“Iwould love to see a world in which Boy Scouts make handing out naloxone as their Eagle Scout project,” said addiction scholar Stefan Kertesz in the Washington Post. Naloxone prevents opioid overdose deaths — which is a good thing.
But soon federal regulators are expected to approve the over-the-counter sale of a nasal spray of the drug — its brand name is Narcan — and I’m thinking that the so-called harm reduction movement is about to inflict a world of pain on damaged people and degraded cities.
VANCOUVER — B.C. has decriminalized drug possession of 2.5 grams of cocaine, MDMA, meth and opioids, including heroin. Those in favour hail it as a victory against stigma, while opponents worry it will have unintended consequences. We will leave the public policy debate to others, but will ask another very pertinent question: what’s wrong with stigma?
Overdose deaths continue to rise in Vancouver, the epicenter of Canada’s addiction crisis, as barriers to drug use are demolished. After British Columbia’s decriminalization experiment came into effect, the province’s center-right Liberal Party pledged that, should they be elected, they will invest $1.5 billion into Portuguese-inspired rehabilitation-oriented treatment. This would be a significant improvement over British Columbia’s current farce. Earlier this week, the Canadian province of British Columbia decriminalized the possession of small amounts of hard drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl.
At about 6:30 p.m. one recent evening a man rushed through the door of Convenience Plus, a cluttered downtown corner store. “Have you got Narcan?” he asked. The cashier handed him a rectangular red-and-white kit. The man dashed out the door again.
Narcan is a brand name for naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses by blocking the effects of opioid drugs on the brain. A squirt in the nostril from a plastic dispenser can bring victims back from the brink of death in minutes.
Long story, a friend, the front desk man at the Regent, and I went for beers at the Balmoral. We were mistaken for cops and the manager asked us to let him know if a raid was imminent.
East Hastings Street in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has long been the epicenter of Canada’s deadly opioid crisis. For years, lines of tents, discarded needles and open drug use have been common sights.
Residents of the neighbourhood have repeatedly called for a radical change to the government’s approach to illegal drugs, particularly since a recent spate of overdose deaths.
This week, they got their wish. An exemption came into effect on Wednesday, allowing any resident of the province of British Columbia to possess 2.5 grams of ecstasy, crack, cocaine or heroin – and even the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl – without fear of criminal charge.
The Downtown Eastside is an open wound.
There is nothing positive to be said about it beyond having the good fortune to escape that little hell.
I recall walking along East Hastings early one Saturday morning.
From about a block away I kept my eye on the very pretty young aboriginal girl approaching me.
Pretty and pretty fucked up. Open sores, needle tracks ran up both her arms.
Europe has been warned that a flood of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that has killed more than 100,000 people in the United States, is heading this way.
Belgium is on the front line of the new drugs war, as the main entry point for narcotics arriving from Latin America, and its customs chief says fentanyl is a bigger threat than heroin or cocaine.
A string of drug raids that seized small quantities of fentanyl in Europe over recent months has raised fears that the drug, 50 times more powerful than heroin, has arrived in Europe, as
Mexican cartels seek to build a new market on the Continent. The highly addictive opioid has ravaged the US, driving overdose deaths to 110,236 last year.
Last week, British Columbia became the first province in Canada and the second jurisdiction in North America to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs for personal use. Those drugs include heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and even fentanyl, a synthetic opioid more than 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Inside the Canadian city where opioids, methamphetamine and cocaine have been decriminalised
As a bitter wind gusted down East Hastings Street, an addict wearing shorts despite the snow was selling his Liverpool FC shirt. “I’m sick, man, I need money,” he said, asking for C$20 (£12) as he eyed his next fix.
Not far away on Vancouver’s East Side yesterday, there was a free-for-all of drug use taking place — users huddled in small groups as they freely abused heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. None of them, however, was breaking a single law.
Today, British Columbia introduced a measure that decriminalises possession of hard drugs in the Canadian province.
Police simply walk past drug users as new law comes into force despite 2,272 deaths from illicit substances last year in British Columbia
At just past 8am I am standing on East Hastings Street in downtown Vancouver with a small packet of crack cocaine in my hand.
Snow is falling gently and dozens, if not hundreds, of drug addicts are already on the move, unbothered when they tread in the human faeces littering the pavement.
Some have already had their fix, and slump lifelessly against shopfronts or slumber in makeshift tents where many stash guns and knives.
Police forces across British Columbia are finalizing training on new drug laws that will limit or entirely cease their interactions with people who use drugs as the province becomes the first in Canada to decriminalize simple possession.
The legal change, which takes effect Tuesday, marks a monumental shift in policing drug-related offences. While many police departments have in recent years moved away from arresting and recommending charges for possession alone, officers will now also stop confiscating illegal drugs – a standard practice they have known their whole careers.
One of Canada’s leading experts on drug addiction says British Columbia’s provincial government asked him to delete a crucial database in an attempt to censor criticism of the province’s homeless policies. The incident appears to fit within a larger, nationwide campaign to silence experts who believe that, when it comes to homelessness and drugs, Canadian policy-makers are on the wrong track.
“It’s fine on the other side, it’s fine on the other side!” sing five rowdy, dancing Brits, to the tune of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West”. On the other side of the 14th century Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, a cluster of partying men yodel back. It is midnight on a Friday in the heart of Amsterdam’s De Wallen district, and I am on a reconnaissance tour with Amsterdam’s Night Watch.
Eight Canadians have filed a Charter challenge against the Government of Canada and the Minister of Health regarding patient access to psilocybin and psilocybin therapy.
The plaintiffs, which include seven patients and one health-care practitioner, are arguing that the current modes of accessing psilocybin are insufficient and a violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
The bill would authorize cities and counties to establish “safe consumption sites” where addicts could use illegal narcotics under supervision. Those accessing the “hygienic space supervised by trained staff” could consume pre-obtained drugs. Program staff would be trained to administer an “opioid antagonist” in the event of an overdose.
The place where Chris gets his fentanyl is bright and airy, all blond wood and exposed brick. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable about the potency of the pills he can crush, cook and inject.
Soft pop music played, and an attendant spritzed a bit of Covid-cautious spray on his seat before he settled into a booth on a recent afternoon with a couple of red-and-yellow pills, a tourniquet, a tiny candle and a lighter.
“The best thing about this is the guarantee: I can come in here four times a day and get it,” Chris said. He no longer spends all of his waking hours in a frantic scrabble of panhandling and “other stuff” to scrape up the cash to pay a dealer. He won’t get arrested — and he won’t overdose and die using a drug that is not what it is sold as.
