National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
It’s mind-boggling communities across Canada must still organize for an annual awareness day to draw public and policymakers’ attention to poisoned street drugs and an ongoing health crisis that has killed more than 21,000 people in just five years, advocates say.
Continue reading Canada’s drug policy — not drugs — is killing people at record numbers, advocates say
This program was funded by a grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Government of Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative.
According to a recent report from the BC coroners service, there have been 30 suspected illicit drug overdose deaths in the North Vancouver Island Health Service Delivery area during the first eleven months of 2020. Fentanyl was detected in 22 cases. That’s in a population of more than 122,000, which probably explains why there have been no opioid related deaths reported on Cortes Island so far this year. The number of drug overdoses is far higher. Campbell River’s Fire Chief said there were times his men saved the same drug user more than once in the same day. Cortes Currents asked two medical professionals from the Cortes Medical Clinic for their observations of the Cortes Island ‘opioid ‘crisis’.
Continue reading Cortes Island ‘opioid crisis’ as seen by two medical professionalsCanada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Canada’s overdose crisis — fuelled by increasingly toxic street drugs and compounded by COVID-19 — is going into overdrive, and youth are particularly vulnerable, researchers say.
Continue reading Cannabis may help address Canada’s overdose crisis
Today, I woke up and much of the day I spent thinking about how I was going to get my drug-of-choice packed up for my upcoming trip. How much do I need? What could I leave behind in order to fit my drug-of-choice into the one little bag that would last me a month? What would happen if I ran out? My drug of choice happens to be a particularly fine earl grey tea and why I like to think I am not addicted, when I think about going without the warmth and ritual of my morning cup, my heart starts to race and I snap at my children. There are few people I know that aren’t dependant on some sort of drug as part of their daily routine: caffeine, tobacco, marijuana, alcohol or the harder-to-get and less acceptable ones that are prescribed, gotten on the streets, or otherwise come by illicitly. I’ve noticed in my life, it’s often the people who once struggled with illicit drug use themselves that have the most nuanced understanding drug literacy and the varying relationships people have with psychoactive drugs.
Continue reading Drug Literacy
