Postcard Club 008 To be creative you must be in touch with the forbidden.

jackiedives.substack.com/p/postcard-c...

this is today! I'll be talking about strikes and showing some photos

This first line in this article "It was 2014 when I first heard of fentanyl entering the unregulated drug supply." feels like a stab in my heart.

It was in 2014 that I learned about the contaminated supply by losing my youngest son Danny to it.
The day that made me an accidental advocate.

BC’s Toxic Drug Crisis Hits a Grim 10-Year Anniversary | The Tyee More than 18,000 British Columbians have been killed and there’s no end in sight.

B.C.'s death toll is nearly in the tens of thousands with no end in sight. Basically every expert I speak with these days says we need to regulate the drug supply. The BCNDP are not willing to consider that, despite many of their own experts calling for it.
thetyee.ca/News/2026/04...

A decade under a public health emergency and nearly tens of thousands dead is horrific. Catastrophic. Grotesque. Governments are meant to keep people safe. The BCNDP knows thousands are dying every year from unregulated drugs. They choose to not regulate the drugs.
Today I am exhausted with grief.

"Social murder" is a good way to put it. If this many people were being killed by cars we wouldn't be blaming people for leaving their houses in the morning. We'd demand change.
Stigma is killing people. Stigma says because people use drugs the deserve to die. That is so wrong on so many levels.

My father was one of more than 50,000 people in Canada to die from a drug overdose since British Columbia’s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency on April 14, 2016.

I later found a government letter in his room that denied his request for them to provide him with a bed.

Emergency decade One worker's reflections between the city and the toxic drug supply crisis.

sharing a short reflection I wrote about working in the toxic drug crisis—which was formally declared 10 years ago today in BC. see those who can make it at Oppenheimer this evening

themainlander.com/2026/04/14/e...

Portrait of a Crisis Living and dying through a never ending emergency

Sharing something I wrote for The Globe and Mail in 2025, in my newsletter today.

open.substack.com/pub/jackiedi...

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.

Reflecting on 10 Long Years of BC's Toxic Drug Crisis via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026...

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

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.

“We will emerge into a landscape of rational drug policy, even if it remains pretty dark until we get there.”

Victoria-based addiction medicine specialist Dr. Ryan Herriot writes. #ToxicDrugCrisis #bcpoli

Sometimes, it feels as though flawed or weak versions of evidence-based policies have been deliberately adopted and designed to fail or to exist only as short-lived “pilots,” so that we could all move on, saying “See, that didn’t work.”

What My Dad Taught Me about Grief, Art and What Makes a Life | The Tyee He died of an accidental drug overdose. It changed how I perceive the world.

Reposting things I've written about the toxic drug supply crisis, as we mark 10 years of this public health emergency.

thetyee.ca/Culture/2024...

Vancouver friends! I'll be reading from a couple pieces I wrote for Briarpatch and talking about how the labour disputes I profiled have evolved since publishing those stories. Come out and support independent journalism!

www.zeffy.com/en-CA/ticket...

Opinion: Living and dying through B.C.’s overdose crisis Documenting the everyday of a forever emergency

April marks a decade of an ongoing public health emergency actively being ignored by people who have the power to do something to stop it. I'm exasperated and not sure what to do other than re-share what I've been photographing and writing about it for the past ten years.

The Narwhal’s press freedom case against the RCMP, explained Stay informed about The Narwhal and Amber Bracken’s lawsuit against the RCMP as we fight for press freedom in B.C. Supreme Court

After a two-month break, our press freedom trial against the RCMP resumed this week in Vancouver, with the RCMP expected to wrap up its defence next week. Final arguments are scheduled to be heard in June.

You can learn more and follow along here: thenarwhal.ca/press-freedom/

✨ Cover reveal! 📕

"Very Vancouver" will be out in August. It's a non-fiction storybook by me, a kaleidoscopic odyssey through backyard gardens, alley bottle hoards, SROs, Duffin's at midnight, and east-side family life — tales that take you beyond our pretty skylines.

ecwpress.com/products/ver...

Art installation opens in Bay Centre marking 10 years since overdose crisis A month-long art installation opened on Tuesday inside the Bay Centre, marking 10 years since BC declared toxic drug overdoses a crisis.

A month-long art installation opened on Tuesday inside the Bay Centre, marking 10 years since BC declared toxic drug overdoses a crisis.

“To my surprise, I think that I actually love not being a mom.”

11:38am, a New Experimental Film in Progress Circles, process-based art, and being an obsessive women artist.

Some ramblings about a new work in progress.

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An Interview with Artist Heidi Parkes On being a childfree, full time artist.

For my newsletter this week I interview artist Heidi Parkes

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Opinion: Living and dying through B.C.’s overdose crisis Documenting the everyday of a forever emergency

April marks a decade of an ongoing public health emergency actively being ignored by people who have the power to do something to stop it. I'm exasperated and not sure what to do other than re-share what I've been photographing and writing about it for the past ten years.

Inspiration Monday - March 10 Mary Oliver, Farm Security Administration, Amelia Butcher, Mahsa Farzi, Rose Wylie

Wrote about some artists and art that continue to inspire me.

jackiedives.substack.com/p/inspiratio...

Postcard Club 007 March Postcard Club featuring a photo and letter about solo cycling in South Korea

I send out a real postcard of my photography each month, to people who are subscribed. There is also a digital version.

jackiedives.substack.com/p/postcard-c...

Happy world autism awareness day

I’m incredibly grateful for the life I get to live

May you show the autistic people in your life whatever enthusiasm and support they need so they can feel the same

anyways today i explored a ghost mall

My Exhibition Planning Process A behind the scenes look at how I design my exhibitions

For this week's newsletter I share some of my exhibition planning and design process.

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The Cutting Room Floor On reluctantly trusting the process.

For this week's newsletter I wrote about burying super 8 footage in the plot where my dad and I used to garden, and trusting the art making process.

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Montréal Chinois Photography Exhibit » Chinese Canadian Museum On until May 10 at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver, Montréal Chinois unveils a rarely seen archive of Chinese Canadian life 1945 to the 1960s.

Last call for this photography-based exhibition at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver! On view until May 10, Montréal Chinois: The Lost Decades unveils a rarely seen archive of Chinese Canadian life from 1945 to the 1960s.
#photography #vancouver