overdose, have been in service in Europe for decades. There's only one in all of North America, though. It's in Canada -- a Vancouver, Canada, center called Insite. Research found that after the center opened in 2003 fatal drug overdoses decreased by 35% in the nearby community. Earlier this month Canadian officials authorized injection centers in Montreal, Toronto and other cities. [continues 688 words]
Opioid overdoses higher in South Zone than elsewhere in the province A Lethbridge coalition on opioid use is preparing an application to establish supervised drug consumption services in the city to reduce harm and help save lives. Supervised consumption services provide a clean, safe space for people who use drugs to do so under the supervision and care of health professionals without fear of arrest or overdose. They also provide access to support services such as counselling, education and treatment for drug addictions. [continues 1150 words]
With cannabis legalization on the horizon next year, the federal government must make it easier to study the potential medical benefits of the drug and evaluate how ending prohibition might affect society, according to an open letter to politicians from dozens of the country's leading academics and public-health researchers who study the drug. "Under widespread global prohibition, cannabis research has been limited by the criminalization and stigmatization of cannabis use and users, leading to substantial gaps in knowledge around the harms and benefits of both medical and non-medical cannabis," reads a letter sent Monday to federal lawmakers on the letterhead of the BC Centre on Substance Use, an organization funded by the provincial government to study drugs. [continues 517 words]
After years of lobbying for safe injection sites, outreach workers at Cactus Montreal have opened a facility that will allow people to use intravenous drugs under medical supervision. Drugs users began entering the site on Berger St. in downtown Montreal on Monday afternoon, injecting drugs in the presence of a nurse and staff member. "This is an important tool to reduce deaths and avoid infections," said Sandhia Vadlamudy, the executive director of Cactus. "We have been waiting for this for a long time." [continues 432 words]
'The new reality': Fentanyl test strips and naloxone kits are part of the mix Vancouver Island music festivals are stepping up harm-reduction measures with fentanyl test strips, more naloxone kits and outreach in light of B.C.'s drug overdose crisis. "If you're a festival organizer, it's imperative to have this on your radar. This is the new reality," said Emmalee Brunt, communications manager for the Tall Tree Music Festival. The festival takes place in Port Renfrew from June 23 to 26 and is expected to draw about 3,000 people. [continues 715 words]
"Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows, That too many people have died?" - Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind Beginning in 1993, Justice Horace Krever led a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the tainted-blood scandal in Canada. Inquiries were held in other countries. One of the key questions was why people with hemophilia were forced to continue to inject blood products that were not screened for HIV, when newer and safer products were already available. Criminal charges were laid in a number of settings. The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty to the crime of distributing a contaminated drug and made a large donation in exchange for six criminal charges being dropped. [continues 613 words]
At her office in the Downtown Eastside, Lorna Bird argued that Canada's drug laws actually hurt people a lot more than the drugs themselves. "I lost two daughters to the war on drugs," she told the Georgia Straight. The first one died of AIDS in 1994. Bird explained that at the time, Vancouver needle-exchange programs operated with a strict one-for-one requirement. That forced intravenous drug users to share dirty needles, spreading HIV. In 2008, another daughter died of an overdose. Bird maintained that if she had been able to purchase drugs legally, from a supply that was regulated and, therefore, clean, she would still be alive today. [continues 374 words]
European experts say facilities like Vancouver's Crosstown can save lives, money in battling opioid crisis Addiction experts from five European countries say their experience with prescription heroin programs have provided overwhelming evidence to suggest Canada should expand its one clinic to tackle the deadly opioid crisis. Researchers from the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Canada held a symposium in Vancouver on Friday to share lessons they've learned from multiple clinical trials and years of treatment. Wim van den Brink of the Netherlands told a news conference that some European programs started as a way to deal with the public nuisance of drug use but the medical health benefits improved people's quality of life and saved money in the criminal justice system. [continues 487 words]
The article Needles the cause, cure (May 23) postulates possible reasons for higher rates of HIV and hepatitis C virus in London. As an organization that advocates with and for people who inject drugs ( PWID), we note that, while unsafe injection practices may be a potential driver of these increased rates, it is probably not the only influence. There are multiple social and systemic influences that may not only contribute to the increase of disease, but also contribute to overall diminished health of those who inject drugs. [continues 404 words]
"'It's a try-and-die drug': Fentanyl is suspected in weekend overdose death" (SP, May 9) documents our cruel and ineffective drug policy. Overdose deaths are completely avoidable, as is the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C through drug use. These problems are caused by prohibition of drugs, not the drugs themselves. Drug policies other than prohibition have been tried, studied, and shown to have great success, if success means fewer addicts and far less crime and corruption. When prescription heroin was provided in Manchester, England, crime fell in some neighbourhoods by 80 per cent. [continues 98 words]
Ottawa broadens overdose-prevention program, approving three more locations for Vancouver region, one for Montreal The federal government has approved four more supervised-injection sites - three in the Vancouver region and one in Montreal - in its latest effort to combat an escalating overdose crisis across the country. The new round of approvals brings the number of federally sanctioned sites to nine, significantly expanding what was once a radical intervention limited to a single location in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Such facilities, run by local health agencies, allow users to consume illicit drugs in the presence of health workers who can intervene in the event of an overdose. [continues 585 words]
The article Needles the cause, cure (May 23) postulates possible reasons for higher rates of HIV and hepatitis C virus in London. As an organization that advocates with and for people who inject drugs (PWID), we note that, while unsafe injection practices may be a potential driver of these increased rates, it is probably not the only influence. There are multiple social and systemic influences that may not only contribute to the increase of disease, but also contribute to overall diminished health of those who inject drugs. [continues 404 words]
In a recent Canadian Public Health Association discussion paper, "A New Approach to Managing Illegal Psychoactive Substances in Canada," the point was made emphatically that our current approach to managing risk is not working. Here are some of its highlights: - - A psychoactive substance is a chemical that changes brain function and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness or behaviour. Societies mitigate the health, social, and economic consequences of the use and misuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, opioids, amphetamines, cocaine, tranquillizers and sleeping pills in a variety of ways with varying degrees of success. Their effects on population health, however, are often overshadowed by our fascination with the direct effects of substance misuse on individuals [e.g. recent rise in the opioid death rate due to adulteration of the drug supply with fentanyl and its analogues]. Currently, western societies manage illegal psychoactive substances largely through prohibition and criminalization and legal drugs, like tobacco and alcohol, through regulation, restricted availability and price control. The laws and systems initially introduced to control these substances reflected the times ! and prevalent issues of the day, but no longer reflect current scientific knowledge concerning substance-related harms to individuals, families, or communities. [continues 492 words]
With major marijuana changes in the air, Ted Smith says moment is right to bow out Ted Smith, Victoria's longtime cannabis crusader, is calling an end to his activist career. On Saturday, the 47-year-old got together with friends in Beacon Hill Park to offer thanks, share memories and, of course, enjoy a few joints. The time, 4:20 p.m. - once a release time from high school detentions - - was selected in remembrance of past misadventures with the rules. [continues 502 words]
Richard's rant is over. Richard Babcock, the tell-it-like-it-is AIDS activist who started the Okanagan's first compassion club, was penniless and living in a storage locker shortly before he died of pneumonia last month. He was 57. He chose to buy a vehicle instead of pay rent so he could get to his doctors' appointments, said his sister, Melody Kelly. As a young man in the '90s, Babcock visited prostitutes and used needles to inject the cocaine he craved. Soon after he was diagnosed with AIDS, he became clean and started advocating for others afflicted with the disease. He could be abrasive, but at his core he was "just another human being - not as self-centred or as ignorant as I was," he said in a 2005 interview. [continues 430 words]
In 2015, more Canadians were killed by opioid-related overdoses than lost their lives at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 1995, at the peak of that earlier public-health disaster, 1,764 Canadians were killed by the blood-borne virus. The latest estimates are that opioids claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Canadians in 2015. And all indications are that the death toll is rising, not falling. Part of the problem may have to do with this: Doctors are not just prescribing opioids, but prescribing them widely and liberally. For example, the number of prescriptions for opioids and their derivatives increased 5 per cent in Ontario over the three years ending 2015-16. Last year, Ontario doctors wrote 9.1 million orders for opioid painkillers. [continues 644 words]
Abuse of fentanyl, the highly addictive opioid pain medication, is taking a menacing toll across Canada. Opioid-related overdoses killed 1,400 Canadians last year. To label the situation a coast-to-coast crisis is a massive understatement. Fentanyl can be found in knock-off prescription painkillers, in party drugs and even in cocaine. The fact that other drugs are being laced with fentanyl means that drug users often haven't actively sought out the "thrill" of fentanyl and don't even realize what they've done until it's too late. [continues 675 words]
Drug use in jail is a reality and reducing harm is vital, say Richard Elliott and Rick Lines. Almost one-third of federal prisoners reported using drugs during the past six months. In December 2016, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott committed her government to a new national drug strategy that reinstates harm reduction as a non-negotiable pillar. It was a welcome announcement, signalling a modest shift away from the last decade's emphasis on prohibition and punishment - policies that continue to kill people who use drugs in Canada. [continues 590 words]
Cannabis has been identified as a potential substitute for users of legal or illicit opioids, but a new Vancouver-based study shows the drug may also help reduce people's cravings for another highly addictive substance: crack cocaine. Scientists at the BC Centre on Substance Use tracked 122 people who consumed crack in and around Vancouver's Downtown Eastside over a three-year period and found they reported using that drug less frequently when they opted to also consume cannabis. "We're not saying that these results mean everyone will be able to smoke a joint and forget the fact that they are dependent on crack," said M.J. Milloy, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the centre and senior author of the study. "What our findings do suggest is that cannabinoids might play a role in reducing the harms of crack use for some people. [continues 476 words]
Study finds cannabis can be used to help crack addicts Marijuana could be used to treat people suffering from addictions to crack cocaine, according to a new study from the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU). Dr. M-J Milloy, a research scientist at the BCCSU, told Metro that his team has seen "significant declines" in daily crack-cocaine use among a cohort of 122 Vancouver-area people with addictions who reported substituting the drug with cannabis. Approximately 35 per cent of the people interviewed initially told researchers they would use crack cocaine daily. [continues 369 words]
