Author: Donald MacPherson

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Last week, for the National Day of Action for the Overdose Crisis, we marched with 922 feathers, one for every life lost in BC in 2016. Our Executive Director, Donald MacPherson, vividly recalls being in the same place 20 years before for the same reason at Oppenheimer park with 1,000 crosses and his friend Bud Osborn.

Two weeks ago, we hosted an event, convening those from across Canada actively working on establishing supervised consumption services in their communities. The event was opened with a poem. When the poem was read, it stirred a committed sense of determination in the room, fuelled by the shared and extended duration of suffering from the loss of so many lives to accidental drug overdoses.

The poem was written by the late Bud Osborn, who passed away in 2014.

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the fight for insite

began in a political/rhetorical atmosphere

of depraved indifference

regarding overdose deaths and pandemic emergency

horrifying ghosts of human beings

calling radio talk shows and actually telling me:

“why don’t they just string barbed-wire

around the downtown eastside

and let them infect each other to death?”

or

“the only good junkie is a dead junkie”

comments like those heard in nazi germany

I remember one welfare week

eleven years ago

sirens screamed lights flashed red and white

all day all night

one hot afternoon that same week

I met a friend of mine

on the corner of cordova and main

she’s a first nations woman and activist

who told me when i asked

how she was

that her family was gathering

to make another crucial decision

her cousin had fixed alone Wednesday evening

in a sro room

and when her husband returned

found her dead on the floor

he made a noose

with a long piece of cloth   hanged himself

and soon was dead

and because the couple had an infant son

the family was gathering

to determine the best disposition

for the suddenly orphaned child

and this entire unjust and tragic situation

might well never have happened

if insite was open

but as my friend and I were saying goodbye

a flame burst inside me

fuelled by grief and rage

like a fierce spontaneous combustion

flashing up through my nervous system

and roared in my head like a psychic explosion

because of another

because of too many

because of an unnecessary

overdose death

yelled

two words repetitively in my head

no more! no more! no more!

of this heart-breaking family-shattering community-diminishing

pain     of overdose deaths

I immediately ran from that conversation

to see mark and liz and kirsten at the old portland hotel

and with dave diewert ann livingston

and several others

planned a day of action

we pounded 1,000 crosses into oppenheimer park

blocked main and hastings with a heavy chain

and distributed statistics of misery

to commuters unable to get to work

1,000 crosses memorializing just three years of overdose deaths

a cross is a symbol of political execution

a cross is a symbol for social revolution

and form that afternoon

the battle to save lives was declared

the battle to save the lives of those

so many other wanted to die

and from that afternoon

to insite’s opening

we’ve never ceased in our efforts

to save lives and bring peace

because everyone     suffers

when compassion is undone

insite vigil poem by the late Bud Osborn
an excerpt from the book Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives
co-authored by Donald MacPherson, Susan Boyd and Bud Osborn

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Raffi Balian passed away on February 16, 2017

Raffi was one of the founding members of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC). He was very excited that the founding group was starting an organization that was national in scope and was prepared to advocate strongly for harm reduction, decriminalization of drugs and ultimately regulation.

Raffi always brought such a depth of knowledge to our discussions gained from his own experience and his work over the years with people who used drugs. He clearly understood what it was like to live in the shadows, in a world where the substances that one was using were criminalized and stigmatized. He was always one of the first to identify what the unintended consequences and harms of drug policies would be on the people on the ground. He was a member of the CDPC policy committee and was so appreciative of a place where people came together to talk about drug policies and their impact on people who used drugs. Raffi brought his deep knowledge and commitment to many consultations over the years, often articulating perspectives that opened up new ideas for health authorities to consider when designing harm reduction programs.

Raffi was a significant figure in the landscape of Canadian drug policy and he will be sorely missed by all of us.

-Donald MacPherson

 

Raffi Balian Memorial February 2017

As 2016 comes to a close, we reflect on the tragedy that continues to unfold in Canada; the unprecedented numbers of deaths from drug overdoses this year. At CDPC, we are taking a moment with you, our supporters, to acknowledge the devastating impact that this is having on families and communities across the country. We are grieving with those of you who have lost loved ones. And we acknowledge that this tragedy will have a lasting effect on all of us. We want to remember those vital members of our communities who will not see 2017.

As we move into 2017, we encourage you to get involved in your community to help turn this situation around. Because it is hard to know how to help, below are actions we encourage.

Ways to help:

• Reach out to your local governments and health authorities; demand to see how they are working together with the community on overdose prevention and response plans;
• Donate time, dollars, materials, and other types of support to your local harm reduction organizations at the street level;
• Advocate for the immediate access to regulated opioids for people who use drugs – the illegal market is toxic;
• Advocate for the immediate and robust expansion of opioid assisted treatment programs such as heroin assisted treatment, access to hydromorphone, suboxone and methadone treatment;
• Write your MP calling for the decriminalization of people who use drugs and the regulation of all illegal drugs to end the illegal market once and for all.

There are many organizations across the country working day and night to end this nightmare. You can help by supporting their efforts. We have listed a few of them below.

Edmonton – Streetworks 

Victoria – Yes to Supervised Consumption Services

Vancouver – Overdose Prevention Society 

Vancouver – PHS Community Services Society

If you wish to support the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and our efforts to develop new policy options for drugs in Canada you can donate here.

Please support your local harm reduction projects and first responders’ efforts to keep people safe, alive and looking forward to a chance to change in 2017.

We realize that systemic changes need to be made to ensure this never happens again, that our drug policies need to protect us better, but at this moment in 2016, we want to honour those on the front lines fighting to save lives in our communities.

For first responders – we take our hats off to you. Whether you’re a member of an organization of people who use drugs across the country who are on the front lines of harm reduction, a family member devastated by loss but vigorously advocating for changes to our health responses and drug policies, a volunteer in a local harm reduction program or pop-up safe consumption site in a back alley, an overworked para-medic, fire fighter, or police officer on the streets responding to the overwhelming volume of emergency calls, a nurse or doctor attempting to save a life in an emergency ward or one of thousands of people working in front line services across the country struggling to keep up, we thank you for your tireless efforts.

For everyone working to improve Canada’s approach to drugs, we thank you for your work this year. The forward movement that we have seen in 2016 has been overshadowed by the disaster unfolding in many of our communities as people succumb to overdose in unheard of numbers. If we are not working together yet, we invite you to be in touch. We need to come together now more than ever.

Former BC Chief Coroner Vince Cain, in his report on British Colombia’s opioid overdose catastrophe in the nineties, conducted a thorough analysis of the problem we were facing then. Among other things he was very clear that the overdose problem needed public health and social responses, not criminal justice responses and that drug policies needed to be reviewed. He even called for a commission to do the work. Twenty-two years later we are still waiting for that review. Read his report and weep. Weep for the lives lost to the continuing failure to radically change our approach to drugs in this country. We must stop criminalizing people who use drugs and work towards regulating all psychoactive substances in the name of consumer protection. To do otherwise is clearly to repeat the disasters of the past.

Here is his prescient report released in 1994 that called for decriminalization and clinical prescribing of heroin so help stem the overdose crisis.

Excerpt:

“By far the most controversial part of the report will be Chapter VIII, on Legalization and Decriminalization. Legalization is a huge issue which, while the drug problem is largely here, does not have a unique British Columbian solution. It is bigger than Canada, indeed bigger than North America. It is international in scope and in law. Canadian laws and United Nations conventions control this matter, but that ought not detract from the reality of the situation in British Columbia. We have the problem, and we must do what we can about it, now. Consequently, I am recommending the establishment of a commission to examine and challenge those legal aspects of the problem, amongst so many other things. The problem must be looked at with regard to not only the aspect of deaths form heroin and cocaine, but rather the entire smorgasbord of available illicit narcotics, both so-called “soft” and “hard” drugs.

Simultaneously, I am recommending the decriminalization of simple possession of specific “soft and “hard” drugs, the specificity to be left to the experts on that commission. We have a serious problem and I submit that those directly affected ought to be dealt with through a medical model, not a criminal model, even to the point where I am suggesting the possibility of providing heroin to seriously addicted people, in a para-medical model. One material reason for this would be to reduce the demand from the street trafficker, replacing it through the clinic, not unlike the current situation with methadone.”
Page VI – Report of the Task Force into Illicit and Narcotic Overdose Deaths in British Columbia – Office of the Chief of Coroner

Download Cain’s Report, 1994

(seulement en anglais)

Katrina Pacey is the executive director of the Pivot Legal Society. Donald MacPherson is the executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

The flurry of new initiatives introduced by the federal government signals a major philosophical shift on drug policy issues.

First, Health Minister Jane Philpott approved the Dr. Peter Centre’s application to continue operating a supervised injection site in Vancouver, giving hope that similar sites in other parts of the country might also be welcomed by the government. Then, Minister Philpott visited Insite, Vancouver’s other supervised injection facility, which she described as “having a huge impact on people” and “incredibly moving.” That was closely followed by news that Health Canada would fast-track the process of changing the status of naloxone to a non-prescription drug, making it easier to access this life-saving medication that’s administered during overdoses.

Together, these measures not only provide a desperately needed expansion of this country’s harm-reduction initiatives that are needed to address the drug overdoses plaguing our communities, they also represent a shift toward a drug policy that puts people’s lives first.

The Harper government viewed illicit drug use as a criminal justice matter, a perspective that consistently led to punitive and stigmatizing measures being taken against people who use illegal drugs. The new government, on the other hand, has started to shift Canada’s drug policy towards a public health and harm reduction approach, which is grounded in scientific evidence and human rights. This shift was further reinforced when, this week, the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna articulated the government’s commitment to advance evidence-based policies in considering all drug policy initiatives.

Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia have all reported staggering increases in the number of overdoses and overdose-related deaths over the past two years. These increases can be linked directly to a steady rise in the availability of fentanyl, an opiate drug regularly passed off as heroin by street dealers, but dangerously more potent.

The statistics lay bare what public health officials have known for some time: we are in the midst of an epidemic. Instead of ignoring this national health crisis as the previous government did, however, the federal Liberals appear to be open to solutions, including ending the proliferation of new laws that punish drug users and create barriers to health services meant to support them.

Another promising initiative is a Liberal MP’s private member’s bill that would grant amnesty to those reporting an overdose. Fear of prosecution has proven to be a barrier for people to call for help when they are with someone who’s having an overdose. Only 46 per cent of respondents to a Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council survey said they would call 911 during an overdose situation. Seconds matter in these cases and saving a life shouldn’t be weighed against facing a potential drug possession charge. Granting amnesty to Good Samaritans is a simple answer. The Liberals should move to pass this bill as quickly as possible.

Measures like the ones the federal government has introduced to date have their limits, however. They don’t stem the tide of dangerous, unregulated drugs that are readily available on our streets, nor do they address the myriad of reasons why people consume drugs in the first place.

Larger — and, importantly, more impactful — solutions are still necessary, including reversing dozens of mandatory minimum sentence laws related to drug use and repealing The Respect for Communities Act, which was introduced by the Conservatives as a means of creating barriers to opening supervised drug consumption facilities.

Innovative, scientifically proven substitution therapies to address the harms caused by addiction to illicit substances should also be encouraged. This includes clearing the way for physicians to offer heroin-assisted treatment in cases where methadone maintenance treatment has failed.

When we recognize that all substance use is a public health issue, not a law enforcement issue, the blueprint for the way forward is to ensure that Canada’s drug policies are based on the best available evidence and aligned with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.