At PASAN, we serve people with lived and living experience of incarceration and drug use. Many of our clients have been diagnosed with hepatitis C during their intake at a correctional institution. M
Cassandra Smith is Black CAP’s harm reduction specialist. CATIE recently spoke with Cassandra about how her lived experiences as a community member and parent have informed her harm reduction work, and how harm reduction programs and services can meet the needs of racialized parents who use substances.
Using Valentine’s Day as a backdrop, Love Positive Women is an annual celebration of women living with HIV. As we honour the positive women around the globe, we must also address the inequities that they face navigating sex, dating and love. How can we ensure that the rights of women living with HIV to have pleasurable and satisfying relationships are protected, supported and uplifted?
With an increasingly poisoned drug supply and criminal laws that make the consumption of drugs more dangerous, people who use drugs rely on each other and their service providers to spot an overdose and get help as needed. But what if a person is using drugs on their own? This dilemma has become even more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as public health guidance has discouraged gatherings and promoted physical distancing.
“Blood. It’s in you to give.” Or so the old slogan from Canadian Blood Services (CBS)* would have you believe. Of course, they have a long history of filtering who gets to give. Currently, there are many Canadians who want to give but cannot, including all HIV-negative cisgender men who’ve had sex with another man in the past three months. This includes men who are in monogamous relationships, always use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), always use condoms during sex, and who have oral but not anal sex. This policy has long been viewed as homophobic by many community members and community-based...
To find out how the series It’s A Sin started a national dialogue about HIV in the United Kingdom, and what Canadian HIV organizations can learn from that experience, former CATIE board chair John McCullagh spoke to Ian Green, chief executive officer of Terrence Higgins Trust, the largest HIV charity in the United Kingdom.
