The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Remembering Trey Helten, a DTES Pillar and ‘Best Friend’
May 08, 2025 | The Tyee
Trey Helten, who dedicated his life to helping others day and night in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, has died. Helten, 42, was an advocate and an activist, a punk who loved karaoke and believed in people’s resilience, an artist, animal lover and dedicated friend. “He didn’t have boundaries ...
‘Wacko’ or ‘symbolic’: lessons from BC’s drug decriminalization
April 27, 2025 | iPolitics
Now a campaign slogan and House of Commons meme, British Columbia’s drug decriminalization pilot began as a response to record-breaking rates of drug-related deaths. Now that the three-year trial is nearing its end, it’s not clear whether it was successful or not — it depends on who you ask. A...
Kamloops medical cannabis forum at TRU touts benefits of cannabis in reducing harder drug use
April 27, 2025 | Castanet Kamloops
Medical cannabis has shown promising results as a harm reduction tool researchers told a group of about 60 gathered in the Clock Tower building at Thompson Rivers University on Saturday afternoon. The forum, Medical Cannabis and Recovery, explored how medical cannabis can be used as an alternative t...
The Conservatives have vowed to ‘defund federal drug dens.’ Here’s what they mean.
April 16, 2025 | CTV News
Plans announced by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to shutter what he called “drug dens” would almost certainly increase Canada’s death toll from preventable overdoses, according to a researcher who helped evaluate North America’s first supervised consumption site. During a recent campa...
Toxic drug deaths highly personal — and political — as B.C. marks 9 years since public health emergency began
April 14, 2025 | CBC News
Nine years ago, former B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared a public health emergency in response to a sharp increase in deaths related to toxic drugs and drug overdoses. Overdose deaths had been climbing steadily since 2010; the 474 deaths in 2015 were a 30 per cent increase f...
