Findings of an Alberta study on overdose prevention site closure in context

www.catie.ca/catie-news/f...

Reflecting on 10 Long Years of BC’s Toxic Drug Crisis | The Tyee I’ve spent my career working in the public health emergency. It’s time for a full embrace of evidence-based drug policies.

thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026...

Ten years that they count. More that they don’t.

#bcpoli

Naming a Crisis Community arts project honours lives lost to toxic drugs

Find out more here:

namingacrisis.ca

Send us your message and we will transcribe it anonymously on to our message board.

If, like us, you live and work in this perpetual crisis, tell us what it has taken from you. Who have you lost? What act of resistance empowers you? When this is over - and it will end - how will we live alongside those who could have stopped it sooner but chose not to? How will we forgive them?

Dr. Kelsey Roden, being a badass.

We are creating space in the Naming a Crisis exhibit for healthcare workers to participate by sharing messages about their experiences in the crisis.

Check out the full events listings and registration info at namingacrisis.ca

Victoria Arts Council presents Naming a Crisis Community Art Show, Bay Centre, 1150 Douglas Street, April 7 to 26.

The Victoria Arts Council will be putting on a fantastic show full of both art and events at the Bay Centre from April 7 to 26.

namingacrisis.ca/april-exhibit/

#bcpoli #harmreduction

"The sites were also recently shown to have neutral or even beneficial effects on neighbourhood crime levels."

BREAKING: Alberta government to announce Calgary and Lethbridge supervised consumption site closures Nine days after it announced a fraudulent study published by its staff, the Alberta government is moving quickly to dismantle what remains of supervised consumption services in the province.

drugdatadecoded.ca/breaking-alb...

"These statements also fly in the face of decades of research demonstrating the effectiveness of supervised consumption sites in reducing overdoses, deaths, hospitalizations, and other health outcomes."

BREAKING: Alberta government to announce Calgary and Lethbridge supervised consumption site closures Nine days after it announced a fraudulent study published by its staff, the Alberta government is moving quickly to dismantle what remains of supervised consumption services in the province.

BREAKING
Alberta government preparing to announce closures of supervised consumption sites in Calgary and Lethbridge, nine days after it published a fraudulent study on site client outcomes.
drugdatadecoded.ca/breaking-alb...

From today
bsky.app/profile/drug...

Event poster. "In Sadness and Rage." Land acknowledgement at the top. Tuesday April 14, 1-3:30pm. Speakers include Leslie McBain from MSTH, Lisa Lapointe Former BC Chief Coroner, and Jack Philips and Mark Willson from Solid Outreach Society.

We'll be there. You should too. #bcpoli

VPD (and other police forces), of course, drove further panic over safe supply, making comments like this 👇 when they knew well the negligible role of safe supply in their own seizures
bsky.app/profile/kwar...

10 years in and “there is no direction to collect that data.”

‘Mass Death on This Scale Is Incomprehensible’ | The Tyee Overdose deaths are trending down, but BC is still in the thick of a crisis. Here’s what the data tells us.

thetyee.ca/News/2026/03...

"'They don’t tell anyone they’re going in [the bathroom] because they’re ashamed and they’re hiding, and then we find them,' Staines said."

"Staines and Shaw are concerned that with the closure of the in-hospital supervised consumption site, there will be a rise in drug use in and around the hospital, and overdoses in bathrooms and hallways."

“'The hospital has a lot of places you can hide and get lost. People can die really easily because you can go unfound really quickly.'”

"Shaw had been a patient at Royal Alexandra Hospital before and after it had the supervised consumption site.

He said that before the site was in place, 'we would just shoot up in the bathrooms or in the hallways.'"

Two More Alberta Safe Consumption Sites Will Close. Advocates Fear the Worst | The Tyee Although no deaths have been reported at any of the sites in Canada, the Alberta government claims they enable drug use.

thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...

"People who used substances 'would go and utilize the supervised consumption site and my assessment was able to be a lot more thorough, a lot more grounded in reality.'"

The BCgov’s pilot of drug decriminalization ended last month and added restrictions to the safer supply program. Even as toxic drug poisonings continue, govt has backed away from harm reduction in favour of abstinence models & forced treatment beds—approaches that are not evidence-based 6/
#bcpoli

Documents Show BC Knew Safe-Supply Diversion Was Negligible - Filter Even as British Columbia’s Ministry of Health was caving to right-wing panic over “diversion” of safe supply drugs, its public ...

filtermag.org/bc-knew-safe...

“Rather than publicize the evidence early in 2025 to correct loud claims of safe supply diversion flooding communities, the BC government opted to sit on the information and retreat from safe supply as a policy.”

#bcpoli #harmreduction #medsky

In Vancouver's DTES, Harm Reduction Moves Forward Without Decrim - Filter In a small but sunny kitchen in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), a vat of cooked pasta and some surplus vegetables ...

filtermag.org/vancouver-do...

How Many People Are Overdosing at BC’s Hospitals? | The Tyee That data is key to knowing where supervised consumption sites are needed. The government won’t release it.

thetyee.ca/News/2026/02...

The government is obscuring the nature of the problem, therefore robbing you of a good understanding of the value of proposed solutions.

“The public has the right to understand these things fulsomely so that we can have informed conversations about policy responses.”

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the whole team at @crackdownpod.bsky.social for including us on this journey and in particular @alexdeboer.bsky.social. This episode was so well produced. Crackdown is the beating heart of our community and they need your help.

We now look to @dulfbc.bsky.social's charter challenge to show us the way forward. Without access to a regulated, predictable supply, people who use drugs will access more unregulated substances. Some will die.

Our patients are being destabilized by the whims of bureaucrats and politicians. This shows up as: more unregulated drug use, more overdoses, more survival crime and sex work, and more visits to your local emergency department.

#harmreduction

www.bccdc.ca/resource-gal...

www.bccdc.ca/Health-Profe...

Since the introduction of prescribed safer supply, rates of opioid use disorder have held steady or declined amongst all age groups in B.C. Data from the BCCDC demonstrates that medications prescribed as safer supply are not significantly contributing to the deaths of youth or adults.