Premier David Eby, joined by Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, announce that the B.C. government is banning the use of hard drugs in public places, part of the province’s ongoing decriminalization pilot project, at a press conference in Victoria on Oct. 5, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
Decriminalizing drugs is not intended as a solution to drug problems. Rather, it is a critical first step that’s necessary, but not sufficient, for replacing prohibition with a public health approach.
Gladskikh Tatiana/Shutterstock
The animal studies are promising but early research in humans show mixed results. Here’s what we know so far.
Dima Sobko/Shutterstock
One report says methamphetamine use is rising. Another says it’s falling. So what’s going on?
Max kegfire/Shutterstock
Negative attitudes lead to stigma, which sees people who use drugs isolated and marginalised.
Photographs of victims of overdose are displayed to mark International Overdose Awareness Day, in Vancouver, on Aug. 31, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Calls to destigmatize language around drug addiction must be combined with action to change policies that stigmatize people in early recovery.
Nitazenes, like this powder sample, are a class of synthetic opioids more potent than morphine and fentanyl.
Joe Lamberti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
An overdose death in Boulder County, Colorado, was linked to a powerful new formulation of a designer drug never approved for use in humans.
Daniel Munoz/AAP
Some 17,000 people told us exactly how much they drank, smoked and used illicit drugs. Here’s a unique snapshot of Australians’ vices.
Halfpoint/Shutterstock
The good news is most teenagers don’t use illicit drugs, and the majority of those who do only do so occasionally and don’t come to serious harm.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
Taking MDMA can raise our body temperature higher than it should be. Extreme heat may compound this effect.
Shutterstock.
Testing workers for drug and alcohol use can reduce injuries but is less effective than a comprehensive approach to improving staff health.
Shutterstock
Overdose deaths did go up in Oregon after drug decriminalisation, but they were already increasing, as they were in nearby states.
Many LGBTQ+ people do not access drug and alcohol support services because they fear stigma and discrimination.
Old Town Tourist/Shutterstock
LGBTQ+ people face barriers to accessing substance use services, but research shows there are ways to make them more inclusive and supportive.
People march to remember those who died during the drug poisoning crisis on International Overdose Awareness Day, in Vancouver, on Aug. 31, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
A police policy of not making arrests for simple possession is a way to essentially decriminalize personal drug use. However, confiscating drugs — even without arrests — can be harmful in many ways.
A new study found that youth were providing extreme or untruthful responses to CDC surveys on LGBQ student health.
FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images
Potential inaccuracies in CDC high school surveys may have created an exaggerated perception that LGBQ youth engage in risky behaviors, new research shows.
Roman Barkov/Shutterstock
MDMA and cocaine are known to speed up people’s perception of time, while LSD can induce a sense of timelessness.
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock
Nature-based programmes are a way to support people with drug and alcohol problems at a time when health problems related to substance use are rising.
Although xylazine is not an opioid, naloxone can reverse the effects of the fentanyl and heroin it is often mixed with.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Xylazine, or tranq, is increasingly being mixed with drugs like fentanyl or heroin and can be difficult to detect. Most people who use drugs are unable to tell if they have been exposed to it.
Judy Ryan’s book describes, in meticulous detail, what it took for the Victorian government to trial the state’s first safe injecting facility, through the lens of a local Richmond resident.
Meth, control and violence have shaped, but not defined, the lives of women like Misty.
Photo by Jared Ragland
Photographing the lives of women meth users in rural America.
A supervised consumption site in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, in 2021. B.C. has decriminalized simple possession of drugs, including methamphetamines and opioids.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
As British Columbia begins a new era in drug policy, the drug poisoning crisis continues without an end in sight.