The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
B.C. sees spike in fatal overdoses during pandemic
May 28, 2020 | National Observer
Fatal drug overdoses are on the rise in B.C., with more than three people dying every day during dual health emergencies, new data from the BC Coroners Service indicates. In total, 382 people died from illicit drug overdoses in the first four months of 2020, with 117 fatalities in April alone. This...
Multiple barriers exist for people trying to access weed as a harm-reduction tool: study
May 27, 2020 | Mugglehead
The regulated cannabis industry is blocking marginalized people from buying weed, according to a new study. While working as a post doctoral fellow in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside from 2017 to 2019, cannabis researcher and harm reduction expert Jenna Valleriani didn’t meet a single person who a...
Growing body of research shows patients with addiction, PTSD, and depression can benefit from psychedelic substances
May 27, 2020 | CannCentral
Back in 2016, the peer-reviewed journal EMBO Reports published astonishing numbers on the financial fallout from mental disorders. Three researchers at the Dresden University of Technology concluded that in 2010, the “global direct and indirect economic costs” were estimated at US$2.5 trilli...
Northern B.C. drug users criticize lack of access to safe supply
May 23, 2020 | CTV News
PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — At one point, Juls Budau says her boyfriend was going through $4,000 worth of cocaine in a week. He would express a desire to get sober and then in the middle of the night ask for a ride to a nearby ATM to pay his drug dealer, Budau said in an interview. When B.C. rolled out ...
As homeless people were moved out of Oppenheimer Park, many were prescribed a safe supply of drugs
May 20, 2020 | CBC News - BC
For Happy Kreter, doing outreach in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park was an all-consuming activity going back as far as January. Kreter, who works for the Portland Hotel Society (PHS), was at the park in the Downtown Eastside for the massive effort to meet a deadline earlier this month to clear the...
