Category: Articles | Page 2

Reflections on 20 years of harm reduction in British Columbia

August 13, 2024 • By Jane Buxton

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...

How can supervised consumption services and overdose prevention sites better meet the needs of racialized women and gender expansive people?

August 13, 2024 • By Cassandra Smith

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...

Are we really in an “addictions crisis”?

August 13, 2024 • By Magnus Nowell

More than 44,592 people in Canada have died due to opioid toxicity since 2016, surpassing the number of Canadian fatalities in the Second World War. This alarming number underscores the severity of the public health crisis, which has only worsened over the past decade. The average number of daily deaths has almost tripled, from 8 in 2016 to 22 in 2023. The terminology used to describe this crisis has changed over the past decade, reflecting our attempts to understand what is causing the loss of so many lives. Terms like “opioid crisis” and “overdose crisis” have largely been replaced because...

In case of emergency: Expanding safe supply through supervised consumption services

August 8, 2024 • By Sandra Ka Hon Chu and Corey Ranger

Since 2016, 42,494 people have died from drug poisoning in Canada. This crisis is fueled by an unregulated drug supply contaminated with a deadly mix of synthetic opioids and non-opioid sedatives. Aiming to curb these drug poisoning deaths, the provision of pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to the unregulated, illegal drug supply, also known as safe supply, has demonstrated significant promise. However, despite its potential to save lives, this approach is currently mired in capacity constraints and accessibility barriers. One opportunity for increasing access to safe supply is through supervised consumption services (SCS). In a new report produced by the HIV Legal Network,...

Understanding Canada’s progress towards global HIV targets

July 18, 2024 • By Public Health Agency of Canada

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) recently released an infographic with national estimates on Canada’s Progress Towards Ending the HIV Epidemic. These estimates help provide an understanding of the effectiveness of current responses to HIV in Canada and can help identify areas for improvement to guide HIV prevention and care work. However, it can sometimes be difficult to understand what the estimates are really saying. So, let’s explore some helpful tips for interpreting the data. What do the HIV estimates tell us? Progress towards the 95-95-95 global targets are evaluated by using four measures: Based on the recently released...

HIV law reform: Chad Clarke and Colin Johnson discuss HIV decriminalization

July 2, 2024 • By Chad Clarke and Colin Johnson

Anger! Disappointment! Betrayal! Equivocation! Disquietude! These are the emotions that overwhelm Chad Edward Clarke on any given day, yet he remains committed to his cause: to change the way that the Canadian justice system has dealt with HIV non-disclosure through criminalization. Chad was recently awarded the first HIV is Not A Crime Leadership Award by the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCHRC) and shares his story below with one of the coalition’s steering committee members, Colin Johnson. Colin Johnson: Chad, I know that you’ve told your story many times before, but it needs to be heard. Let’s start with...