TAKING BACK WHAT'S OURS! - Episode 2. Canada
Channel: Drugreporter
Date: 13/07/2020

Drugreporter and INPUD presents the second episode of a 10 chapter long series documenting how people who use drugs around the world have organised and formed collectives and unions to protect and defend the health and human rights of their community. 

The second episode is about the history of the movement in Canada. In the early 90 nineties responding to the HIV crisis and overdoses among people who use drugs in Vancouver, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) was formed. The tireless work of Ann Livingston and VANDU contributed to significant changes in how people who use drugs were treated in Vancouver: Among the various harm reduction services that formed, they contributed to the opening of the first legal drug consumption room in North America and trials with heroin prescription programs. With the emergence of fentanyl in the illegal drug market, the overdose epidemic skyrocketed, in 2018, more than 10,300 Canadians died as a result of an apparent opioid-related overdose. Activist like Zoë Dodd from the Toronto Drug Users Union and the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society reacted by opening up  illegal overdose prevention sites, saving many many lives. Their civil obedience has changed the landscape of Canadian Drug Policy, and the sites became legal. Many people are still dying day by day in Canada, and drug user activist groups like VANDU, the BC-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors and the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD) are fighting for a safe drug supply, so people in need have access the unpolluted source of their drug of need. 

https://drogriporter.hu/en/taking-back-whats-ours-2-canada/ 

#drugpolicy #harmreduction #drugs #humanrights #decriminalisation #drogok #drogpolitika #ártalomcsökkentés

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