Grace Bisch, whose stepson died as a result of an overdose, protests outside the Supreme Court in December 2023.
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The company helped spur a public health crisis through its deceptive marketing and aggressive sales of prescription opioids.
Community researchers discuss the impact of brain injury at BC Consensus Day at the University of Victoria. As many as 600,000 overdose-related brain injuries have occurred in Canada during the toxic drug crisis.
(Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera)
The toxic drug crisis is not only about fatalities. A much larger number of people survive overdoses, and are left with brain injuries. A national strategy to support and treat them is crucial.
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.
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.
Doctors have struggled to find the balance between effective pain management and the very real addiction risks that come with prescription pain medication.
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Undertreated pain can result in unnecessary suffering and a greater likelihood of long-term chronic pain.
Resistance to policies like safe supply still create barriers for vulnerable people, despite evidence that harm reduction saves lives.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Harm reduction is grounded in evidence. But policies, stigma and ignorance about substance use still create barriers in battling Canada’s drug poisoning crisis.
Income inequality is the gap between the highest and lowest earners in a given area. It can contribute to people’s risk of poor health, and specifically mental health.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is just one of many artists from Appalachia who are probing the crisis in their work, while taking pains to ensure that it doesn’t define the region and its people.
A man runs past shoes hung on the Burrard Bridge in Vancouver in remembrance of victims of illicit drug overdoses on International Overdose Awareness Day in August 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Decriminalization helps recharacterize drug addiction as a chronic health condition instead of a criminal activity, reduces the stigma associated with drug use and improves treatment options.
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
More than 50 overdoses happen in bathrooms every month in British Columbia. Public bathrooms can be made safer for everyone, including people who use substances.
Many companies have sold dangerous prescription drugs.
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Making them pay is important but it’s not going to stop drugmakers from endangering public health.
OxyContin, an opioid drug heavily marketed by Purdue Pharma, is associated with billions of dollars of health-care costs in Canada related to the opioid crisis.
(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
The Purdue Pharma settlement is paltry compared to costs of the opioid crisis. Without major changes to pharma industry regulation, there is little reason to think a similar crisis won’t occur again.
B.C. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson holds a copy of exemption documents that enable British Columbia to decriminalize possession of small amounts of ‘hard’ drugs for personal use. B.C.’s bold experiment will be closely watched as a comparator with other progressive jurisdictions.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
British Columbia’s bold experiment provides an opportunity to implement more balance in Canadian drug policy, and a more principled withdrawal from the war on drugs.
Opioids can help reduce the amount of medication needed to achieve anesthesia.
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Non-opioid directives allow patients to refuse opioids in all health care settings. For surgical procedures that require anesthesia, however, this may do more harm than good.
Game jams are powerful spaces for galvanizing creativity in disenfranchised communities.
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Game making is an art form that many aren’t intimately familiar with. Unlike other creative practices, game makers must create the rules and laws that govern and shape player behaviours.
Measures to curb growing rates of opioid use are also making it difficult for people with long-term, chronic pain to get ongoing prescriptions.
Methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine distributed by the Drug User Liberation Front, a grassroots organization proving a safe supply of illicit drugs, in Vancouver, in April 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
People are dying from using a toxic drug supply. Safer supply and other approaches that listen to the needs of people who use drugs are critical to saving lives and addressing the opioid crisis.
The concept of placebos – which are sometimes called “sugar pills” – has been around since the 1800s.
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Drug manufacturers often shun the use of placebos in clinical trials. But research suggests that placebos could play an important role in the treatment of depression, pain and other maladies.
Emblems of America’s epidemics.
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The number of fatal drug overdoses in the US over a 12-month period has surpassed 100,000 for the first time. Fentanyl is the main driver of the spike in deaths.