The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Baranyai: OD crisis response a painfully slow dance
February 19, 2023 | London Free Press
We are waltzing through a public health emergency: Two steps forward, one step sideways, pausing at every step. Our response to the overdose crisis has been sluggish and incremental. Even as our cities make headway opening lifesaving supervised consumption sites, provinces have shuttered overdose pr...
2,500 days. 11,098 deaths. Welcome to the forever emergency.
February 14, 2023 | Georgia Straight
Karen Ward is exhausted. “The fact is, after 2,500 days of this, the people who are actually trying to work on the so-called front lines here are falling apart,” she says. The long-time drug policy advisor and anti-poverty advocate speaks so fast that it feels like the words tumble out of her. �...
Xylazine increasingly appearing in Canada’s street drug supply
February 14, 2023 | DATAC
In recent months, xylazine, a potent sedative circulating in the illicit drug supply in the United States, has been increasingly detected in Canada’s street drugs, as health experts have raised concerns due to its risk of contributing to overdose-related deaths. Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer ...
Analysis: Canada’s decriminalization experiment no match for toxic drug supply
February 07, 2023 | Reuters
TORONTO, Feb 7 (Reuters) – A Canadian experiment to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs could reduce stigma and police run-ins for addicts but does little to tackle a bigger problem of overdose deaths from drugs adulterated with lethal ingredients. The province of British Columbia, at th...
B.C.’s harm-reduction and addiction treatment systems plagued by gaps
February 02, 2023 | Vancouver Sun
In the same week that the province’s decriminalization rollout marked a shift in drug policy, grim figures from the B.C. Coroners Service — which show people continue to die in near record numbers due to the toxic drug supply — laid bare the gaps in the province’s harm reduction and addictio...
