Updates

The next episode will be out in a couple weeks. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to:

In October, British Columbia had an election. Sam Sullivan, a long-standing Member of the Legislature for the Liberal Party of BC, campaigned against a new safe injection site. In one of his anti-OPS campaign ads, Sullivan ripped a quote by Garth from a Tyee article and used it out of context, falsely implying that Garth agrees with Sullivan. We made some noise and it became a small scandal for a few days, and in the end Sullivan lost his race. A number of Liberal candidates who campaigned against poor people and harm reduction also got the boot.

Earlier this month, voters in Oregon passed a measure to decriminalize possession and personal use of all drugs. More recently, the City of Vancouver passed a motion to ask permission from the federal government to similarly decriminalize drug possession within city limits. We will be watching how this develops closely and reminding the government: nothing about us without us.

In October, the maker of Methadose, Mallinckrodt Pharma, filed for bankruptcy. The company claims it cannot afford to fight a lawsuit launched by Laura Shaver. Our legal case alleges that Methadose contributed to the overdose crisis. The courts allowed Mallinckrodt to sever itself from our proposed class action. That sucks, but our case against the government of BC and the College of Pharmacists continues, and we will still get discovery – that means they still have to produce files and documents for evidence. 

BC is the midst of a second wave of COVID-19. Cases are way up, so Crackdown is back to remote production for now.

Crackdown is a naloxone distribution site, which means we provide naloxone and training to use it. We’ve given out about 75 kits this year, but COVID has interrupted our ability to provide training.

There’s a new episode and a new season  – coming up. 

Be safe. Keep six.

Music featured: “A Pill for Everything” by Charlie Frederick