A store selling psychedelics in Windsor, Ont. Recent police raids on psychedelics stores in Vancouver reflect misplaced attitudes toward drug regulation.
(Shutterstock)
Psychedelics are an opportunity to do better than our past drug control strategies. Adults should be trusted to make the right decisions, but policymakers should ensure they do so fully informed.
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.
The problem with prodrugs is we don’t know how big the problem is because they are so hard to identify.
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.
Research has long shown that criminalising otherwise law-abiding citizens for their drug use is no deterrent. It only damages their life chances, in a discriminatory fashion.
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.
Accidental ingestion of drugs can have detrimental effects on dogs’ health. Education and awareness can help protect pets from consuming opioids and cannabis products.
Hemp, CBD and marijuana are all forms of cannabis – but they are different in significant ways, from form and legality to their potential uses as treatment for various health conditions.
Zenzo Msomi as Sipho (front) and Ngcebo Cele as Andile in Ulwembu.
Val Adamson/Ulwembu
With the community, the group of theatre-makers and academics created a play that could also serve as a policy brief on what’s missing from the battle to reduce drug use in Durban.
According to Oregon law, possessing a small amount of drugs for personal consumption is now a civil – rather than criminal – offense.
Peter Dazeley via Getty
Possessing heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs for personal use is no longer a criminal offense in Oregon. The idea is to get people with problem drug use help, not punishment.
In 2016, drug misuse was cited as the top concern among New Hampshire voters. What remedies are the Democratic primary contenders putting forward to combat the opioid crisis?
If the Tories do go liberal on pot, they should learn the lessons from the regulation of tobacco and alcohol.
More than 35,000 people were killed in Mexico in 2019, the deadliest year on record. Violence has spiked as a result of the government’s ongoing assault on drug cartels.
Leonardo Emiliozzi Ph / Shutterstock
A researcher who fled crime-beset Mexico returns to interview the drug cartels behind so much of the violence, asking 33 ‘narcos’ everything about their lives, from birth to their latest murder.
From colonial poppy fields to pharmatrash, southern Africa offers a fascinating history of drug regimes – one that helps us make sense of drug policies and legislation today.