The toxic drug crisis has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Canadians. However, non-fatal drug toxicity events (also called overdoses) are much more common than fatal events. Brain injury is a lesser known harm related to drug toxicity that can happen when people survive a drug poisoning event. A brain injury affects how the brain works. It can occur during a drug toxicity event because breathing slows down or stops and there is a lack of oxygen to the brain. CATIE spoke to Shanell Twan, assistant manager at Streetworks, a harm reduction program in Edmonton, and Dr. Kaylynn...

Harm reduction has many definitions but in essence is an evidence-based and person-centred approach that seeks to reduce the harms associated with substance use. It provides people who use drugs with resources to make healthier and safer choices without insisting on abstinence. I have worked in harm reduction and substance use for 20 years, including 18 years as medical lead for harm reduction at the BC Centre for Disease Control. During that time, I was privileged to collaborate with many compassionate colleagues across different sectors and alongside the experts, people with lived and living experience of substance use. In the...

Supervised consumption services (SCS) and overdose prevention sites (OPS) are proven to reduce harms and save lives. However, certain communities like racialized women and gender expansive people (e.g., transgender, gender nonconforming, non-binary and Two-Spirit people) can encounter barriers to accessing these services. To find out what is needed to make SCS and OPS more accessible to these communities, CATIE spoke with Cassandra Smith, knowledge translation lead at the Dr. Peter Centre. What are some barriers to SCS and OPS that racialized women and gender expansive people report? One barrier I hear consistently is lack of safety. This could be in...