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Category: Advocacy

  • Talking Drug Policy at the Holiday Dinner Table

    Talking Drug Policy at the Holiday Dinner Table

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    Tips for a Tricky Topic

    1. Know Your Audience
      • Is Grandpa firmly set in his views? Or is he open to hearing new ideas? Understanding whether the person you’re speaking with is curious, uncertain, or defensive can help guide your approach.
    2. Shift Your Goal
      • Think of each conversation as an opportunity to plant a seed of curiosity. It is unlikely that someone will change their perspective in a single exchange, but it is possible to create a bit of space to consider other perspectives.
      • How can you create a learning environment, rather than a debate? Shift your focus from winning the conversation to fostering a thoughtful exchange.
    3. Connect on Shared Values
      • Look for something you can agree with, no matter how small. No one wants to feel disrespected or dismissed.
      • Even if someone expresses a belief or assumption you don’t agree with, is there a value, a concern, or a need behind it that you do? Highlighting that commonality can help pave the way for a more respectful and productive conversation.
    4. Answer Briefly and Factually
      • Instead of getting drawn into a heated back-and-forth over misinformation, calmly correct inaccuracies with clear, fact-based information.
      • Keep your response brief and pivot back to the larger conversation you want to have.
    5. Pivot to What’s Important
      • After addressing the facts, steer the conversation toward what matters most to you: the values, the impact, and the real-world consequences of drug policies.
      • Focus on what’s at stake and the changes that could lead to a more just and compassionate approach.
    6. Know When to Step Back
      • Sometimes, the best way to ensure a conversation stays on track is knowing when to wrap things up. Remember, your goal is to plant a seed of curiosity and create a learning environment.
      • Pause and revisit the discussion another time—especially if things have become unproductive.

    Now, how about some of that pie?

  • Canadian Drug Policy Coalition/ Doalition canadienne des politiques sur les drogues

    One year of decriminalization in BC: What’s really going on? 

    A misinformation campaign around public use legislation distracts from real solutions 

    January 31, 2024 | One year ago today, British Columbia decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of some drugs in limited locations in a three-year pilot project. Since then, an organized political campaign has spent time and money to cloud public perception and discredit evidence-based efforts. Let’s cut through the rhetoric and talk about what is and isn’t working with decriminalization, and what a better way forward could be.  

    It’s understandable people are concerned, as drug poisoning deaths reach their highest-ever levels: with 2511 deaths last year alone, communities across B.C. feel the impact of this crisis. Under decriminalization, adults carrying up to 2.5 grams of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA in specific places will not be subject to criminal charges: police cannot seize their drugs, arrest or charge them for simple possession. Instead, they are directed to services. The pilot excludes schools, childcare facilities, playgrounds, splash pads and skate parks, among other locations. Decriminalization has support amongst public health and policy experts, including B.C.’s provincial health officer and chief coroner.  

    Decriminalization reduces incarceration, police involvement, stigma, and disconnection from services – all of which drive harm and overdose. In that regard, it is working. From February to June 2023, B.C. possession offences fell 76 per cent, diverting hundreds of people from the criminal justice system. But decriminalization is just one tool, and the driving forces behind overdose, homelessness and public use remain unaddressed. Critically, decriminalization does not address the toxicity of the unregulated drug market repeatedly recommended by experts, including the BC Coroners Service Death Review Panel. Waits for detox remain weeks-long and gold standard substitution options remain widely inaccessible. To top it off, actors within the unregulated private treatment industry continue to evade accountability for their response to allegations of misconduct, deaths and political scandal.  

    If you think you are seeing more unhoused people than ever, you’re right – but not because of decriminalization. While drug use rates remain stable, homelessness has risen considerably: up 32 per cent across 11 Lower Mainland communities and 65 per cent in Surrey. Some critics wrongly attribute these worsening social issues to decriminalization. Content creators, treatment industry lobbyists and municipal mayors alike have blamed the policy for alleged spikes in public drug use, fuel for a politicized assault.

    But decriminalization cannot build homes; open supervised consumption sites; undo decades of housing divestment; reverse generational traumas of colonization; create responsive health care systems; or influence the unregulated drug market. If the government was serious about tackling the drug poisoning crisis and finding solutions to public drug use, there are clear places to start. Scaling up permanent welfare-rate housing and renewing modular housing leases would reduce visible poverty. Opening overdose prevention services in every community, per the still-unfulfilled 2016 Ministerial Order, would create safer indoor spaces for use while facilitating access to healthcare and treatment, reducing emergency costs, and improving neighbourhood cleanliness. Most importantly, B.C. could prevent deaths by responsibly regulating the drug supply to standardize content, access and use, all while increasing tax revenue and diverting hundreds of millions of dollars of profit from organized crime. 

    Although evidence-based solutions exist, the government is choosing reactionary politics to push the poorest people in society out of voters’ line of vision. Despite existing limits on decriminalization, the Province introduced Bill 34, which encourages racist and anti-poor stereotyping, ordering police to remove people from public spaces based on suspected rather than observed drug use. Pushing unhoused people into isolation will increase overdose deaths and countless other social harms. So if you are upset about rising poverty and death despite decriminalization, please redirect your anger toward the politicians who care more about getting re-elected than building healthy, happy communities.

    Authors: Anmol Swaich, SUDU (Surrey Union of Drug Users) Sarah Lovegrove, the EIDGE (Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education) and Aaron Bailey

    Anmol Swaich is a MSc student and Research Assistant in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and a Community Organizer with Surrey Union of Drug Users. 

    Sarah Lovegrove is a registered nurse and member of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association. 

    Aaron Bailey holds a Master of Science in Health Promotion from Queen’s University, serves as Program Coordinator at the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education (EIDGE) and supports operations of the VANDU Overdose Prevention Site.

  • Open Letter to Saskatchewan government Re: Health Policy Changes

    Open Letter to Saskatchewan government Re: Health Policy Changes

    January 25, 2024

    To: 

    Hon. Scott Moe Premier of Saskatchewan [email protected] 

    Hon. Everett Hindley Minister of Health [email protected] 

    Hon. Tim McLeod Minister of Mental Health and Addictions [email protected] 

    Re: Recent Saskatchewan Health Policy Changes 

    Premier Moe, Minister Hindley, Minister McLeod; 

    We are writing on behalf of the HIV Legal Network and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition to express our grave concern at the Saskatchewan government’s recent health policy changes, announced January 18, 2024. 

    The changes, which include restricting access to vital harm reduction supplies and information encouraging safer substance use, will jeopardize efforts to combat the transmission of HIV and hepatitis C, shutter cost-effective and proven health interventions, and contradict decades of established scientific evidence, best practice in public health, and international guidance. Ultimately, they put people in Saskatchewan at risk. 

    Communities across Canada face intersecting challenges of poverty, homelessness, a dangerously unregulated drug supply, and health inequities. To meaningfully address these challenges and improve life for all people, governments must implement compassionate, evidence-based public policy that upholds principles of public health and human rights. 

    For nearly six years, the provision of sterile pipes and information on safer inhalation has been part of efforts to reduce the transmission of hepatitis C and HIV, promote safety for people using drugs in Saskatchewan, and connect people to health and social supports. This abrupt policy change not only undermines these efforts but also puts people at risk of harm, placing an undue burden on communities, Saskatchewan’s health system and those who work within it, and community organizations. 

    The shift to a “one-for-one” needle exchange is not only outdated but counterproductive, likely increasing rates of infection in Saskatchewan and exacerbating the challenges faced by people at risk of overdose. Given the province’s unfortunate distinction as a hot spot for HIV transmission in Canada, and the disproportionate impact this has on Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, it is crucial to reconsider this policy. 

    The policy appears fiscally reckless, as the cost to manage new cases of HIV and hepatitis C is considerably high. Preventing new infections through sterile supplies and safer use information is a vastly more cost-effective approach. We urge the government to responsibly steward public funds by continuing to invest in health interventions proven to reduce transmission and alleviate the strain on health care systems. 

    The Saskatchewan government’s inability to cite any evidence in support of these policy changes raises serious questions about the decision-making process. A focus on a “recovery-oriented system of care” need not come at the expense of cost-effective, evidence-based strategies with proven benefits to public health. Evidence has consistently demonstrated how harm reduction supplies and information can connect people to health and social supports, including voluntary treatment. Limiting access to safety education and health services does not decrease substance use: it only makes people less safe. 

    The HIV Legal Network and Canadian Drug Policy Coalition urge the Government of Saskatchewan to reconsider these policy changes. To ensure the well-being of all residents, we invite you to engage in a constructive dialogue with people with lived and living experience, front-line and health workers, health and scientific experts and other affected communities. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss this issue with you and offer research and policy resources on effective measures to ensure the well-being of all people in Saskatchewan. 

    Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your response. 

    Sincerely, 

    DJ Larkin, Executive Director, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition 

    Janet Butler-McPhee and Sandra Ka Hon Chu, Co-Executive Directors, HIV Legal Network 

  • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BC Supreme Court rules in favour of Harm Reduction Nurses Association, pauses coming into force of BC’s public drug consumption law 

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BC Supreme Court rules in favour of Harm Reduction Nurses Association, pauses coming into force of BC’s public drug consumption law 

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BC Supreme Court rules in favour of Harm Reduction Nurses Association, pauses coming into force of BC’s public drug consumption law 

    xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh & səlilwətaɬ lands | Vancouver, BC | December 29, 2023 

    Today, the BC Supreme Court granted a temporary injunction to the Harm Reduction Nurses Association (HRNA), suspending the coming into force of BC’s Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act until March 31, 2024. The court granted the injunction on the grounds that in severely restricting public drug consumption, the Act would cause irreparable harm to people at risk of injury and death amid a public health crisis.  

    This temporary injunction provides time for the Court to assess whether the law violates Charter rights and is outside of BC’s constitutional jurisdiction. 

    The province passed the Act in November, imposing sweeping restrictions on the decriminalization pilot that launched January 31, 2023, which removes criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of some illegal drugs. The proposed Act would prohibit drug use in most public spaces. The Harm Reduction Nurses Association, represented by lawyers Caitlin Shane of Pivot Legal Society and DJ Larkin of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition argued this would exacerbate many harms decriminalization aims to reduce through increased interactions with law enforcement, displacement, drug seizures, fines and arrests. 

    BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Hinkson agreed, concluding that, “It is apparent that public consumption and consuming drugs in the company of others is oftentimes the safest, healthiest, and/or only available option for an individual, given a dire lack of supervised consumption services, indoor locations to consume drugs, and housing.” 

    British Columbia initially launched the decriminalization pilot to reduce police and criminal justice involvement with substance use, in an effort to reduce harm, destigmatize drug use, and prevent fatal overdose in the context of a public health emergency that causes 7 unnecessary deaths each day. Evidence shows enforcement has not reduced drug availability or use, is costly, and is linked to an increased risk of overdose and cycles of homelessness.  

    The BC Supreme Court ruling determined that the province’s proposed ban on public drug consumption cannot come into force until at least March 31, 2024, due to the irreparable harm it could cause to people at risk of death or serious injury from the unregulated toxic drug crisis. In his judgement, the Honourable Chief Justice Hinkson concluded, “I am satisfied… that there are serious issues to be tried [and] that irreparable harm will be caused if the Act comes into force.” 

    The decision preserves the status quo of the law in BC. The province’s decriminalization pilot project remains in effect, allowing for the possession of small amounts of some drugs. The restrictions to the pilot also remain in effect, including that drug possession remains illegal on the premises of elementary and secondary schools, playgrounds, child-care facilities, around splash pads and skate parks, and for anyone under 18 years old. 

    HRNA is a non-profit national organization comprised of nurses who work alongside people at severe risk of overdose and death due to Canada’s toxic unregulated drug supply. “We’re concerned this proposed law would threaten the lives, health, and safety, and Charter rights of our clients, many of whom live in communities that lack safe, indoor locations where drug use is permitted,” said Corey Ranger, HRNA President. “This law would drive our clients into more remote and isolated locations away from services and emergency care.”  The application was filed alongside a Charter challenge to the law, which is likely to be heard in the new year. A statement from HRNA regarding its decision to take legal action is available online.  

    Since BC’s decriminalization policy took effect, there has been no documented increase in public drug consumption. Instead, concerns highlighted in government documents released through access to information requests mention recent “media frenzy” driving anti-poverty/anti-homeless sentiment, the spread of misinformation about the decriminalization pilot, and the province’s continued treatment of drug use as a criminal rather than a health matter.  

    If brought into force, BC’s law would have authorized displacement, fines, arrest and imprisonment for people who use drugs in public, regardless of the availability of safe, legal spaces to use drugs or people’s housing status.  

    “This law cannot be compared to laws restricting alcohol, nicotine or cannabis consumption in public. Because our governments have refused to regulate the drug supply itself, the contents and potency of the drugs are unknown. That is at the core of why so many people are at risk of overdose,” says DJ Larkin, one of HRNA’s lawyers and Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Chief Justice Hinkson’s judgement states, “I accept that the unregulated nature of the illegal drug supply is the predominant cause of increasing death rates in British Columbia.  

    “Ultimately, legislation outlining where people can and can’t ingest drugs of any kind likely makes sense,” says Larkin. “But we must start from regulating what is in the drugs, how they are packaged, and who, where and how they are purchased. That would provide the safety that people need.” 

    “Today’s decision recognizes that substance use cannot be legislated without scrutiny,” says Caitlin Shane of Pivot Legal Society and one of HRNA’s lawyers. “At a time when nearly 8 people die each day in BC alone due to a toxic unregulated drug supply – and as a 2016 Ministerial Order requiring the establishment of overdose prevention services province-wide remains unfulfilled – it is critical that BC lawmakers be guided by evidence rather than fear.” 

    -30- 

    Media contact: 

    [email protected]

    604-341-5005

  • Canadian Drug Policy Coalition/ Doalition canadienne des politiques sur les drogues

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: National and International Support Grows for Safe Supply Advocates Arrested in Vancouver 

    xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh & səlilwətaɬ lands Vancouver, BC | November 3, 2023 

    Last week’s police raid and arrests of Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) members in Vancouver have triggered an outpouring of local, national, and international support for DULF and the urgent expansion of nonmedical safe supply in response to the ongoing unregulated drug crisis.  

    Building on a series of safe supply protest actions, DULF launched a compassion club in 2022 to offer non-prescription safe supply to 43 people at risk from the unregulated drug market. After a year of operation, the compassion club’s preliminary findings showed significant health and safety benefits for members. DULF’s intervention demonstrates a viable grassroots model to address the devastating consequences of the unregulated drug market, led by people who use drugs. 

    The necessity of DULF’s nonmedical safe supply framework was affirmed this week with the release of the BC Coroners Service Death Review Panel Report: An Urgent Response to a Continuing Crisis. The report calls on the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions to seek a federal exemption for opioid and stimulant drug access without a prescription. “The consensus of the panel is that with a proper system of checks and balances in place, the substances can be provided in a safe and responsible manner,” said Michael Egilson, chair of the death review panel.

    The criminalization of DULF has ignited widespread national and international support. Communities in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria held public solidarity rallies today, with an event planned in Ottawa for Sunday. These rallies in support of DULF advocate for the scaling up of community-based compassion clubs, rather than criminalization. 

    “Governments and police are scapegoating those bold enough to disobey unjust laws and save lives – like our DULF colleagues. We didn’t set out to be outlaws. But we realized that nobody was coming to save us, so we’ll have to save ourselves.” said Garth Mullins, host of Crackdown Podcast and community organizer.  

    An open letter in support of DULF has received endorsements from over 200 organizations and 1,700 individuals. The letter calls for the immediate halt to criminalization of community-regulated safe supply, restoration of DULF funding, and a formalized commitment to create a framework to uphold and protect community-regulated safe supply in BC.

    “Businesses are seeking solutions that keep their staff, operations and neighbours safe,” said Euan Thomson, letter signatory and executive director of EACH+EVERY, a national coalition of businesses supporting harm reduction approaches to unregulated drug poisoning. “It’s well past time that grassroots initiatives led by people who use drugs were provided the space to operate without being criminalized.”

    DULF’s small, community-led model of safe supply, has demonstrated how access to safety-tested drugs with known potency and contents can reduce overdose, keep people alive, reduce hospitalizations and stabilize lives. DULF’s work has support from leading researchers, physicians and health care providers, public health officials, and community groups. 

    “People in places of institutional power and policy-making must not hide behind the word illegal. Instead, they must focus on the law and policy that forces people and organizations like DULF to take action at great personal risk,” said DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. “A compassion club that is saving lives every day is only illegal because the law and policy is unjust.”

    In the words of members of the DULF Compassion Club, “We speak out in support of their actions with DULF, actions that opened up possibilities for us, for our community, and for drug users and people everywhere. The possibility to stay alive, and even to thrive. Today our survival hangs by a thread.” 

    -30- 

    Media Contacts:

    Jessica Hannon for Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    [email protected]

    604-341-5005

    Euan Thomson, executive director, EACH+EVERY

    [email protected]

    About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition:

    Founded in 2010, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition works in partnership with more than 60 organizations and 7,000 individuals working to support the development of a drug policy for Canada that is based in science, guided by public health principles, respectful of the human rights of all, and seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving towards a healthier society. Learn more at www.drugpolicy.ca

  • Canadian Drug Policy Coalition/ Doalition canadienne des politiques sur les drogues

    For Immediate Release: Nationwide Support Rallies as Vancouver Police Target Safe Drug Supply Program

    Vancouver, BC | October 27, 2023 —

    Advocates, community organizations and concerned members of the public across the country are adding their names to an open letter condemning the October 25 arrests of members of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF). 

    Please see below for our response to the criminalization of the Drug User Liberation Front’s heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine compassion club in Vancouver, and view the live document which will be updated continuously with new signatories.

    Media are invited to contact organizations listed among the signatories directly for comment. 

    Canadian Drug Policy Media Contact: [email protected]

    RE: Vancouver Police Press Release, “VPD executes search warrants in Downtown Eastside drug investigation”

    To:

    Vancouver Police Department

    City of Vancouver, and

    Province of British Columbia: 

    The signatories of this letter condemn the criminalization of community-regulated safe drug supply distribution in Vancouver on October 25, 2023, executed through search warrants, arrests and interrogations by Vancouver Police Department. 

    Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in BC for persons aged 10 to 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined. In this urgent context, the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) operates a compassion club to save lives and reduce the harms of the unregulated drug market. 

    DULF has been public about its activities since its first safe supply action on April 14, 2021. Its second action in July 2021 was conducted in plain sight of a Vancouver Police Department station with officers in attendance. In 2022, the City of Vancouver issued a business license to DULF. That year, the Province of BC initiated a $200,000 grant through Vancouver Coastal Health to help cover DULF’s overhead costs. 

    DULF was transparent in its application for a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act exemption to the Government of Canada, publishing both its application and the Government’s denial of the exemption for public examination. 

    DULF has conducted formal evaluation of its compassion club in partnership with qualified researchers at the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU). The data show the program is keeping people alive and in better health, with lower reliance on criminal activity. The removal of funding not only hinders DULF’s compassion club, it closes down a critical overdose prevention site – an outcome with legal precedent to be reversed.

    The statement issued by Vancouver Police on October 26, 2023 is an apparent attempt to distance governments and police from the active and passive roles that each have played in DULF’s activities while political backlash builds against safe supply more broadly.

    International reporting on DULF includes articles in Time Magazine and The Guardian. It is inconceivable that any institution operating in drug policy or enforcement could have remained unaware that DULF operates a compassion club. 

    If political institutions took issue with DULF’s activities, carried out with a clear aim to minimize harms to its community while more than 2,000 people are killed each year in BC by policy inaction, they had ample opportunity to respond when DULF distributed regulated drugs in front of a Vancouver Police station in 2021, requested a business license from the City of Vancouver, and approached Vancouver Coastal Health for funding. 

    Given the transparency with which DULF has operated, it is fair to conclude that these institutions are disingenuously betraying people who are at risk of death while a seven-year unmitigated public health emergency persists.

    In solidarity with DULF, the signatories of this letter demand that Vancouver Police, the City of Vancouver, and the Province of BC: 

    • Immediately cease criminalizing community-regulated safe supply in BC;
    • Restore DULF funding cut by Vancouver Coastal Health; 
    • Formalize a commitment to create a framework to uphold and protect community-regulated safe supply in BC. 

    To view the growing live list of signatories, including individuals, click here. 

    MEDIA: Please engage organizations directly from the list below. 

    Signed: 

    National Organizations

    Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs

    Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy 

    Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    CATIE: Canada’s Source for HIV and Hepatitis C Information

    Drug Policy Alliance (USA)

    EACH+EVERY: Businesses for Harm Reduction

    Harm Reduction Nurses Association

    HIV Legal Network

    International Network of People who Use Drugs

    Moms Stop The Harm

    Regional Organizations

    4B Harm Reduction Society, Edmonton, AB

    Alberta Alliance Who Educate and Advocate Responsibly, AB

    Bonfire Counselling, Vancouver, BC

    Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy – Vancouver, Vancouver, BC

    Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy – Calgary, Calgary, AB

    Coalition of Substance Users of the North (CSUN), Lhtako Dene Nation, BC

    Corporación ATS / Echele Cabeza, Colombia

    Disability Arts & Activism Archive, BC

    Harrogate Psychological Services, Edmonton, AB

    HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO), ON

    Kootenay Independent Safe Supply Society, Nelson, BC

    Kootenay Insurrection for Safe Supply, Nelson, BC

    Kykeon Analytics Ltd, Victoria, BC

    Langley Community Action Team: We All Play a ROLE, Langley, BC

    Medicine Hat Drug Coalition, Medicine Hat, AB

    Metzineres – Refuge Environments for Drug Users, Barcelona, Spain

    PAN, Vancouver, BC

    Sure Shot Harm Reduction, Ottawa, ON

    People For Reproductive Rights and Freedoms, Edmonton, AB

    Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver, BC

    Prairie Harm Reduction, Saskatoon, SK

    Project SAFE, Philadelphia, USA

    REMA Feminist & Antiprohibitionist Network, Spain

    Ryan’s Hope, Barrie, ON

    SafeLink Alberta, AB

    SAFER Victoria, Victoria, BC

    Solid Outreach Society, Victoria, BC

    Student Overdose Prevention and Education Network, Hamilton, ON

    The POUNDS Project, Prince George, BC

    Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, Toronto, ON

    Tri-Cities Community Action Team, Tri-Cities, BC

    United For Change Edmonton, Edmonton, AB

    Vancouver Community Action Team, Vancouver, BC

    We Care Substance Use Resource Society, BC

    Workers for Ethical Substance Use Policy, Vancouver, BC

    Whistler Community Services Society, Whistler, BC

    WILD collaborative harm reduction association, Vancouver Island, BC

    Your Journey, Airdrie, AB

    Youth RISE, Edmonton, AB

    -30-

  • When law and policy is unjust, communities have no choice but to act.

    When law and policy is unjust, communities have no choice but to act.

    The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) arrest of Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) founders on October 25th, 2023 is an act of political and moral cowardice.  

    In the context of unrelenting loss driven by the unregulated drug market, DULF has taken courageous and ethical action to supply safety-tested substances to people who use drugs at great personal risk of arrest under Canada’s controlled substances laws.  

    DULF’s work saves lives. Through their small, community-led model of safe supply, they have demonstrated how access to safety-tested drugs of known potency and contents can reduce overdose, keep people alive, reduce hospitalizations and stabilize lives. DULF’s work has support from leading researchers, physicians and health care providers, public health officials, and community groups. 

    DULF has been transparent and communicative about their actions. They have made every effort to proceed legally, including by applying for an exemption from Health Canada which was denied last year. In the midst of the ongoing unregulated drug crisis, DULF made the ethical choice to proceed without formal approval.  

    The VPD chose to enforce these unjust laws after more than a year of DULF’s compassion club operating in plain sight. There is no conceivable possibility that the VPD, the City of Vancouver, the Province of BC or any other public or private actor with any familiarity with the drug policy landscape in Canada has been unaware of DULF’s actions since their first action. Police have discretion as to when, where and how to enforce the law — they chose the path of harm, and they did not have to.  

    When law and policy is unjust, communities have no choice but to act. The VPD themselves agree that their actions could “absolutely” result in drug users who rely on the compassion club’s services consuming more dangerous substances. Premier David Eby said earlier this week that while DULF is doing life-saving work, the government cannot tolerate illegal activity. The BC government and the VPD are using the law as a shield to justify what even the VPD admit is a dangerous and harmful act.  

    People who use drugs have long known they must take care of each other in the face of government violence and neglect. Sterile needle distribution was once illegal; Insite, Canada’s first legal safe injection site, overcame multiple legal challenges to exist. History has demonstrated that drug law and policy change lag far behind need, and that governments will eventually adopt the lifesaving responses that communities of drug users initiate. We believe this pattern will be replicated, and that history will once again vindicate DULF’s actions.  

    Until then, we unequivocally assert our support for DULF founders and their life-saving work. Inspired by them, we will continue to advocate for urgent and vital reforms to drug law and policy with every tool we have.

  • Canadian Drug Policy Coalition/ Doalition canadienne des politiques sur les drogues

    Unions Can Take a Stand on Drug Policy

    Bad drug policy hurts workers. You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody in this country whose community hasn’t been affected by the drug poisoning crisis.

    That’s why it’s so important when labour unions take a stand on drug policy.

    There’s momentum building in the labour movement to protect workers and their communities from the unregulated drug supply that causes so much harm. In the last year, we’ve seen unions pass unanimous and near-unanimous resolutions at conventions declaring their support for safe supply, decrying involuntary treatment and demanding regulation for the treatment industry. 

    We would like to thank these unions for their leadership, passing resolutions on drug policy:

    If you’re a union member and your union isn’t on this list, you can organize your fellow workers. Reach out to [email protected] for more information.

    For more than a hundred years, the labour movement has been a driving force for social and economic change in this country. Whether it be childcare, healthcare, workplace safety or environmental protection, with the strength of hundreds of thousands of members, union power can propel massive shifts toward more equitable, safer communities. Labour and organized workers can play a key role in work to end the drug war and reinvest in our communities.

    Together we say: No More Drug War on the Shop Floor!

  • Decriminalization Done Right: A Rights-Based Path for Drug Policy

    Decriminalization Done Right: A Rights-Based Path for Drug Policy

    Decriminalization platform canada decriminalization platform canada

    Punitive drug laws and policies aimed at ending illegal drug use have failed; and worse, they have done catastrophic harm to communities and society. These laws have fuelled stigma; epidemics of preventable illness and death; poverty; homelessness; and widespread, systematic, and egregious violations of human rights. Recognizing the many lives that have been lost and ruined to the state-sanctioned “war on drugs,” we must act to end the harm. Decriminalizing personal drug possession and necessity trafficking are fundamental, necessary steps towards a more rational and just drug policy grounded in evidence and human rights. It is a change that is long overdue. [Read more…]

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