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Author: Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

  • Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition executive director, awarded honourary doctorate from Adler University

    Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition executive director, awarded honourary doctorate from Adler University

    The award is the university’s first-ever honourary doctorate in Canada and recognizes the overdose and drug poisoning crisis as a critical human rights and social justice issue of our time

    VANCOUVER, BC—Donald MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and author of the seminal Four Pillars Drug Strategy, today received Adler University’s first-ever honourary doctorate in Canada. The university chose MacPherson for his pioneering work in drug policy reform, advocacy, and advancing the human rights and social inclusion of people who use substances.

    “Donald MacPherson exemplifies the social justice work that we pursue at Adler University,” said Joy MacPhail, Chair of the Board of Trustees at Adler University. “His cutting-edge efforts aim to improve public health and safety by reforming drug policies and by promoting the human rights of people who use substances. His work reminds us how much more needs to be done to address the overdose crisis and we hope our graduates are inspired by MacPherson’s advocacy to advance social justice throughout their careers.”

    The award is also a recognition of the tragic loss of life caused by the illicit, unregulated drug market—a product of our flawed drug policies—as a defining human rights and social justice issue of our time. “I am honoured to receive this award from Adler University and the acknowledgement that the work to change archaic and harmful public policies is one of the challenges of our times,” said MacPherson. “We are living through a time of catastrophic failure of the way we approach people who use criminalized drugs. Our systems are terribly broken and must be replaced.”

    In Canada, 12,813 people have died from opioid-related deaths between 2016 and March 2019. Life expectancy has failed to increase for the first time in over four decades; and in British Columbia, overdose death is now the largest major cause of unnatural death, outpacing accidental deaths from homicides, suicides, and car accidents combined. The provinces of Alberta and Ontario have also been especially hard hit, with Ontario last year recording a record number of fatalities from overdose.

    “We are living through a time of catastrophic failure of the way we approach people who use criminalized drugs. Our systems are terribly broken and must be replaced.”

    ~Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    MacPherson has been a guest lecturer for Adler University’s public policy and administration program. All Adler University graduate-level degree programs are strongly rooted in the principles of social justice and offer students hands-on learning experiences at more than 200 community partner organizations. Many students work at organizations that address the overdose crisis, providing mental health and other services.

    MacPherson is also an adjunct professor in Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, of which the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition is a part, and co-author of Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives (2009) and More Harm than Good: Drug Policy in Canada (2016). He is involved in drug policy work at a local, national, and international level and was North America’s first Drug Policy Coordinator at the City of Vancouver where he worked for 22 years. Full bio here.

    Contact

    Peter Kim
    Strategic Communications Manager
    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
    [email protected]
    604-787-4043

    Download PDF Version of Advisory

    – 30 –

    About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) is a coalition of 60 organizations and 7,000 individuals working to support the development of progressive drug policy grounded in science, guided by public health principles, and respectful of human rights. The CDPC operates as a project within Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. The CDPC seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving toward a healthier Canadian society free of stigma and social exclusion. www.drugpolicy.ca

    About Adler University

    Adler University is committed to improving individual and community health and well-being through positive social change. At the centre of downtown Vancouver, Adler University is an independent nonprofit institution of higher learning that offers graduate degree programs in psychology, counselling, and public policy. Established in 1952, Adler University has campuses in Vancouver, Chicago, and online. Adler University’s mission is to continue the pioneering work of Alfred Adler, the first community psychologist, by graduating socially responsible practitioners, engaging communities, and advancing social justice. www.adler.edu

  • A record number of people have died from overdose in Ontario, but do politicians care enough to act?

    A record number of people have died from overdose in Ontario, but do politicians care enough to act?

    (Interactive Graph)

    The answer to the headline’s question seems to be a resounding “no.” How else could one explain the catastrophic loss of life unfolding in Canada’s largest province. Nearly 1,500 people died in Ontario last year from accidental drug poisoning—a record number representing a two hundred per cent increase from a decade ago.

    Behind each number was a human being—a friend or family member with aspirations and dreams in life cut short because of Canada’s fatally flawed drug policies. Prohibition is the root cause of this crisis, not the drugs people take.

    And as communities continue to hemorrhage human lives, politicians with the power to enact life-saving change are failing to take the necessary steps that are proportional to the scale of this crisis: decriminalization and the legal regulation of drugs. It is considered too “politically risky” to embrace evidence-backed solutions people on the frontlines have been advocating since the beginning when those solutions run afoul of our outdated moral views on substance use.

    And as people die, the federal government refuses to declare a national public health emergency for what Gillian Kolla, a harm reduction worker and public health researcher at the University of Toronto, called “the largest health crisis of our generation.”

    A white tent behind a park sign
    Temporary overdose prevention site in Toronto, Ontario; 2017

    At this critical point in Canada’s history, where complacency is fueling death, it has largely been volunteer networks of community activists and people who use drugs who have shown the courage to do what is needed by setting up overdose prevention sites to save lives. Without this leadership and conviction the death toll would have been exponentially worse, yet this community is continually fighting for resources and support from a provincial government that shows tepid interest in evidence-backed solutions. Premier Doug Ford himself has publicly stated his opposition to supervised consumption sites.

    In this hostile climate, exhausted by grief and the wretched routineness of hearing about yet another fatal overdose, the frontline harm reduction community continues to save lives. Who else is there to do the work when much of society and government have turned their back on you?

    Government investment in harm reduction services and a commitment to peer-led initiatives have failed grow proportional to the dire need. Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada reveals a sharp increase in the presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues in Ontario’s drug supply; and at last check, almost 90% of fatal drug poisoning/overdose cases involved these substances.

    (Interactive Graph)

    This is a direct result of our current drug policies that rely on prohibition and criminalization of people who use drugs—a system founded on racism and colonialism whose legacy continues to disproportionately affect people of colour and Indigenous communities today.

    “The largest health crisis of our generation.”

    ~Gillian Kolla, University of Toronto

    What is especially tragic is that the fatal overdoses most deeply affect those in the prime of their lives: Ontarians between the ages of 25 and 44. Across Canada, nearly 13,000 people have died from opioid-related causes in approximately three years. Last year, one person died every two hours, and for the first time in over four decades, life expectancy at birth has stopped rising because of overdose.

    (Interactive Graph)

    This is a crisis unlike any Ontario has seen before. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) public health emergency in 2003 killed 44 people, yet mobilized hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding and captured media headlines for weeks. It is clear that with respect to overdose and drug poisoning the lack of appropriate action is fueled by stigma and the biases society holds towards substance use and people who use drugs. History will remember unkindly the collective apathy of those who had the power to enact life-saving changes in this catastrophe yet didn’t. The current inaction is not about a lack of government resources, but rather a lack of will.

  • OPEN LETTER: International Narcotics Control Board must call on the Sri Lankan authorities to halt imminent executions for drug-related offences

    OPEN LETTER: International Narcotics Control Board must call on the Sri Lankan authorities to halt imminent executions for drug-related offences

    HRI open letterDownload Open LetterHRI open letter

    “Executions for drug offences are prohibited under international human rights law, as drug offences do not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’ to which Article 6.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that capital punishment be restricted, in retentionist countries. The INCB has repeatedly called on states that retain the death penalty for drug offences to commute all existing death sentences, and to consider abolishing the death penalty altogether”

    Source: Human Rights International

  • OPEN LETTER: Calling on Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General to implement a public safety approach to policing

    OPEN LETTER: Calling on Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General to implement a public safety approach to policing

    Download Open Letter

    “Your ministry and the Province bear responsibility to ensure the health and safety of people who use drugs. People continue to die as a result of a toxic drug supply, and the crisis continues to be exacerbated by the criminal enforcement of low-level drug offences, such as possession for personal use, and lagging health services and supports.”

  • A Roadmap for Canada’s Drug Policy Future: The Peter Wall International Research Roundtable

    A Roadmap for Canada’s Drug Policy Future: The Peter Wall International Research Roundtable

    The first steps for systemic change are usually the hardest. But thanks to an international community of experts, including and especially those with lived expertise on the frontlines of Canada’s drug policy crisis, we’ve surmounted that hurdle.

    Last month, over 40 researchers, frontline advocates, policymakers, and other experts convened in Vancouver for the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies International Research Roundtable. The end vision of our collaboration is at once simple and dauntingly complex: to realize legal regulation of drugs in Canada to stem the tide of fatalities crippling communities across the country and end the ongoing harms of prohibition. A regulated legal supply of drugs would mean a safer supply of drugs to those who use them, elimination of the toxic drug market controlled by organized crime groups, and financial resources to invest in people who need access to health, housing, and social services.

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    A group of people are seated at circular tables arranged throughout a room. Two people, a man and a woman, are speaking and addressing the crowd at the front of the room.
    Peter Wall International Research Roundtable (April 2019)

    We began this task by tapping into the collective expertise and wisdom of the people in the room, workshopping ideas, brainstorming solutions, and refining tactics that will bring us to our end goal. It was just a start, but critical if we are to realize the systemic change Canada needs, where principles of human rights and public health that are informed by evidence guide policy decisions—not public sentiment and the moralization of behaviour.

    We as a collective began several important initiatives during our four days together:

    • developing a strategic road map—with concrete steps—for Canada to shift away from the policies of prohibition towards those that promote public health, human rights, and social inclusion based on the legal regulation of currently illegal substances;
    • outlining areas of further research to inform this strategy and identify regulatory models for the Canadian context;
    • outlining a knowledge translation strategy aimed at building momentum for policy change; and
    • identifying opportunities for international collaborations that will support our goals.
    Six people are standing in front of a banner posing for a picture.
    From left to right: Steve Rolles, Garth Mullins, Zara Snapp, Scott Bernstein, Suzanne Fraser, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

    Many important advocates and international experts generously offered their insight, and their involvement was critical in shaping the contours of important discussions over the four days:


    • Zoë Dodd, a passionate long-time human rights and harm reduction leader in Toronto who has for years stood on the frontlines of a grassroots lifesaving efforts
    • Steve Rolles, an expert in substances regulation from the UK who advised the Canadian government on its cannabis regulatory framework
    • Dr. Debra Meness, a skilled physician trained in both Western and traditional Ojibwe medicine from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinaabeg First Nation
    • Paul Salembier, a legal mind skilled at crafting laws and precise legal language that could save lives

    There were many, many more, and we thank them all.

    A large crowd is sitting in a theatre listening to a man on stage.
    Audience members during Peter Wall International Research Roundtable public event (April 2019)

    The Research Roundtable culminated in a public forum at SFU Woodward’s, Systems Change: Envisioning a Canada Beyond Prohibition, where activist and award-winning broadcaster Garth Mullins guided our imaginations toward a world where prohibition was a thing of the past. What would that world look like? What would it take to get us there?

    A panel of men and women sit on stage in front of a large screen displaying a promo slide of the event. To the left, a man is standing, talking to the crowd.
    Peter Wall International Research Roundtable public event (April 2019)

    The event was recorded as an episode of the Crackdown podcast and featured Akwasi Owusu-Bempah (University of Toronto); Steve Rolles (Transform Drug Policy Foundation, UK); Zara Snapp (Instituto RIA, Mexico); and Suzanne Fraser (Curtin University, Australia).

    There are mountains of evidence that the ill-conceived “war on drugs” (prohibition) has had significant negative impacts on individuals, families and communities around the world. Far from making citizens safer, prohibition and a criminal justice approach has spawned an illegal market flush with toxic drugs that kills indiscriminately (over 10,000 in Canada in the less than three years).

    Prohibition has also needlessly criminalized and ruined the lives of vulnerable people who should have never seen the inside of a jail cell. It forces individuals to turn to more dangerous methods of consumption and dissuades those who want help from accessing it. In short: it has been an abysmal failure.

    DONATE to Fund the Next Phase of our Legal Regulation Model

    (Interactive Graph)

    But one area of hope was a more clearly-defined path toward the future: creating regulatory models for opioids, stimulants, sedatives and psychedelics. Tapping into the collective knowledge in the room, we workshopped models of how four drugs might be available to consumers in a post-prohibition world, considering questions such as:

    • who might have access to drugs;
    • how would they access them;
    • how much can they get, and
    • where can they consume them.

    This focus group was only the first of what we anticipate will be up to 20 focus groups across Canada to gather feedback about what Canadians would imagine a legal system would look like. With the online platform we are developing, we hope to engage an additional 40,000 Canadians in these decisions over the next two years!

    Scott Bernstein, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition Director of Policy (April 2019)

    Politicians with the power to enact life-saving changes to drug policy have long argued that the lack of viable models for legal regulation were a barrier to action. This project will describe a way forward to legal regulation of all drugs and no longer will they have an excuse for inaction.

    Peter Wall International Research Roundtable breakout session (April 2019)

    Over the four days, we explored three themes in service of our mission to advance the legal regulation of all drugs in Canada: the regulation of opioids as a response to the overdose crisis; the impact of criminal justice policies on people who use drugs; and the intersections of drug policy and the social determinants of health, including poverty, housing, stigma, income, access to healthcare.

    It was from these vantage points the wealth of knowledge in the room surfaced solutions and strategies to make our shared vision a reality. The Roundtable engendered many important discussions over the four days.

    It is now time to turn words into action.

    The Peter Wall International Research Roundtable was supported by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Community Action Initiative, BCCDC Foundation for Public Health, and SFU Woodward’s.

  • Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition Executive Director, receives Lifetime Achievement Award

    Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition Executive Director, receives Lifetime Achievement Award

    Vancouver, BC—The BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) has awarded drug policy advocate, Donald MacPherson, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to public health, human rights, and drug policy reform. This honour recognizes a passionate and visionary health advocate who has made substantial contributions to the advancement of evidence-based approaches to substance use and addiction.

    “Donald has consistently put personal comfort aside to move drug policy forward, helping advance harm reduction and human rights for people who use drugs,” says Dr. Lindsey Richardson, who presented Donald with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BC Substance Use Conference, organized by the BCCSU.

    “Just as important as these accomplishments is how he approaches the people he works with as fulsome, complex humans, with hopes and dreams, and challenges and needs.”

    ~Dr. Lindsey Richardson, BCCSU

    The inaugural award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in health and health policy, and who have demonstrated an enduring personal commitment to the advancement of health equity. “It is a real honour to receive this award from the BCCSU. It’s quite humbling as there are so many others in British Columbia who have done so much to move us towards a point where we have no choice but to acknowledge our current policies based on criminalization, punishment, and prohibition have been a catastrophic failure,” said Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

    “It is time for a true public health and human rights response to drugs in this country.”

    ~Donald MacPherson, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    The Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to national or international leaders who actively participate in health advocacy and activities at a local, provincial, national, and international level.

    Contact

    Peter Kim
    Strategic Communications Manager
    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
    [email protected]
    604-787-4043

    Download PDF Version of Advisory

    – 30 –

    About Donald MacPherson

    Donald MacPherson is the Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and one of Canada’s leading figures in drug policy. He advocates drug policies based on principles of public health, scientific evidence, human rights, and social inclusion. He is involved in drug policy work at local, national, and international levels, and is a founding member of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Formerly, MacPherson was North America’s first Drug Policy Coordinator at the City of Vancouver where he worked for 22 years. He is the author of Vancouver’s ground-breaking Four Pillars Drug Strategy, which called for new approaches to drug problems based on public health principles and the appropriate regulation of all psychoactive substances. MacPherson is also co-author of Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives (2009) and More Harm than Good: Drug Policy in Canada (2016). In 2007, he received the Kaiser Foundation National Award of Excellence in Public Policy in Canada. In 2009, he was awarded the Richard Dennis Drug Peace Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Drug Policy Reform by the Drug Policy Alliance in the United States, and the City of Vancouver was awarded the Canadian Urban Institutes Secure City Award for the Four Pillars Drug Strategy. MacPherson also received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013 for his work in drug policy reform. In 2017, MacPherson was presented with the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy at Simon Fraser University.

    About the BC Substance Use Conference

    The BC Substance Use Conference 2019 is the first annual conference hosted by the BC Centre on Substance Use, bringing together key stakeholders from around the province to discuss provincial efforts to treat and care for people with substance use disorders. This three-day event included research, education, and clinical care guidance presentations and workshops across several topics within substance use, including opioid, alcohol, and cannabis use disorders.

    About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) is a coalition of 60 organizations and 7,000 individuals working to support the development of progressive drug policy grounded in science, guided by public health principles, and respectful of human rights. The CDPC operates as a project within Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. The CDPC seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving toward a healthier Canadian society free of stigma and social exclusion.

  • Public forum to look at models of legal regulation of drugs in Canada

    Public forum to look at models of legal regulation of drugs in Canada

    Going beyond decriminalization and envisioning a post-prohibition Canada where substances are legal and regulated

    What: Community forum featuring an international panel of experts on drug policy and experts with lived experience to debate how Canada can create a system of legal regulation of drugs grounded in social inclusion, human rights, and compassion. What would these systems look like? How would they be implemented? What broader impacts would they have?

    When: Wednesday, May 15, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

    Where: SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema (149 West Hastings St, Vancouver)

    Who: Panel will be moderated by award-winning broadcaster, activist, and member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Garth Mullins, and will include the following:

    • Zara Snapp, Co-founder, Instituto RIA (human rights/research organization proposing innovative solutions on drug policies) – Mexico
    • Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (played a role advising Canadian government on its cannabis regulation model) – United Kingdom
    • Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Professor, Sociology, University of Toronto – Canada
    • Suzanne Fraser, Professor, Public Health, Curtin University – Australia

    From left to right: Garth Mullins, Zara Snapp, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Steve Rolles, Suzanne Fraser

    Why: Current drug policies in Canada are a catastrophic failure. These policies have created a toxic drug supply that has killed more than 10,000 Canadians since 2016. Urgent action is needed to stem the tide of fatalities. Decriminalization, which health officials, doctors, and politicians, have openly supported, is a welcome step forward. And it’s imperative that we get at the heart of the crisis: the toxic drug supply.

    Legal regulation of drugs must be explored if we are to end the loss of life. This public forum will bring us one step closer to realizing this vision, relying on the insight of people with lived experience and international experts in the field of drug policy.

    Contact

    Peter Kim
    Strategic Communications Manager
    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
    [email protected]

    Emily Jenkins
    Assistant Professor
    UBC School of Nursing
    [email protected]

    Download PDF Version of Advisory

    – 30 –

    About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) is a coalition of 70 organizations and 3,000 individuals working to support the development of progressive drug policy grounded in science, guided by public health principles, and respectful of human rights. The CDPC operates as a project within Simon Fraser University under the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction. The CDPC seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving toward a healthier Canadian society free of stigma and social exclusion.

    Panelist Biographies

    Garth Mullins is a person who uses drugs, an activist, and an award-winning radio documentarian. He is the host and executive producer of the Crackdown Podcast, where drug users cover the drug war as war correspondents. This is Garth’s second overdose crisis. He used injection heroin for over a decade and is now on methadone. He is a member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and is also a trade union organizer and musician. (Photo credit: Rob Newell)

    Zara Snapp is the co-founder of Instituto RIA, board member of ReverdeSer Colectivo (Mexico), and the international advisor for Acción Técnica Social (Colombia). From 2014-2017, she formed part of the Secretariat of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, where she focused on the Latin American strategy and UNGASS 2016. As a Truman Scholar and Public Service Fellow, she received a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

    Steve Rolles is Senior Policy Analyst for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, a UK-based think tank and charity focused on drug policy and law reform. Steve has served as an adviser for the Global Commission on Drugs and the Uruguayan and Canadian governments in developing their cannabis regulation models. He has worked closely with The LOOP in the UK facilitating the roll-out of drug safety testing at festivals.

    Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, PhD (Toronto), is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Owusu-Bempah’s work focuses on the intersections of race, crime, and criminal justice, with a particular interest in the area of policing. He is currently studying various aspects of cannabis legalization in Canada and the United States. His research has recently been published in Policing and Society, Crime and Justice, and Theoretical Criminology.

    Suzanne Fraser is a professor of public health (Curtin University, Australia). She is program leader for the National Drug Research Institute’s Social Studies of Addiction Concepts Research Program and author of numerous books on the body and health in society and culture. Her most recent, Habits: Remaking Addiction, is co-authored with David Moore and Helen Keane. Suzanne’s main research projects at present are two Australian Research Council-funded studies. One is exploring injecting practices and harm reduction needs among men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs, and the other is investigating impediments to the uptake and diffusion in Australia of take-home naloxone, the opioid overdose medication known to save lives. This project will be used to create an online resource presenting accounts of overdose revival and take-home naloxone use, which will be linked to the internationally-praised website she built with colleagues on lived experiences of addiction, Livesofsubstance.org.

    (Event Sponsors)
    (Event Organizers)
  • National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis 2019

    National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis 2019

    Three years after a public health emergency was called in British Columbia, the need and urgency to end the drug war is more pressing than it has ever been. The Public Health Agency of Canada recently released a grim statistic: more than ten thousand people in Canada have died from fatal overdose in under three years.

    Members of Moms Stop the Harm are all too familiar with the pain of loss. They came to the National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis to remember their loved ones and fight for policy reform. At the heart of this crisis is a simple answer that remains painfully out of reach: a safe supply of drugs.

    Hundreds of people gathered at 10:30 a.m. outside of Insite, North America’s first sanctioned supervised injection site, for the National Day of Action. A band welcomed the crowd as people brought floats and carried signs.

    The tragedy touches all corners of society and attracted people from across the province. Similar events were happening in other provinces as well.

    (Interactive Map)

    The day was a national call for action. In 2017 alone, 4034 people died from fatal overdose across Canada.

    The drug war has been a catastrophic failure. Prohibition and criminalization have handed the global supply of drugs into the hands of highly organized, transnational criminal organizations where an insatiable drive for profit blinds them from the human toll. Drugs, now laced with fentanyl and its analogues, are ravaging communities with little regard for the safety of consumers.

    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition executive director Donald MacPherson addressed the media, echoing concerns around Canada’s fatal drug policies, which have created the current crisis, underscoring the need for a safe drug supply. The logic supporting this is so simple and strong, yet stigma born out of years of criminalization has shut down progress on this potentially powerful means to saving lives.

    After initial speeches outside of Insite by organizers and an opening performance by Culture Saves Lives, the massive crowd marched up Hastings Street, flanked by police and followed by media.

    They ended up at the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery where members of the community and their supporters spoke about the devastating toll of overdose deaths and unrelenting courage of people affected by the structural violence of prohibition.

    “We’re out there saving lives every day. We got a lot of power as people in the Downtown Eastside.”

    Malcolm (Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society)

    Despite the pain and grief etched on so many faces, there were strands of hope that connected people during the rally. Frontline workers, peers, and people who use drugs who have shouldered this crisis and life-saving responses including overdose prevention sites, supervised consumption services, naloxone distribution, and simply being there for people when needed, renewed a commitment to fight for their right to safety, security, and dignity.

    The fight continues; and so will we.

  • Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal Society successfully defend supervised consumption at Federal Court of Canada

    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal Society successfully defend supervised consumption at Federal Court of Canada

    The precedent-setting decision protects public health and harm reduction efforts from unnecessary barriers and interference from third parties

    Vancouver, BC – This week, the Honourable Justice Mosley released his decision on a judicial review application brought forward by Edmonton’s Chinatown and Area Business Association (CABA). CABA challenged the approval of three desperately-needed supervised consumption sites in downtown Edmonton, asserting that it was not adequately consulted in Health Canada’s decision to approve the services.

    In December 2018, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC), represented by Pivot Legal Society’s Caitlin Shane and Ethos Law Group’s Monique Pongracic-Speier (QC), intervened in the case, arguing that CABA and other third parties do not have a mandatory right to weigh in on the approval of consumption sites in Canada. Instead, public health and safety should be the principal concern of the government in considering applications, as this would best protect the Constitutional rights to safety and security for people who use drugs accessing life-saving services.

    Justice Mosley agreed with our arguments and dismissed CABA’s application, citing directly from our submissions. In his decision, he writes:

    “The process [to approve a supervised consumption site] is both discretionary and non-adjudicative. The principal and mandatory focus of the legislation is on the question of whether [approval] would provide public health benefits. Any consideration of negative impacts on the local community is secondary and discretionary.”

    “This is a precedent-setting decision helping people to save lives amid a national health crisis,” said Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. “Justice Mosley’s decision means that frontline healthcare providers wishing to offer life-saving supervised consumption services can do so without unnecessary delays. It restores public health as the key concern for approving these sites.”

    The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal Society argued that allowing community groups extraordinary consultation privileges would create new barriers to supervised consumption services. The Federal Court of Canada agreed, and the Constitutionally-protected right to health services for people who use drugs rightly took precedence. We are encouraged by the Court’s findings.

    Contact

    Peter Kim
    Strategic Communications Manager
    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
    [email protected]
    604-787-4043

    Download PDF Version of Media Release

    – 30 –

    About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) is a coalition of 60 organizations and 7,000 individuals working to support the development of progressive drug policy grounded in science, guided by public health principles, and respectful of human rights. The CDPC operates as a project within Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. The CDPC seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving toward a healthier Canadian society free of stigma and social exclusion.