Substance Use News provides a monthly collection of news and resources on the social, medical and political responses to the toxic drug supply crisis and information about alcohol harm reduction. Please check Info for People Who Use Substances to get the latest alerts, and tips on how to stay safe from Toward the Heart. New to this work? Visit our Substance Use and Harm Reduction page for more resources.
In the News
‘This will save lives’: Vancouver Island city gets safe inhalation site
On February 5, Island Health gave the green light to the Comox Valley’s first safe inhalation site. Alongside Island Health’s outreach team, the safe inhalation services are set to operate up to seven hours a day, seven days a week. Project co-ordinator Taija McLuckie estimated that 90 per cent of substance users in the Valley smoke their drug, thus emphasizing the importance of having a safe inhalation site in the community. (February 8, 2024)
A year of drug decriminalization in BC
Andrea Woo is a staff reporter at The Globe’s Vancouver bureau, and she’s won a National Newspaper Award for her coverage of the toxic drug crisis. In this podcast, she talks about what we know about how decriminalization works in BC, and if anyone thinks it’s working out. (February 8, 2024)
Yukon government to open managed alcohol program this spring
Yukon government says renovations are underway to open a managed alcohol program (MAP) this spring. MAP programs helps provide care for those struggling with severe alcohol use dependency. Cameron Grandy, the territory’s director of mental wellness and substance use services, says the program will help people who, due to severe alcohol use disorder, may consume non-beverage alcohol like rubbing alcohol, mouthwash and aftershave lotion. “Sometimes when you really require alcohol, you might drink what’s available, which could be non-beverage alcohol, which is really hard on someone’s health,” he said. (February 5, 2024)
BC Government News: BC updates access to life-saving medication for people at risk of toxic drug poisoning
The Province is reviewing a recent report by B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, about the Prescribed Safer Supply program (prescribed alternatives), while making immediate updates to the program based on her recommendations to reduce unintended harms and help people living with addiction stay alive. (February 1, 2024)
Potent animal tranquilizer found in Toronto’s street drug supply for 1st time
Toronto’s Drug Checking Service (TDCS), a free and anonymous public health service offered at five harm reduction agencies, said in a January 29th alert that it first identified a substance that is either medetomidine or dexmedetomidine late last month. “[These drugs] repress the nervous system and respiratory system, putting people at greater risk of both fatal and non fatal overdose,” said TDCS manager Hayley Thompson. (January 31st, 2024)
How BC gangs move drugs all over the world
Veteran crime reporter Kim Bolan has just returned from a worldwide trip to investigate Canada’s place in the global drug trade — and found that the gangs in charge see Vancouver’s port as a safe haven to operate from. She tells Matt Galloway what she’s uncovered in her latest investigative series Lethal Exports, published in the Vancouver Sun. (January 31, 2024)
Minister of Mental Health and Addiction’s statement on BC decriminalization one-year anniversary
Minister Jennifer Whiteside, BC’s Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, issued the following statement on January 31, 2024, the one-year anniversary of decriminalization in British Columbia. “People living with addiction shouldn’t be trapped in the court system. It doesn’t help anyone or make communities any safer. Fear of criminal repercussions increases risks of overdose by leading people with addiction challenges to hide their substance use and deters people from calling for help during an overdose emergency.” (January 31, 2024)
Advocacy and Research
Addressing the complexities of abstinence-based perspectives within Indigenous communities by emphasizing cultural strengths
In this episode of the Addiction Practice Pod, journalist David P. Ball and First Nation Health Authority’s Medical Officer of Mental Health and Wellness, Dr. Nolan Hop Wo, discuss potential benefits and harms from abstinence-based approaches to substance use care.
Talking About Tina
Community Based Research Centre (CBRC) is posting a new series on on methamphetamine Use, PnP, and GBT2Q mental health. Part one focuses on contextualizing sexualized substance use in GBT2Q communities.
All About Drug Checking (Part 3): Check’It! Peer-led Drug Checking at Mountainside Harm Reduction Society
Mountainside Harm Reduction Society is an entirely peer-led organization that employs people with lived experience, or ‘peer workers’, to deliver low-barrier harm reduction services like drug checking. Their peer-led model differs from some more traditional models of care where people with professional schooling may be favoured over people with lived experience. “People who come in to get their drugs checked, especially people who are street-entrenched, want someone who has been in their shoes, they feel safer and they feel more listened to and more heard and have an easier time trusting people.”
How Reducing Homelessness Would Reduce Drug-Related Deaths
The thrust of the American research findings will come as little surprise to anyone familiar with harm reduction and homelessness. Being without a home, living on the streets or in public spaces, exacerbates risks of substance use in numerous ways. It means no bathroom, sink or toilet to maintain hygiene, increasing risks of bacterial and viral infection. It means having to inject, smoke or snort in outdoor or public areas, placing the emphasis on speed to avoid detection, rather than safety.
Health, harm reduction, and social service providers’ perspectives on the appropriateness and feasibility of peer distribution of HIV self-test kits among people who use drugs
People who use drugs (PWUD) experience elevated HIV risk and numerous barriers to facility-based HIV testing. HIV self-testing (HIVST) could get around many of those barriers and is acceptable among PWUD, yet HIVST implementation for PWUD is limited. Service providers’ perspectives on specific HIVST delivery strategies could help increase availability for PWUD. Service providers in the study viewed secondary distribution of HIVST kits among PWUD as promising, appropriate, and feasible, yet specialized efforts may be needed.
Strengths-based approaches to healing and wellness in rural and remote Indigenous communities
In this episode of the Addiction Practice Pod, award-winning journalist David P. Ball and family physician Dr. Esther Tailfeathers discuss the realities of substance use care in Kainai Nation, a rural community where Dr. Tailfeathers works. We also hear from Helen Knott, award-winning author and founder of Indigenous wellness program Fierce With Heart, about her own healing journey and relationships to substance use, the land, and health care systems.
Compound may treat neuropathic pain without opioids
Diabetes, multiple sclerosis, chemotherapy drugs, injuries, and amputations have all been associated with neuropathic pain, which is often chronic, sometimes unrelenting, and affects millions of people worldwide. Researchers have taken a key step forward to a new approach for treating neuropathic pain with a new compound that doesn’t engage opioid receptors in the body, making it a possible alternative to existing pain medications linked to addiction.
Using alone at home: What’s missing in housing-based responses to the overdose crisis?
In British Columbia (BC) over 80% of overdose deaths occur in housing and, while most overdoses occur in private residences across the province, almost 50% of fatal overdoses in the Vancouver region are occurring in marginal housing environments [11]. Similar patterns in the distribution of fatal overdoses have been observed in the USA, further underscoring the relationship between marginal housing and overdose risk.
“I don’t think of it as a shelter. I say I’m going home”: a qualitative evaluation of a low-threshold shelter for women who use drugs
In 2021–2022, encampments in a downtown Boston neighborhood reached record heights, increasing the visibility of drug use and homelessness in the city. In response, the city planned a “sweep” (i.e., eradication of encampments) and requested support from social services and medical providers to pilot low-threshold shelters. The co-directors and staff designed the shelter quickly and without US models for reference; they turned to international literature, local harm reduction health care providers, and women living in encampments for guidance on the shelter policies.
Visit the BC Centre for Disease Control’s Unregulated Drug Poisoning Emergency Dashboard for provincial data from different sources.
Visit the BC Centre on Substance Use for information on evidence-based approaches to substance use care and harm reduction.
Visit the National Safer Supply Community of Practice (NSS-CoP), whose goal is to scale up safer supply programs across Canada.
Visit the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research site for research on aclohol and substance use.
Questions? Feedback? Get in touch. Janet Madsen, Capacity Building and Digital Communications Coordinator, [email protected]
Focus image by Andrew, Flickr (Creative Commons)