Episode 44: Kids on the Block Part 3 - Danny

[A highly saturated blue and pink image of ribbons in front of a crowd. (Original photo from the Vancouver Archives. Title: “Pride 2000.” Photographer unknown.)]

Right wing politicians say safe supply will hurt kids – that young people will get hooked on drugs they'd otherwise never try.

But kids already use drugs. If we want to protect and stabilize the lives of young people who use drugs, we need a regulated, non-toxic drug supply.

On episode 44, we hear from Danny – a young queer refugee who shares their story of surviving persecution and toxic drugs.

***

A note about the title of this series: “Kids on the Block” is a phrase drug users on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside yell when a family with children walks by. It’s a warning to other drug users to be mindful of their language and to put their gear away. 

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be uploaded here when ready.

Calls to Action

A Vancouver-based Youth Advisory Council made up of 10 young people who use drugs has published the following calls to action for Canadian policy makers: 

(1) We want accurate information about the risks and benefits of different drugs and how to practice different kinds of harm reduction in our schools and communities. 

(2) Those providing harm reduction to YPWUD should always collaborate closely with them to determine what (if anything) regarding their drug use and harm reduction practices can be shared. 

(3) Ideally, youth-oriented safer consumption sites should have a non-clinical, relaxed feel to them, and include a welcoming drop-in space alongside private spaces for safer consumption. They should be staffed by a mix of peers and providers with experience providing non-judgemental care, support, and camaraderie to YPWUD. 

(4) Youth-oriented safer consumption, drug-checking, shelter, and housing programs and spaces should have dedicated programming and hours for young women, gender diverse and queer youth, and BIPOC youth. Mobile outreach vans and safer consumption rooms are critical to making harm reduction and other forms of support more accessible to YPWUD in the context of the street involvement, and in particular those who are not residing in city centres. 

(5) We demand an end to compulsory or involuntary abstinence-based treatment programs. We want to be listened to regarding what drugs do for us, socially, physically, mentally, and emotionally, in our daily lives. Youth-dedicated drop-in centers and service hubs should center relationship- and trust-building and harm reduction. 

(6) YPWUD who are in government care (i.e. living in foster care and group homes and independent living arrangements) must be able to access harm reduction services without fear of discipline and repercussions. 

(7) We demand that YPWUD be at the table in a meaningful way (and not just as token participants in the process) as plans for decriminalization and safe supply are rolled out in British Columbia and elsewhere. 

(8) Harm reduction organizing and programming must be informed by an intersectional lens. It is critical to recognize and respond to how the risks and harms experienced by YPWUD are shaped by intersections of class, race, gender, sexuality, and ability. It is also important to recognize the intersections between drug user activism, anti-poverty activism, housing activism, and sexual health activism. 

(9) The goal is to grow a diverse and strong collective of YPWUD locally, nationally, and internationally. 

For more details on these calls to action, see: Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7

Works Cited

BC Centre for Disease Control, “Opioid Use Disorder among Youth in BC.” June 6, 2023. http://www.bccdc.ca/resource-gallery/Documents/Statistics%20and%20Research/Statistics%20and%20Reports/Overdose/2023.06.06_OUD_youth_infographic.pdf

Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7

Coroners Service, “Youth Unregulated Drug Toxicity Deaths in British Columbia: January 1, 2017 – December 31, 2022,” https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/youth_drug_toxicity_deaths_2017-2022.pdf

Damon, William, Ryan McNeil, M-J Milloy, Ekaterina Nosova, Thomas Kerr, and Kanna Hayashi. “Residential Eviction Predicts Initiation of or Relapse into Crystal Methamphetamine use Among People Who Inject Drugs: A Prospective Cohort Study.” Journal of Public Health (2018).

Fast, Danya, Thomas Kerr, Evan Wood, and Will Small. “The multiple truths about crystal meth among young people entrenched in an urban drug scene: a longitudinal ethnographic investigation.” Soc Sci Med (2014).

McNeil, Ryan, Taylor Fleming, Alexandra B Collins, Sandra Czechaczek, Samara Mayer, and Jade Boyd. “Navigating Post-Eviction Drug Use Amidst a Changing Drug Supply: A Spatially-Oriented Qualitative Study of Overlapping Housing and Overdose Crises in Vancouver, Canada.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence (2021).

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean, Delilah Gregg, Martin Steward, and Ryan Maddeaux. Rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This month we also need to say goodbye to three drug user activists. Rest in peace to Clint, Crystal and Cecil. We will miss you. 

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Rebecca Haines-Saah, Lisa Hale, Danya Fast and Garth Mullins.

Score by James Ash and Sam Fenn.

Special thanks to Kali Sedgemore, Annalina Claire, and Naja Kassir. As well as Taliah Lyons, Zara Lyons, Sarina Lyons and Ayla Martin from Youth 4 Youth Canada. And thanks once again to Bones, Jade, and Danny for sharing their stories with us. 

Today’s episode was funded in part by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, The Vancouver Foundation and Michael Smith Health Research BC. 

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Episode 43: Kids on the Block Part 2 - Jade

[Cover image: A blue, red, yellow, white and black painting of an animal screaming is in the centre of the frame. Over top, the word “Crackdown” is written in white block letters, with the same word behind it, creating a shadow effect. On either side of the painting are blocks of yellow, filling out the rest of the rectangular frame. (Original painting by Jade. Cover design by Alex de Boer)]

Rightwing politicians and media pundits want us to fear safe supply and harm reduction. They say these interventions are putting children and families in danger, when we know the opposite is true.

But there is one thing these conservatives are right about: Canadian kids have never been less safe. Not because of harm reduction, but because toxic illicit drugs might fuck up their lives. Or, because toxic illicit drugs might fuck up their parents’ lives.

On episode 43, we tell the story of Jade — a 21 year old harm reduction worker from Saskatchewan whose parents use drugs.

***

The beginning of this episode pays tribute to a friend of the show named Rainbow. Rainbow died in January of 2024. If you want to hear Rainbow’s story, please listen to Episode 28: After the Flood. Rest in power, Rainbow.

****

A note about the title of this series: “Kids on the Block” is a phrase drug users on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside yell when a family with children walks by. It’s a warning to other drug users to be mindful of their language and to put their gear away.

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be uploaded here when ready.

Calls to Action

A Vancouver-based Youth Advisory Council made up of 10 young people who use drugs has published the following calls to action for Canadian policy makers: 

(1) We want accurate information about the risks and benefits of different drugs and how to practice different kinds of harm reduction in our schools and communities. 

(2) Those providing harm reduction to YPWUD should always collaborate closely with them to determine what (if anything) regarding their drug use and harm reduction practices can be shared. 

(3) Ideally, youth-oriented safer consumption sites should have a non-clinical, relaxed feel to them, and include a welcoming drop-in space alongside private spaces for safer consumption. They should be staffed by a mix of peers and providers with experience providing non-judgemental care, support, and camaraderie to YPWUD. 

(4) Youth-oriented safer consumption, drug-checking, shelter, and housing programs and spaces should have dedicated programming and hours for young women, gender diverse and queer youth, and BIPOC youth. Mobile outreach vans and safer consumption rooms are critical to making harm reduction and other forms of support more accessible to YPWUD in the context of the street involvement, and in particular those who are not residing in city centres. 

(5) We demand an end to compulsory or involuntary abstinence-based treatment programs. We want to be listened to regarding what drugs do for us, socially, physically, mentally, and emotionally, in our daily lives. Youth-dedicated drop-in centers and service hubs should center relationship- and trust-building and harm reduction. 

(6) YPWUD who are in government care (i.e. living in foster care and group homes and independent living arrangements) must be able to access harm reduction services without fear of discipline and repercussions. 

(7) We demand that YPWUD be at the table in a meaningful way (and not just as token participants in the process) as plans for decriminalization and safe supply are rolled out in British Columbia and elsewhere. 

(8) Harm reduction organizing and programming must be informed by an intersectional lens. It is critical to recognize and respond to how the risks and harms experienced by YPWUD are shaped by intersections of class, race, gender, sexuality, and ability. It is also important to recognize the intersections between drug user activism, anti-poverty activism, housing activism, and sexual health activism. 

(9) The goal is to grow a diverse and strong collective of YPWUD locally, nationally, and internationally. 

For more details on these calls to action, see: Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7

Works Cited

Allen, Bonnie. “Drug overdoses, COVID-19 drive Sask. life expectancy to lowest level in 22 years.” CBC Saskatchewan, September 12, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/drug-overdoses-covid-19-drive-sask-life-expectancy-to-lowest-level-in-22-years-1.6959685#:~:text=Saskatchewan%27s%20life%20expectancy%20declined%20in,under%20the%20age%20of%2050. 

BC Coroners Service. “YOUTH UNREGULATED DRUG TOXICITY DEATHS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: January 1, 2017 – December 31, 2022.” 

BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. “Escalated drug-poisoning response actions.” January, 2024. https://news.gov.bc.ca/factsheets/escalated-drug-poisoning-response-actions-1.

Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7.

Dove, Nathaniel. “Saskatchewan sees another record year for overdose deaths in 2021.” Global News, January 11, 2022. 

Kessler, Ryan, Kelly Skjerven. “2021 another grim year for drug overdoses in Saskatchewan.” Global News, December 21, 2021. https://globalnews.ca/news/8474764/drug-overdoses-crisis-saskatchewan-2021/. 

Kim, H., Wildeman, C., Jonson-Reid, M., & Drake, B. (2017). Lifetime prevalence of investigating child maltreatment among US children. American journal of public health, 107(2), 274-280.

Lang, Brady. “Sask. sets another record for overdose deaths in 2022.” CTV News, January 6, 2023. https://regina.ctvnews.ca/sask-sets-another-record-for-overdose-deaths-in-2022-1.6221178. 

Mantyka, Wayne. “'There is no safe use': Sask. government defends decision to restrict harm reduction measures.” CTV News Regina, February 5, 2024. https://regina.ctvnews.ca/there-is-no-safe-use-sask-government-defends-decision-to-restrict-harm-reduction-measures-1.6755650. 

Public Health Agency of Canada. “Apparent Opioid and Stimulant Toxicity Deaths: Surveillance of Opioid and  Stimulant-Related Harms in Canada.” December 2023 (p. 58). https://health-infobase.canada.ca/src/doc/SRHD/Update_Deaths_2023-12.pdf. 

Quon, Alexander. “2023 the 2nd deadliest year for drug overdoses in Regina: police.” CBC Saskatchewan, January 23, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-2023-drug-overdoses-1.7092186#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20released%20by,the%20118%20recorded%20in%202022. 

Ranger, Corey (@CoreyRanger). “Access to prescribed #SafeSupply in BC has dropped significantly since March 2023.” X, August 29, 2023. https://twitter.com/CoreyRanger/status/1696663051783520368. 

Roberts, Dorothy E. "Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families - And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World." New York : Basic Books, 2022.

Ross, Jenell. “One in Ten Black Children in America Are Separated From Their Parents by the Child-Welfare System. A New Book Argues That’s No Accident.” Time Magazine, April 20, 2022. https://time.com/6168354/child-welfare-system-dorothy-roberts/. 

Salloum, Alec. “Sask. ends provision of drug pipes, instructions for safe drug use to harm reduction organizations.” Saskatoon StarPheonix, January 18, 2024. https://thestarphoenix.com/news/saskatchewan/sask-ends-provision-of-drug-pipes-instructions-for-safe-drug-use-to-harm-reduction-organizations/wcm/126ec8f8-1f4c-4884-ab2a-47f379e81ad0. 

Saskatchewan Coroner Service. “Confirmed and Suspected Drug Toxicity Deaths 2016-2023.” January, 2024. https://publications.saskatchewan.ca/api/v1/products/90505/formats/107395/download. 

Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit. “Evidence-Informed Responses to Evolving Opioid-Related Harms in the Province of Saskatchewan.” October 2021. https://spheru.ca/publications/files/opioidoverdose-crisis.pdf. 

Tank, Phil. “Drug policy change comes as Sask. overdose deaths spike.” Saskatoon StarPheonix, January 23, 2024. https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/columnists/phil-tank-pipe-policy-comes-as-sask-eclipsing-overdose-death-mark. 

Williams, Ethan. “CBC SK News: 2023 2nd deadliest year for drug overdoses in Regina, and Coroner's inquest continues.” CBC Saskatchewan, January 23, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=a-07xbZ1YV8.

Wyton, Moira. “'A lot of people are going to get hurt': Nurses union, doctors call on Sask. to reverse harm reduction changes.” CBC News, January 24, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/nurses-doctors-harm-reduction-1.7093283. 

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean and Elli Taylor. Rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, Jade, Danya Fast, Rebecca Saah and Garth Mullins. 

Thanks to Candice Lipski and Robbie Priest for their production assistance.

Thanks to Jade for recording radio diaries for this episode.

Score by James Ash and Sam Fenn, with contributions from Michael Bowd.

Today’s episode was supported in part by funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Vancouver Foundation, and Michael Smith Health Research BC.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Episode 42: Kids on the Block Part 1 - Bones

[Alt text: Colour photo of three pre-teen girls blowing bubbles outside on a sunny day. On the right corner there is text that reads, “Keeping child-focused spaces safe.” The top of the image has the word “Crackdown” written in large, black letters. The original image was designed to promote the BC NDP’s Bill 34 — new legislation banning drug use in most public spaces.]

Across the country, politicians and the media are fearmongering about children’s safety. They’re using a faux concern about families to attack harm reduction and the drug user movement. And their rhetoric is rolling back life-saving, public health responses to the overdose crisis. But now young people are pushing back. They’re saying they don’t want to see harm reduction attacked in their name.

Kids on the Block Part 1 tells the story of Bones, a teenager from a small town in Western Canada as he struggles to survive the overdose crisis and keep his friends safe. 

***

A note about the title of this series: “Kids on the Block” is a phrase drug users on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside yell when a family with children walks by. It’s a warning to other drug users to be mindful of their language and to put their gear away.

***

In this episode, Bones discusses heavy use of MDMA and the potential impact this may cause to the human serotonin system. Gill Bedi, the Head of Substance Use Research at Orygen, cautions that researchers have not reached a consensus on the relationship between MDMA use and serotonin and that “single, low doeses of MDMA are unlikely to be doing much to the serotonin system in humans.” However, Bedi adds that “it is probably not a good idea for your serotonin system (or your general health) to be using this drug regularly, stacking, or repeating doses over say a day or a few days.” Bedi recommends starting low and going slow, particularly when you cannot be sure what is in your drugs.

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be uploaded here when ready.

Calls to Action

A Vancouver-based Youth Advisory Council made up of 10 young people who use drugs has published the following calls to action for Canadian policy makers: 

(1) We want accurate information about the risks and benefits of different drugs and how to practice different kinds of harm reduction in our schools and communities. 

(2) Those providing harm reduction to YPWUD should always collaborate closely with them to determine what (if anything) regarding their drug use and harm reduction practices can be shared. 

(3) Ideally, youth-oriented safer consumption sites should have a non-clinical, relaxed feel to them, and include a welcoming drop-in space alongside private spaces for safer consumption. They should be staffed by a mix of peers and providers with experience providing non-judgemental care, support, and camaraderie to YPWUD. 

(4) Youth-oriented safer consumption, drug-checking, shelter, and housing programs and spaces should have dedicated programming and hours for young women, gender diverse and queer youth, and BIPOC youth. Mobile outreach vans and safer consumption rooms are critical to making harm reduction and other forms of support more accessible to YPWUD in the context of the street involvement, and in particular those who are not residing in city centres. 

(5) We demand an end to compulsory or involuntary abstinence-based treatment programs. We want to be listened to regarding what drugs do for us, socially, physically, mentally, and emotionally, in our daily lives. Youth-dedicated drop-in centers and service hubs should center relationship- and trust-building and harm reduction. 

(6) YPWUD who are in government care (i.e. living in foster care and group homes and independent living arrangements) must be able to access harm reduction services without fear of discipline and repercussions. 

(7) We demand that YPWUD be at the table in a meaningful way (and not just as token participants in the process) as plans for decriminalization and safe supply are rolled out in British Columbia and elsewhere. 

(8) Harm reduction organizing and programming must be informed by an intersectional lens. It is critical to recognize and respond to how the risks and harms experienced by YPWUD are shaped by intersections of class, race, gender, sexuality, and ability. It is also important to recognize the intersections between drug user activism, anti-poverty activism, housing activism, and sexual health activism. 

(9) The goal is to grow a diverse and strong collective of YPWUD locally, nationally, and internationally. 

For more details on these calls to action, see: Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7

Works Cited

BC Centre for Disease Control, “Opioid Use Disorder among Youth in BC.” June 6, 2023. http://www.bccdc.ca/resource-gallery/Documents/Statistics%20and%20Research/Statistics%20and%20Reports/Overdose/2023.06.06_OUD_youth_infographic.pdf

Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00607-7

Coroners Service, “Youth Unregulated Drug Toxicity Deaths in British Columbia: January 1, 2017 – December 31, 2022,” https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/youth_drug_toxicity_deaths_2017-2022.pdf

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, Bones, Danya Fast, Rebecca Saah and Garth Mullins. 

Score by James Ash and Sam Fenn. 

Today’s episode was supported in part by funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Vancouver Foundation, and Michael Smith Health Research BC.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Episode 41: New Front, Old War

[ALT Text: Photo of the back of Garth Mullins as he stands at a podium, facing a crowd in Vancouver’s Victory Square Park. Mullins is wearing a black DULF t-shirt and black pants. People in the crowd hold up signs in support of DULF. At the bottom of the frame the word “Crackdown” is written in white, capitalized, block letters. (photo by Sam Fenn)]

Toxic drug deaths continue to break records in BC. We need an immediate expansion on all harm reduction initiatives. More than anything, we need a real safe supply.

Instead, the BC NDP is moving backwards. They’ve fallen in line with a nation-wide moral panic and are actively rolling back the province’s hydromorphone prescribing and drug decriminalization programs. Last month, cops arrested DULF co-founders, Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx. Their crime? Doing what the government refused to do — provide a safe supply of drugs to people at risk of toxic drug death.

***

Statement of disclosure: In this episode we include a quote from Dr. Thomas Kerr, Director of Research for the BCCSU. Dr. Kerr is a partner and intellectual director at Crackdown and a thesis supervisor on Garth Mullins’ PhD dissertation.

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.  

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, and Garth Mullins.

Score by James Ash.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 40: Boys Don’t Cry

[Cover image is a school photo of Trevor Botkin, aged approximately 10 years old. Trevor is smiling, looking straight at the camera and has short brown hair. The background is blurred. The bottom of the photo has the word “Crackdown” written in big block letters. (Photo provided by Trevor Botkin)]

In the trades there’s a zero-tolerance policy on substance use. But the construction industry relies on drugs. Cocaine and stimulants help maintain a demanding rate of production and opioids treat the pain caused by injury and gruelling physical labour. On the 40th episode of Crackdown, we tell the story of one construction industry veteran, Trevor Botkin, in order to explore the culture of exploitation, secrecy, and hypermasculinity that is driving overdoses among men in the trades.

Men at Work, a companion video to Boys Don’t Cry, weaves the stories of four construction industry veterans who survived the culture of exploitation, secrecy, and hypermasculinity that drives overdose deaths among men in the trades. Directed by Crackdown collaborator, Brenda Longfellow and featuring the stories of: Trevor Botkin, Scott Banistermex, Jason Camp and Anthony Monti.

[Trevor’s father, Terry Botkin, holding his baby grand daughter. (Photo provided by Trevor Botkin)]

[Trevor’s father, Terry Botkin, on a fishing trip. Terry is wearing a green rain jacket and wide-brimmed green hat. Behind him you can see the ocean and the nearby shore, lined with trees. (Photo provided by Trevor Botkin)]

[Trevor Botkin standing in a partly built wood structure. He has a white beard and is looking at the side of the frame with his hands on his hips. Trevor wears a safety vest and a backwards hard hat with stickers on it. (Photo provided by Trevor Botkin)]

(Trevor smiling at the camera. He has a blue baseball cap that is mostly shading his face, a pencil behind his ear and a white beard. He wears a red shirt with a logo on the chest that says “HeroWork.” Behind him are trees and a wood building that are out of focus. (Photo provided by Trevor Botkin)]

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Brenda Longfellow, Lisa Hale and me, Garth Mullins.

The radio diaries you heard throughout the show were recorded by Trevor Botkin. 

Brenda Longfellow and Danya Fast provided us with intellectual direction. 

This episode was mixed by Alexander Kim and Sam Fenn. 

Score by James Ash.

Special thanks to Natasha Touesnard, Andrzej Celinski, as well as the members of CAPUD’s Substance Use in the Trades Working Group. 

I’d like to say goodbye to VANDU’s vice president, Joe and to veteran activist Pablo, who made us shine like diamonds. See you on the other side, guys. 

Today’s episode was funded in part by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant held at York University. 

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 39: Backlash

[Cover image alt text: A crowd sits on folding chairs at VANDU [The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users]. Garth Mullins stands in front of the crowd and points up at a TV screen with an image of Pierre Poilievre digging a grave for “harm redux” and “safe supply. “ Beside the image is large text that reads, “VANDU Emergency General Meeting. [photo: Alex de Boer])

A right wing backlash against harm reduction and safe supply is brewing in Canada. Garth Mullins and Sam Fenn tell the story of how we got here — and what needs to be done to fight back.

Credits:

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.  

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, and Garth Mullins.

Crackdown’s academic director is Ryan McNeil. 

Special thanks to Alex Betsos for research assistance.

The music in today’s episode was written and performed by James Ash, Sam Fenn and Garth Mullins.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 38: The Knock

[The cover image is an abstract ink drawing. There is a hand holding a small baby. The baby is reaching up to touch an anatomically correct heart. The space around this is filled with various patterns, leaves and poppy flowers. At the top, the word “Crackdown” is written in capitalized, bolded letters. Image by Hawkfeather Peterson]

Being a mother who uses drugs can put you under constant scrutiny from the government. Especially if you’re Indigenous. You’re judged and watched. You live in fear of that knock on the door, when they come to take your kids away. Many moms are rightly scared to access safer supply, harm reduction, detox and withdrawal management – so they avoid those life saving services because they don’t want to draw the eye of the state.  

In this episode Hawkfeather Peterson and Elli Taylor, two leaders in the drug user liberation movement, share their stories of surviving the scrutiny and violence of BC’s family policing system. We also hear from professor Jade Boyd who talks about her research on why overdose interventions aren’t reaching mothers.

*The terms “mothers” and “moms” is non-binary, trans and two-spirited inclusive.

Transcript:

A complete transcript of this episode will be uploaded here when ready.

Call to Action and Political Demands: 

• Mothers need to be able to access overdose interventions, treatment and harm reduction services without the risk of losing their kids.

• Sobriety cannot be a prerequisite for a mother to retain custody of their child or for parent-child reunification.

• We need an overhaul of CPS, including BC’s Ministry of Child and Family Development. We need a new system that protects vulnerable children and families by materially supporting them.

• We need an immediate implementation – not only a symbolic implementation – of Bill 38, the end of birth alerts and the distinction between problematic and non-problematic substance use by MCFD.

• The BC government must eradicate poverty. Poverty is the leading cause of child removal in BC (often labeled “neglect”) and experts have long argued its eradication is the single best way to improve child welfare.

• CPS needs to stop over-surveilling poor, drug-using, Indigenous, Black and other marginalized communities in the name of “child welfare.” 

• Until MCFD is completely overhauled, the government must fund peer support groups for mothers who use drugs like PACK.

​​Learning Outcomes:

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 38 is especially useful for exploring the following topics:

• Women (inclusive of gender diverse people) who use drugs

• Harm reduction gaps for mothers who use drugs

• Institutional stigma against mothers who use drugs

• Over-representation of Indigenous children in foster care

• Disproportionate rates of overdose death among Indigenous women

***

Above are the Ministry of Children and Family Development’s current guidelines on assessing parental problematic substance use. When asked if other important resources or considerations are used to assess problematic substance use, MCFD told Crackdown: “MCFD also uses a Safety Assessment and Strengths and Needs Assessment that is not specifically about substance use, but substance use would be noted if impacting the care of a child. These tools are derived from the Structured Decision Making Tools developed by Evident Change.”

The above guidelines are not public. When asked why they are not public, MCFD told Crackdown: “MCFD is open to making ministry information available to the public, except where confidentiality is required to protect children and youth. The ministry is working on making more ministry documents publicly available, including policy documents. The ministry intends to publish the practice guidelines referenced above on its website.”

Works Cited 

American Civil Liberties Union. “Cracks in the System: 20 Years of the Unjust Federal Crack Cocaine Law.” October, 2006. https://www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjustfederal-crack-cocaine-law. 

Baker, Paula. “B.C. declares public health emergency after significant increase in drug overdoses.” Global News, April 14, 2016. https://globalnews.ca/news/2639028/b-c-declares-public-health-emergency-after-significant-increase-in-drug-overdoses/. 

Baker, Rafferty. “Safe Drug Supply Program Still Not Reaching Enough People in B.C., Say Advocates.” CBC News, March 26, 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-safe-supply-drug-prescription-one-year-1.5964963.

BC (Director of family and child services) v H (K), [2002] 2002 BCPC 204 (British Columbia Provincial Court), para 37.

BC Notice of Civil Claim (00823279-2): 3, https://www.cfmlawyers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/BC-FILED-Notice-of-Civil-Claim-01-Sep-2021-00825250xB33C8.pdf. 

Boyd, Jade, Lisa Maher, Tamar Austin, Jennifer Lavalley, Thomas Kerr, and Ryan McNeil. “Mothers Who Use Drugs: Closing the Gaps in Harm Reduction Response Amidst the Dual Epidemics of Overdose and Violence in a Canadian Urban Setting.” Am J Public Health 112 (2022): S191–98. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2022.306776.

Boyd, Susan C., Mothers and Illicit Drugs: Transcending the Myths. University of Toronto Press, 1999. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2ttgjn. 

Boyd, Susan C., From Witches to Crack Moms: Women, Drug Law, and Policy. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2015.

British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. “Risk Mitigation: In the Context of Dual Public Health Emergencies.” British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, March 2020. www.bccsu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Risk-Mitigation-in-the-Context-of-Dual-Public-Health-Emergencies-v1.5.pdf.

Campbell, Nancy. Using Women. New York: Routledge, 2000. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203800324.

CBC News. “BC’s funding system ‘broken’ for Indigenous children in provincial care: report.” CBC News, March 22, 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/funding-allocation-mcfd-1.6401290. 

CBC News. “‘It’s Time‘: Mayor to Apologize to London’s LGBTQ Community.” CBC News, January 4, 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/gay-pride-apology-diane-haskett-1.4473043.

CBC News. “Why are kids in government care running away? New report from B.C.’s children, youth rep sheds some light.” CBC News, April 27, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-representative-children-youth-report-kids-government-care-running-away-1.6825373. 

Doyle, Joseph J. “Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care.” American Economic Review 97, no. 5 (2007):1583-84.

Favaro, Avis. “Indigenous families disproportionately affected by 'birth alerts'; B.C. lawsuit seeks damages.” CTV News, October 31, 2021.

Frank, DA et al. “Growth, development, and behavior in early childhood following prenatal cocaine exposure: a systematic review.” JAMA 285 no. 12 (March 2001):1613-25. doi: 10.1001/jama.285.12.1613.

Foster, Leslie T. and Brian Wharf, ed. People, Politics and Child Welfare in British Columbia. Vancouver, UBC Press, 2007.

Griffiths, Nathan. “Toxic drugs killing B.C. First Nations women at shocking rate: Health authority.” Prince George Post, May 14, 2023. https://www.princegeorgepost.com/news/local-news/toxic-drugs-killing-bc-first-nations-women-at-shocking-rate-health-authority-fnha. 

Harp, Kathi L H and Amanda M Bunting. “The Racialized Nature of Child Welfare Policies and the Social Control of Black Bodies.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 27, no. 2 (Summer 2020): 258–281. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxz039.

Hobson, Brittany. 'The bond is broken': Data shows Indigenous kids overrepresented in foster care.” The Canadian Press, Sept 21, 2022. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/the-bond-is-broken-data-shows-indigenous-kids-overrepresented-in-foster-care-1.6077389.

Hobson, Brittany. “More than half the children in care are Indigenous, census data suggests.” The Canadian Press, Sept 21, 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/census-indigenous-children-care-1.6590075. 

Huybrechts, KF, G Bröms, LB Christensen, et al. “Association Between Methylphenidate and Amphetamine Use in Pregnancy and Risk of Congenital Malformations: A Cohort Study From the International Pregnancy Safety Study Consortium.” JAMA Psychiatry, (2018): 75(2): 167–175. https://doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.3644.

Hwang, Priscilla Ki Sun. “Their newborns were taken at birth. Years later, these women still don't know why.” CBC News, Sept 29, 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/birth-alerts-indigenous-women-ottawa-stories-1.6591808#:~:text=Birth%20alerts%20are%20notifications%20issued,care%20or%20deliver%20their%20baby. 

Hyslop, Katie. “BC Bans ‘Birth Alerts,’ Promises More Family Supports in Bid to End Apprehension of Newborns.” The Tyee, September 17, 2019. https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/09/17/BC-Bans-Birth-Alerts-End-Newborn-Apprehension/.

Hyslop, Katie. “How Canada Created a Crisis in Indigenous Child Welfare.” The Tyee, May 9, 2018. https://thetyee.ca/News/2018/05/09/Canada-Crisis-Indignenous-Welfare/. 

Kenny, Kathleen S, C Barrington and SL Green. “I felt for a long time like everything beautiful in me had been taken out”: Women’s suffering, remembering, and survival following the loss of child custody.” Int J Drug Policy 26, no. 11 (November 2015): 1158-66. Doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.05.024. 

Kenny, Kathleen,  Andrea Krusi, Clare Barrington, Flo Ranville, Sherri Green, Brittany Bingham, Ronald Abrahams and Kate Shannon. “Health consequences of child removal among Indigenous and non‐Indigenous sex workers: Examining trajectories, mechanisms and resiliencies.” Sociology of Health & Illness 43 (2021). Doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13364. 

Larsen, Karin. “Indigenous Youth Who Died in Government Care Failed by the System, Says New Report.” CBC News, June 10, 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indigenous-youth-government-report-1.6060913.

Lindsay, Bethany. “'Where's the accountability?' Families and First Nations call for full regulation of social workers.” CBC News, October 29, 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/families-and-first-nations-call-for-full-regulation-of-social-workers-1.6632358. 

MacDonald, Nancy. “B.C. Sees Spike in Critical Injuries to Youth in Government Care during Pandemic’s First Year.” The Globe and Mail, June 27, 2022. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-death-injury-of-children-in-care-british-columbia/.

MacLaurin, Bruce, Nico Trocmé, Barbara Fallon, Vandna Sinha, Janet Douglas, Alison Barker, Scott Horvath, Laura Hamilton, Jordan Gail, Olivia Kitt, Carolyn Zelt, Elizabeth Fast, Shelley Thomas-Prokop, Emily Hutcheon, Gabrielle Daoust and Danielle Budgell, “British Columbia Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect – (BCIS‑2008): Major Findings.” Calgary, AB: University of Calgary, 2011. https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/bcis-2008.pdf.

Malone, Kelly Geraldine. ‘A red herring:’ Experts warn ending birth alerts not the only solution.” The Canadian Press, Sept 19, 2022. https://globalnews.ca/news/9139155/birth-alerts-first-nations-child-welfare/. 

McKenzie, Anna, Bayleigh Marelj and Brielle Morgan. “B.C. ministry warned birth alerts ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ months before banning them.” IndigiNews, January 12, 2021. https://indiginews.com/vancouver-island/birth-alerts#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20office%20has%20looked%20at,'%20are%20no%20longer%20conducted.%E2%80%9D. 

McKenzie, Anna. “After generations of stolen kids, ‘powerful changes’ to ‘B.C.’ law set to return child welfare jurisdiction.” IndigiNews, October 28, 2022. https://indiginews.com/news/powerful-changes-to-legislation-set-to-return-child-welfare-jurisdiction. 

Ministry of Children and Family Development. “PRACTICE GUIDELINES when Assessing Parental Problematic Substance Use in Child Welfare.” MCFD, February 2018 (Updated February 2019): 430. 

“National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.” Reclaiming Power and Place: Executive Summary of the Final Report, V1-2.

National Harm Reduction Coalition. “Pregnancy and Substance Use: A Harm Reduction Toolkit.” October 2022: 43-46. https://www.perinatalharmreduction.org/_files/ugd/f31cc3_33f7205a7b5c49a4a91bc6d847a6783c.pdf.

O’Donnell, Christopher and Nathaniel Lash. “Nowhere to call home: Thousands of foster children move so much they risk psychological harm.” Tampa Bay Times. December 27, 2018. 

Okie, Susan. “The Epidemic That Wasn't.” The New York Times, January 26, 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html.

Pivot Legal Society. “Supporting the Call to Dismantle BC’s Family Policing System.”  Pivot Legal Society, November 9, 2022. https://www.pivotlegal.org/supporting_the_call_to_dismantle_bc_s_family_policing_system.

Representative for Children and Youth. Missing: Why are Children Disappearing from BC’s Child Welfare System? April 2023. https://rcybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RCY-Missing-April2023.pdf.

Representative for Children and Youth. Much More than Paperwork: Proper Planning Essential to Better Lives for B.C.’s Children in Care: A Representative’s Audit on Plans of Care. March 2013, pp. 3, 96.

Stueck, Wendy. “Hotel stays for B.C. foster kids reflect overloaded system: advocates.” The Globe and Mail, January 14, 2006. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/hotel-stays-for-bc-foster-kids-reflect-overloaded-system-advocates/article28208208/. 

Schempf, AH and Strobino, DM. “Illicit drug use and adverse birth outcomes: is it drugs or context?” J Urban Health, (Nov 2008): 85(6): 858-73. doi: 10.1007/s11524-008-9315-6. 

Shah, Rizwan, Sabrina D. Diaz, Amelia Arria, Linda L. LaGasse, Chris Derauf, Elana Newman, Lynne M. Smith, Marilyn A. Huestis, William Haning, Arthur Strauss, Sheri Della Grotta, Lynne M. Dansereau, Mary B. Roberts, Charles Neal, and Barry M. Lester. “Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure and Short-Term Maternal and Infant Medical Outcomes.” Am J Perinatol, (2012): 29(05): 391-400, DOI: 10.1055/s-0032-1304818. 

Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Data. https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1541187352297/1541187392851. 

Testa, Mark F. and Brenda Smith. “Prevention and drug treatment.” The Future of Children 19, (Fall 2009): 147–168. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1353/foc.0.0033. 

The New York Times Editorial Board. “Slandering the Unborn.” The New York Times, December 28, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/opinion/crack-babies-racism. 

Thumath, Meaghan, D Humphreys, J Barlow, P Duff, M Braschel, B Bingham, S Pierre and K Shannon K. “Overdose among mothers: The association between child removal and unintentional drug overdose in a longitudinal cohort of marginalised women in Canada.” Int J Drug Policy 91 (May 2021): 102977. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102977.

Uguen-Csenge, Eva. “B.C. releases plan to provide safe supply of drugs during COVID-19 pandemic.” CBC News, March 26, 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/safe-supply-drug-plan-covid-1.5511973. 

West Coast LEAF. Pathways in a Forest: Indigenous guidance on prevention-based child welfare, 5.

Williams, Emma. “‘Family Regulation,’ Not ‘Child Welfare’: Abolition Starts with Changing Our Language.” The Imprint, July 28, 2020. https://imprintnews.org/opinion/family-regulation-not-child-welfare-abolition-starts-changing-language/45586.

Winerip, Michael. “Revisiting the ‘Crack Babies’ Epidemic That Was Not.” The New York Times, March 20, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/booming/revisiting-the-crack-babies-epidemic-that-was-not.html. 

Wyton, Moira. “Experts Reject BC’s Safe Supply Claims.” The Tyee, March 3, 2022. https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/03/03/Experts-Reject-BC-Safe-Supply-Claims/.

Recommended Reading:

Blackstock, Cindy. “The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on First Nations Child Welfare: Why If Canada Wins, Equality and Justice Lose.” Children and Youth Services Review 33, no. 1 (2011): 187–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2010.09.002.

Charlesworth, Jennifer. “Missing: Why Are Children Disappearing from BC’s Child Welfare System?” B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth, 2023. https://rcybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RCY-Missing-April2023.pdf.

Denison, Jacqueline, Colleen Varcoe, and Annette J. Browne. “Aboriginal Women’s Experiences of Accessing Health Care When State Apprehension of Children Is Being Threatened.” J Adv Nurs 70, no. 5 (2014): 1105–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12271.

Hyslop, Katie. “How Poverty and Underfunding Land Indigenous Kids in Care.” The Tyee, May 14, 2018. https://thetyee.ca/News/2018/05/14/Indigenous-Kids-Poverty-Care/.

Seucharan, Cherise, Brielle Morgan, Katie Hyslop, and Tracy Sherlock. “B.C.’s Focus on Foster Care Neglects Need to Support Struggling Families, Experts Say.” The Toronto Star, June 13, 2019. https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/06/13/bcs-focus-on-foster-care-neglects-need-to-support-struggling-families-experts-say.html.

West Coast LEAF and Rise Women’s Legal Centre. Joint Submissions in response to the British Columbia Law Institute Consultation Paper on Modernizing the Child, Family and Community Service Act. (January 2021), 9.

Wolfson, Lindsay, Rose A. Schmidt, Julie Stinson, and Nancy Poole. “Examining Barriers to Harm Reduction and Child Welfare Services for Pregnant Women and Mothers Who Use Substances Using a Stigma Action Framework.” Health Soc Care Community 29, no. 3 (2021): 589–601. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13335.

Mosoff, Judith, Isabel Grant, Susan B Boyd & Ruben Lindy. "Intersecting Challenges: Mothers and Child Protection Law in BC.” UBC Law Review 50, no. 2 (2017): 435.

Credits:

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale and Garth Mullins.

Production assistance by Hawkfeather Peterson and Elli Taylor. Both Hawkfeather and Elli worked on the script and edits

Special thanks to West Coast Leaf and PACK for their consultation.

This episode was funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Crackdown’s academic director is Ryan McNeil. Academic advising and direction for this episode was provided by Professor Jade Boyd.

The music in today’s episode was written and performed by James Ash.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 37: Drugstore Cowboy

The exterior of Vancouver’s Carnegie Library at Main Street and Hastings Street in 1903. The Carnegie is a large, Victorian-style, granite-faced building with an ionic corner portico and dome. For decades, this location has been known as “pill corner” – a place where people buy and sell pharmaceutical drugs. (Photo by Major Matthews, Vancouver Archives)

Diversion: a cold, technocratic word for when we give, trade or sell our prescribed meds to someone else. A ghost story, whispered among doctors and now, a moral panic, hollered by right wing politicians.

But really, everyone’s shared their meds. I’ve done it and I bet you have too – as an act of mutual aid, solidarity or maybe survival. But doctors have created all kinds of measures to try to stop it. And politicians have spread lies as part of a pretext to stamp out safe supply before it ever really gets started.

In this episode we follow a guy named Pockets, as he finds relief in heroin and eventually gets prescribed Dilaudid and Methadone. Surrounded by death, in the time of fentanyl and benzodope, Pockets starts to share his safe, regulated meds to help save lives. And he’s punished for it.

We also hear from professors Thomas Kerr and Geoff Bardwell who talk about their research on diversion, which provides an alternative, evidence-based, perspective on the highly controversial practice.

Transcript:

A complete transcript of this episode will be uploaded here when ready.

Call to Action and Political Demands: 

• Carries for anyone prescribed opioids who wants them. No more liquid handcuffs.

• No more piss tests for anti-diversion purposes. No more doctors or pharmacists acting like cops.

• Use evidence-based research (not drug war propaganda) to educate doctors and prescribers on why people share or sell drugs. 

• We need a safe, regulated supply of the drugs people actually want and need.

• Let us co-write all drug policies. Nothing about us without us. 

Learning Outcomes:

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 37 is especially useful for exploring the following topics:

• Prescription drug “diversion.”

• Anti-diversion drug policies.

• The rising backlash against prescription opioids.

• Low retention rates for Methadone programs.

• The overdose crisis: political rhetoric versus evidence-based research.

Works Cited

Baker, Paula. 2016. “B.C. Declares Public Health Emergency after Significant Increase in Drug Overdoses.” Global News, April 14, 2016. https://globalnews.ca/news/2639028/b-c-declares-public-health-emergency-after-significant-increase-in-drug-overdoses/. 

Bardwell, Geoff, Andrew Ivsins, M. Eugenia Socías, and Thomas Kerr. 2021. “Examining Factors That Shape Use and Access to Diverted Prescription Opioids during an Overdose Crisis: A Qualitative Study in Vancouver, Canada.” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 130: 108418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2021.108418.

Bardwell, Geoff, Will Small, Jennifer Lavalley, Ryan McNeil, and Thomas Kerr. 2021. “‘People Need Them or Else They’re Going to Take Fentanyl and Die’: A Qualitative Study Examining the ‘Problem’ of Prescription Opioid Diversion during an Overdose Epidemic.” Social Science & Medicine 279: 113986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113986.

Barker, Brittany, Thomas Kerr, Paul Nguyen, Evan Wood, and Kora DeBeck. 2015. “Barriers to Health and Social Services for Street-Involved Youth in a Canadian Setting.” J Public Health Pol 36 (3): 350–63. https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2015.8.

BC Liberal Caucus. 2023. “David Eby Silent as Youth Access Drugs from Government-Sanctioned Vending Machines.” January 25, 2023. https://www.bcliberalcaucus.bc.ca/2023/01/david-eby-silent-as-youth-access-drugs-from-government-sanctioned-vending-machines/. 

BC Coroners Service. 2023. “Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths in BC January 1, 2012 – December 31, 2022.” BC Coroners Service, 2023. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/illicit-drug.pdf.

Frank, David, Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, David C. Perlman, Suzan M. Walters, Laura Curran, and Honoria Guarino. 2021. “‘It’s like ‘Liquid Handcuffs’: The Effects of Take-Home Dosing Policies on Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) Patients’ Lives.” Harm Reduct J 18 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-021-00535-y.

Gerson, Jen. 2023. “Q&A, Part 2: ‘Our Fatal Overdose Numbers Have Gone down Dramatically off the Peak.’” The Line, January 13, 2023. https://theline.substack.com/p/q-and-a-part-2-our-fatal-overdose.

Kinney, Duncan. 2023. “Marshall Smith Says B.C. High Schools Are Being Flooded with Duffel Bags of $1 Government Morphine: No Evidence to Back up Claim.” Progress Report, February 15, 2023. https://www.theprogressreport.ca/marshall_smith_tells_obvious_lie_about_high_schools_being_flooded_with_duffel_bags_of_1_government_morphine.

McEachern, Jasmine, Lauren Adye-White, Kelsey C. Priest, Eloise Moss, Lauren Gorfinkel, Evan Wood, Walter Cullen, and Jan Klimas. 2019. “Lacking Evidence for the Association between Frequent Urine Drug Screening and Health Outcomes of Persons on Opioid Agonist Therapy.” International Journal of Drug Policy 64: 30–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.08.006.

McElrath, Karen. 2018. “Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Addiction in the United States: Critique and Commentary.” Substance Use & Misuse 53 (2): 334–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2017.1342662.

Phillips, Mark, Kora DeBeck, Timothy Desjarlais, Tracey Morrison, Cindy Feng, Thomas Kerr, and Evan Wood. 2014. “Inability to Access Addiction Treatment Among Street-Involved Youth in a Canadian Setting.” Substance Use & Misuse 49 (10): 1233–40. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2014.891618.

​​Poilievre, Pierre. 2022. “Everything Feels Broken.” YouTube. November 20, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvvMfwUkXrM.

Urquhart, Catherine. 2023. “Youth May Be Buying Opioids from B.C. Drug Vending Machines, Recovery Centre Warns.” Global News, January 24, 2023. https://globalnews.ca/news/9433341/drug-vending-machine-youth-concerns/.

Van Sant, Gus. 1989. Drugstore Cowboy. Directed by Gus Van Sant.

Wyton, Moira. 2022. “Experts Reject BC’s Safe Supply Claims.” The Tyee, March 3, 2022.https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/03/03/Experts-Reject-BC-Safe-Supply-Claims/.

Credits:

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, Thomas Kerr and Garth Mullins.

Crackdown’s academic director is Ryan McNeil. 

The music in today’s episode was written and performed by Thomas Kerr, James Ash, Sam Fenn, and me. 

Sound design by Sam Fenn.

This was the last episode we produced with Alex Kim, who’s moved on to a new job. Alex, we’ll miss you lots and the show won’t be the same without you! Thanks for all you’ve done for the show and for the drug user movement. 

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

We’d like to say goodbye to a few people who were important to us and our community. Rickie Araki , Flora Munro, Myles Harps and Sarah Speight. RIP also to Tara A. Kelly, daughter of Grand Chief Doug Kelly, who you heard in episode 12. 

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 36: Some Exceptions Apply

[2.5 grams of crack, in small and medium rocks, on a small hand-held digital scale.]

BC just decriminalized drugs. Well sort of. For the next three years, it’s legal to carry 2.5 grams or less of certain illicit drugs. But some exceptions apply.

We’ve been fighting for decrim for decades. The goal has always been to stop arrests and get cops out of our lives. We got a watered down version of what we wanted. But the fact that the government did anything at all is because of our long struggle. And that struggle is far from over.  

Today we dig into the details of British Columbia’s diet decrim, the policy, the punditry, and the backlash. We also talk about what this reform means for the drug user liberation movement and where we go next. 

Transcript:

A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Call to Action and Political Demands: 

• Nothing about us without us. Drug users need to be at the policy-making table as equal partners, not at the kids’ table as an afterthought.  

• Half the dope out there is benzodope. And benzos are not on the list of illicit drugs now decriminalized in BC. That list must expand. 

• 2.5 grams is not nearly enough. The legal threshold must increase to reflect what drug users carry and use.  

• No police creep into healthcare. Police should not be handing out health information cards. The only role police should play in decrim is to stand down. We want cops out of our lives.    

• Cops must not use this as an excuse to ramp up the drug war against dealers. This only ramps up the Iron Law of Prohibition, making drugs more and more dangerous (ie; opium > heroin > fentanyl). 

• Sharing is illegal under BC’s decrim. Drug users often share or sell their drugs to friends. There is no clear line between a “user” and “dealer.” 

• Ramp up large-scale, pharmaceutical safe supply prescribing and allow community based groups to operate safe supply programs. 

• The success of BC’s decrim needs to be measured by the number of arrests, not referrals to treatment. Collect data on drug arrests and seizures of all types across BC, broken down by race. 

Learning Outcomes:

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work.

Episode 36 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• What BC’s three year exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act does and does not mean for drug users.

• The drug-user advocacy that led to the decriminalization of small amounts of some drugs in BC.

• Media coverage and political rhetoric on the decriminalization of small amounts of some drugs in BC.

Suggested Reading:

Bonn, Matthew. 2023. “Why Does BC’s Decriminalization Exclude Benzodiazepines?,” Filter. January 26, 2023. https://filtermag.org/benzodiazepine-decriminalize-british-columbia/amp/.

Boyd, Susan. 2017. Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada. 1st ed. Fernwood Publishing.

Courtwright, David T., 1952-. 2001. Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Johal, Rumneek. 2023. “No, BC Liberals: Kids in British Columbia Can’t Buy Drugs From ‘Vending Machines,’” PressProgress. January 27, 2023. https://pressprogress.ca/no-bc-liberals-kids-in-british-columbia-cant-buy-drugs-from-vending-machines/.

Credits:

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.  

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura  Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin. 

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim,  Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, and me, Garth Mullins. 

Thanks to everyone at VANDU's Tuesday Education Meeting, including speakers Eris Nyx , Vince Tao, Dave Hamm and Caitlin Shane.

Special thanks to Dave Hamm for helping us with the cover photo.

Our academic director is Ryan McNeil.  

Sound design by Alexander Kim. 

Score by James Ash. 

This episode was produced with support from the Pivot Legal Society and the Unbounded Canada Foundation.

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 35: On the Clock

Image: A woman walks her leashed dog along a snow-lined cement path. The dog is a white pit bull with a black jacket-vest on. The woman is facing away from the camera and her head is not visible. She wears black boots, plants, and jacket, with a large purse hanging across her back. (Vancouver, BC) (Photo: Alex de Boer)

Sex workers who use drugs are doubly criminalized. They have to look out for bad dope and bad dates. And change comes slow.

Fights for incremental change don’t get at the big structures that cause so much harm. Are they worth it?   

We wonder about this when it comes to drug decriminalization. Next year it’ll be legal to carry small amounts of opioids, meth, coke and MDMA in British Columbia. We fought hard for this. Of course, the government’s concession is a watered down version of our original demand. But limiting police discretion to lock us up is a step in the right direction. At least we hope so. 

The prohibition of sex work began centuries before drug prohibition. Sex workers have long had dangerous working conditions imposed on them by puritanic laws. The criminalization of drug use and sex work has made both unnecessarily risky. 

But reforms have been won over the years. In 2014, selling sex was decriminalized in Canada. And since 2020, BC has offered a version of safer supply to a few thousand drug users.

In the wilderness of laws that continue to criminalize most aspects of sex work and most aspects of drug use – do these reforms matter? On today’s episode I explore this idea with sex worker advocates, Jlynn and Jade, as well as academics, Andrea Krüsi and Jenn McDermid. 

Transcript:

A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Call to Action & Political Demands:

• We need a real, accessible and regulated safe supply.

• We need to decriminalize sex work and remove all criminal code provisions that relate to any aspect of sex work.

• Sex workers need to be at the table to build a future that allows safety and dignity in their jobs. 

• We need to take the safety concerns of sex works seriously. Especially when it comes to predatory clients. 

Learning Outcomes:

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work.

Episode 35 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• The criminalization of sex work in Canada

• The dual criminalization faced by sex workers who use drugs  

• Impacts of the volatile illicit drug supply on sex workers who use drugs

• Gender-based violence faced by sex workers

•  Impacts of BC’s Risk Mitigation prescribing program on sex workers who use drugs

Works Cited & Suggested Reading:

Allen, Mary and Cristine Rotenberg. “Crimes Related to the Sex Trade: Before and after Legislative Changes in Canada.” (2021). https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article/00010-eng.htm.

Benoit, C, and L Shumka. “Sex Work in Canada.” (Understanding) Sex Work: A Health Research & Community Partnership. (2021; updated). https://www.understandingsexwork.ca/sex-work-canada.

Dowd, Allan. “Canadian Prosecutors Say Pickton Wanted to Kill 50,” Reuters, January 22, 2007. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-killings-idUSN2240655620070122.

Goldenberg, Shira, Chelsey Perry, Sarah Watt, Brittany Bingham, Melissa Braschel, and Kate Shannon. “Violence, Policing, and Systemic Racism as Structural Barriers to Substance Use Treatment amongst Women Sex Workers Who Use Drugs: Findings of a Community-Based Cohort in Vancouver, Canada (2010–2019).” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 237 (2022): 109506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109506.

Goldenberg, Shira, Sarah Watt, Melissa Braschel, Kanna Hayashi, Sarah Moreheart, and Kate Shannon. “Police-Related Barriers to Harm Reduction Linked to Non-Fatal Overdose amongst Sex Workers Who Use Drugs: Results of a Community-Based Cohort in Metro Vancouver, Canada.” International Journal of Drug Policy 76 (2020): 102618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.102618.

“Harms of End-Demand Criminalization: Impact of Canada’s PCEPA Laws on Sex Workers’ Safety, Health & Human Rights.” Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity. 2019. https://www.cgshe.ca/app/uploads/2019/12/Harms_2019.12.16.v1.pdf.

Krüsi, Andrea, K. Pacey, L. Bird, C. Taylor, J. Chettiar, S. Allan, D. Bennett, J. S. Montaner, T. Kerr, and K. Shannon. “Criminalisation of Clients: Reproducing Vulnerabilities for Violence and Poor Health among Street-Based Sex Workers in Canada--a Qualitative Study.” BMJ Open 4 no.6 (2014): e005191–e005191. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005191.

Krüsi, Andrea, Jill Chettiar, Amelia Ridgway, Janice Abbott, Steffanie A. Strathdee, and Kate Shannon. “Negotiating Safety and Sexual Risk Reduction With Clients in Unsanctioned Safer Indoor Sex Work Environments: A Qualitative Study.” Am J Public Health 102 no.6 (2012): 1154–59. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300638.

Krüsi, Andrea, Thomas Kerr, Christina Taylor, Tim Rhodes, and Kate Shannon. “‘They Won‘t Change It Back in Their Heads That We’re Trash’: The Intersection of Sex Work-Related Stigma and Evolving Policing Strategies.” Sociology of Health & Illness 38 no.7 (2016): 1137–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12436.

​​Krüsi, Andrea, Flo Ranville, Lulu Gurney, Tara Lyons, Jean Shoveller, and Kate Shannon. “Positive Sexuality: HIV Disclosure, Gender, Violence and the Law—A Qualitative Study.” PLoS ONE 13 no.8 (2018): e0202776. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202776.

Lavalley, Jennifer, Alex B. Collins, Samara Mayer, Laurel Gaudette, Andrea Krüsi, Ryan McNeil, and Jade Boyd. “Negotiating Sex Work and Client Interactions in the Context of a Fentanyl-Related Overdose Epidemic.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 23 no.10 (2020): 1390–1405. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2020.1785550.

Lefebvre, Charles. “‘No Hope’ of Successful Recovery of Alleged Serial Killer’s Victims in Landfill: Winnipeg Police,” CTV News, December 6, 2022. https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/no-hope-of-successful-recovery-of-alleged-serial-killer-s-victims-in-landfill-winnipeg-police-1.6183195.

McBride, Bronwyn, Kate Shannon, Alka Murphy, Sherry Wu, Margaret Erickson, Shira M. Goldenberg, and Andrea Krüsi. “Harms of Third Party Criminalisation under End-Demand Legislation: Undermining Sex Workers’ Safety and Rights.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 23 no.9 (2021): 1165–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2020.1767305.

Moraff, Christopher, Troy Farah, and Zachary Seigel. “Episode 62: Policing Pleasure — The Intersection of Sex Work and Drug Use with Tamika Spellman and Caty Simon.” Narcotica Podcast, September, 2021. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1390336378.

“National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.” National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, 2019. https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1b.pdf.

“Risk Mitigation Guidelines in the Context of Dual Public Emergencies: Interim Clinical Guidelines.” British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. 2020. https://www.bccsu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Risk-Mitigation-in-the-Context-of-Dual-Public-Health-Emergencies-v1.5.pdf.

Shannon, Kate, Steffanie A Strathdee, Shira M Goldenberg, Putu Duff, Peninah Mwangi, Maia Rusakova, Sushena Reza-Paul, Joseph Lau, Kathleen Deering, and Michael R Pickles. “Global Epidemiology of HIV among Female Sex Workers: Influence of Structural Determinants.” The Lancet 385 no.9962 (2015): 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60931-4.

Shannon, K., Strathdee, S. A., Goldenberg, S. M., Duff, P., Mwangi, P., Rusakova, M., Reza-Paul, S., Lau, J., Deering, K., & Pickles, M. R. (2015). Global epidemiology of HIV among female sex workers: influence of structural determinants. The Lancet, 385(9962), 55–71.

“Supreme Court Strikes down Canada’s Prostitution Laws,” CBC News, December 20, 2013. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-canada-s-prostitution-laws-1.2471572.

“Risk Mitigation Guidelines in the Context of Dual Public Emergencies: Interim Clinical Guidelines.” British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. 2020. https://www.bccsu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Risk-Mitigation-in-the-Context-of-Dual-Public-Health-Emergencies-v1.5.pdf.

Credits:

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.  

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura  Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece  Keewatin. 

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim,  Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, and me, Garth Mullins. 

Big thanks to Jenn McDermid for her research and coordination work. Thanks to Rory Marck, Kerry Porth and PACE Society for their guidance. 

Thanks to Patricia Monty, Barbra Bevvington, Crystal Ritchot and Eden Boyer for their consultation work.

Special thanks to Jade and Jlynn for making sure we got the story right. 

Our academic director is Ryan McNeil. Academic advising and direction for this episode  was provided by Professor Jade Boyd.  

Intro documentary clip from Hookers on Davie on the Vancouver Archives website.

Sound design by Alexander Kim. 

Score by James Ash. 

Crackdown is funded, in part, by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of  Canada. This episode was also produced with support from the CRISM People With Lived Expertise of Drug Use National Working Group. Thanks to CRISM for all of their help!

If you like what we do, support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 34: The Iron Law

Image: November 11, 1922. Bureau of Prohibition agents with confiscated still for making bootleg alcohol. Washington, DC, USA. (Source: Library of Congress)

Drug decriminalization is coming to British Columbia. And that’s a big step forward.

Our movement has been fighting for decriminalization for decades. To us, decriminalization means getting cops, courts and jails out of our lives. It means police stop harassing, arresting and seizing dope off of us.  

For the past year, VANDU sent Garth and others to sit on a government committee and fight for this vision. Unsurprisingly, much of our advice was disregarded. 

But the cops fought for low thresholds -- and won. That means that a big proportion of drug users in BC will remain criminalized.  

Cops and politicians have also made noise about ramping up enforcement on dealers. On today’s show, I talk to Leo Beletsky about why this is a bad idea that could make the overdose crisis even worse.

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode is in preparation and will be published here when ready.

Further Reading

• Beletsky, Leo, and Corey S. Davis. 2017. “Today’s Fentanyl Crisis: Prohibition’s Iron Law, Revisited.” International Journal of Drug Policy 46: 156–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.05.050.

• Betsos, Alex, Jenna Valleriani, Jade Boyd, Geoff Bardwell, Thomas Kerr, and Ryan McNeil. 2021. “‘I Couldn’t Live with Killing One of My Friends or Anybody’: A Rapid Ethnographic Study of Drug Sellers’ Use of Drug Checking.” International Journal of Drug Policy 87: 102845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102845.

• Cohen, Richard C. 1986. “How the Narcs Created Crack.” National Review, December 5, 1986. https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=e1e47401-6acb-4bfd-879a-7faec46d48af%40redis.

• Hadland, Scott E, and Leo Beletsky. 2018. “Tighter Prescribing Regulations Drive Illicit Opioid Sales.” BMJ, k2480. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2480.

• Harris, Magdalena et al. 2015. “‘It’s Russian Roulette’: Adulteration, Adverse Effects and Drug Use Transitions during the 2010/2011 United Kingdom Heroin Shortage.” International Journal of Drug Policy 26 (1): 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.09.009.

• Harris, Magdalena. 2013. “The ‘Do-It-Yourself’ New Zealand Injecting Scene: Implications for Harm Reduction.” International Journal of Drug Policy 24 (4): 281–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2012.06.007.

• Ivsins, Andrew, Jade Boyd, Leo Beletsky, and Ryan McNeil. 2020. “Tackling the Overdose Crisis: The Role of Safe Supply.” International Journal of Drug Policy 80: 102769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102769.

• McNeil, Ryan, et al. 2022. “Implementation of Safe Supply Alternatives During Intersecting COVID-19 and Overdose Health Emergencies in British Columbia, Canada, 2021.” Am J Public Health 112 (S2): S151–58. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2021.306692.

• Peterson, Meghan et al. 2019. “‘One Guy Goes to Jail, Two People Are Ready to Take His Spot’: Perspectives on Drug-Induced Homicide Laws among Incarcerated Individuals.” International Journal of Drug Policy 70: 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.05.001.

• Special Despatch to, The Globe. 1924. "U.S. DRINKS QUANTITY OF POISONED ALCOHOL: PROHIBITION OFFICIAL SAYS SIX MILLION GALLONS DENATURED LIQUID CONSUMED YEARLY." The Globe (1844-1936), Dec 19, 1. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/u-s-drinks-quantity-poisoned-alcohol/docview/1356660134/se-2.

• Special Purpose Committee on the Decriminalization of Illicit Drugs. 2020. “Decriminalization for Simple Possession of Illicit Drugs: Exploring Impacts on Public Safety & Policing.” The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP). https://www.cacp.ca/index.html?asst_id=2189%20.

Rest in Peace

I’d like to acknowledge the loss of two amazing community leaders this month. 

Kat Norris was a comrade and fighter from Lyackson First Nation. I got to know Kat when community groups banded together to fight the extra policing and gentrification that came with Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics. Kat’s been sticking up for people in East Vancouver since the late 1970s and was famous for her fry bread giveaways. 

We’d also like to say goodbye to Chrissy Brett. Chrissy was from the Nuxalk Nation (New-hulk). She organized and acted as a spokesperson and defender for many tent encampments in Victoria and Vancouver, including at Oppenheimer Park. 

—Garth

Credits

Crackdown is produced on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. 

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And rest in peace, Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex De Boer, Lisa Hale, Jade Boyd, and Garth Mullins. 

Intellectual Direction for this episode by Jade Boyd.

Sound design by Alexander Kim. Original score was written and performed by James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Garth Mullins. 

Special thanks to Professor Magdalena Harris for her time and research on the UK heroin shortage. 

If you like what we do, please consider donating at patreon.com/crackdownpod. 

Crackdown is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 33: You Will Not Destroy Me

Image: Garth Mullins sitting in front of the Centre Lawn Building on Riverview Hospital grounds on kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory (Coquitlam, B.C.) (Photo: Alexander Kim)

A spectre is haunting BC’s overdose crisis — the ghost of Riverview Hospital.

Riverview was one of the province’s main psychiatric hospitals for a century. The giant complex – sitting on 1,000 acres of kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory just outside of Vancouver – was largely closed in 2012. Today it’s a popular horror film shoot location.

Garth recently learned that his great grandmother, Rosa Mullins, spent more than 26 years locked in Riverview. Garth and his father Gary head to Riverview to find Rosa. Garth digs deep into her medical records and doctors notes and Crackdown even manages to get inside of the old hospital itself.

The hospital is closed, but it’s not abandoned. The province plans to reopen Riverview as a site for mental health and addictions treatment. Police, politicians and pundits have never stopped dreaming of our banishment. And in recent decades, involuntary detention under the Mental Health Act has soared. We demand an end to involuntary treatment and access to justice for involuntarily detained patients.

***

CW: Starting at around 22 minutes in, there are two brief historical reenactments of electroconvulsive therapy AKA electroshock. The episode also discusses suicide and psychiatric incarceration.

[Update 07/06/22] After the release of this episode, a spokesperson for BC Housing told Crackdown that, while there are ongoing mental health and substance use services at səmiq̓ʷəʔelə (formerly Riverview), they still haven't decided what to do with the site. BC Housing says they will work with the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation to explore options, but "reopening or recreating what was formerly known as Riverview Hospital is not an option that the partners will explore."

Transcript

A full transcript is available here.

Call to Action & Political Demands

• Drug users’ human rights must be at the centre of any solution to the overdose crisis. Incarceration and mandatory treatment obliterate those rights. Plus, they don't work. Solutions must involve us as partners or leaders - not prisoners. Health systems cannot be jails. Drug users and people with mental illnesses can no longer be banished from society.

• Drug users must be decriminalized, not re-criminalized or institutionalized.  

• Young drug users must not be subject to involuntary detention as was proposed in BC’s Bill 22. Forced or coerced treatment doesn’t work. 

• BC’s Mental Health Act must be overhauled. We need stronger oversight, more preventative supports and better ongoing consultation with people who use drugs and people with mental illness. 

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work.

Episode 33 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• Institutionalization as a philosophy of care for people with mental illness.

• Involuntary and coercive psychiatric treatment in BC.  

• The intersection of mental health and substance use.

• Gendered experiences of psychiatric detention. 

Works Cited

Burr, Ashley. “History of Riverview Hospital: The birth of Coquitlam's controversial psychiatric facility.” CityNews Vancouver, November 30, 2020. https://bit.ly/3HdcTBc. 

CTV British Columbia. “Mayors calling for re-opening of Riverview Hospital.” CTV News. August 26, 2013. https://bit.ly/3xm0IgC. 

CTV Vancouver. “Reopen Riverview as addiction treatment centre, Coquitlam mayor urges.” CTV News, January 24, 2017. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/reopen-riverview-as-addiction-treatment-centre-coquitlam-mayor-urges-1.3255837. 

Davies, Megan J. “The Patients’ World: British Columbia’s Mental Health Facilities, 1910-1935.” MA, Thesis, University of Waterloo, 1989.

Johal, Jas & Meiszner, Peter. “Idea of re-opening Riverview Hospital gains traction.” Global News, August 26, 2013. https://globalnews.ca/news/803311/idea-of-re-opening-riverview-hospital-gains-traction/. 

Kelm, Mary-Ellen. "The only place likely to do her any good": The Admission of Women to British Columbia's Provincial Hospital for the Insane,” BC studies Vol 9 (1992). 

Kelm, Mary-Ellen. “Women, Families and the Provincial Hospital for the Insane, British Columbia, 1905-1915,” Journal of Family History Vol 19 no. 2 (Fall 1994): p. 72. https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.11.2.335.

Kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation. “History of Riverview.” Accessed December 10, 2021. https://www.kwikwetlem.com/sumiqwuelu-riverview.htm#history. 

Kolar, Marina. “Involuntary and Coercive Psychiatric Treatment: A Critical Discourse Analysis of British Columbia’s Mental Health Act.” PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2018.

Merrill, Andrew. “Riverview Heritage Inventory.” MA Thesis, University of British Columbia, School of Community and Regional Planning, 2009.

“Riverview.” The Last Asylum Exhibit. Accessed December 9, 2021: https://aftertheasylum.ca/. 

Rosenbloom, Michael. “Chlorpromazine and the Psychopharmacologic Revolution.” JAMA. 2002; 287(14):1860–1861. doi:10.1001/jama.287.14.1860-JMS0410-6-1. 

Sadowsky, Jonathan. “Beyond the metaphor of the pendulum: electroconvulsive therapy, psychoanalysis, and the styles of American psychiatry.” J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2006 Jan;61(1): 8-10. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrj001. Epub 2005 Oct 20. PMID: 16239498.

Wyton, Moira. “Forced Mental Health Treatment Spikes in BC.” The Tyee, November 23, 2021. https://thetyee.ca/News/2021/11/23/BC-Forced-Mental-Health-Treatment-Spikes/. 

Additional Suggested Reading

Battersby, Lupin and Marina Morrow. “Challenges in Implementing Recovery-Based Mental Health Care Practices in Psychiatric Tertiary Care.” Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health 31, no. 2 (2012): 103: https://doi.org/10.7870/cjcmh-2012-0016. 

Boschma, Geertje. “Deinstitutionalization Reconsidered: Geographic and Demographic Changes in Mental Health Care in British Columbia and Alberta, 1950–1980.” Histoire Sociale/Social History 44, no. 88 (2011): 223–256.

Boyd, Jade and Thomas Kerr. “Policing ‘Vancouver’s mental health crisis’: a critical discourse analysis.” Critical public health 26, no. 4, (2016): 418-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2015.1007923. 

Boyd, Jade, Susan Boyd and Thomas Kerr. “Visual and narrative representations of mental health and addiction by law enforcement.” International Journal of Drug Policy 26, no. 7 (2015): 636–644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.04.007. 

Davies, Megan J. “Democracy is a Very Radical Idea.” In Mad matters: a critical reader in Canadian mad studies, edited by Brenda A. LeFrançois, Robert Menzies, and Geoffrey Reaume, 49-63. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press Inc., 2013.

 Davies, Megan J. “Into the House of Old: A History of Residential Care in British Columbia.” Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2003.

 MacKinnon, Agnes. I carried a key: three years in a mental hospital: a nurse's story. North Vancouver, B.C.: A. Mackinnon; Kelaona, B.C.: Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing, 1996.

Reaume, Geoffrey. Remembrance of patients past: patient life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Roman, Leslie G., Sheena Brown, Steven Noble, Rafael Wainer and Alannah Earl Young. “No time for nostalgia!: asylum making, medicalized colonialism in British Columbia (1859–97) and artistic praxis for social transformation.” International journal of qualitative studies in education, 22 , no.1 (2009): 17-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390802581919.  

Ronquillo, Charlene. "Deinstitutionalization of Mental Health Care in British Columbia: A Critical Examination of the Role of Riverview Hospital from 1950 to 2000.” The Proceedings of the 18th Annual History of Medicine Days, March 6th and 7th, 2009. University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Calgary, AB: 11-26. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/48968.

Scott, Ken. “SOCIETY, PLACE, WORK: The BC public hospital for the insane, 1872-1902.” BC Studies 171, (Autumn 2011): 93-110.

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. 

This episode was created in kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory. Special thanks to KFN staff member Jill Stauber.

If you like what we do, please consider donating to the show on Patreon.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, Rest in Peace Dave Murray, Greg Fresz and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Lisa Hale, Liz McDonald and Garth Mullins.

Original score by James Ash. 

Our academic director is Ryan McNeil. Academic advising and direction for this episode was provided by Professor Jade Boyd. 

Thanks to historical researcher Isin Can for her research and archival work.

The immersive, binaural 360 sound historical reenactments you heard were created and produced by Glen Neath, David Rosenberg, Victoria Eyton and Anna Sulley. Voice acting by Kasper Michaels, Alyssa J. Donahue, Adam Khedheri, Alexander Osborne and Sonya Cullingford as Rosa. Piano by Nicholas Brown.

Project management by Sam Fenn and Brenda Longfellow. 

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Thanks to Megan Davies and Geertje Boschma for their guidance and research. Additional thanks to Chris Dooley, Patty Gazzolla, Arthur Giovinazzo, Nicole Luongo, Gabrielle Peters, Kat Wahamaa and Megan Linton. 

This episode in no way reflects the opinions of BC Housing who allowed us access to one of the Riverview heritage buildings. 

Crackdown is funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Additional funding for this episode was provided by the UK/Canada Immersive Exchange. 

Episode 32: Goodbye Greg

Image: Greg Fresz addresses the crowd at a rally for safe supply on April 14, 2022 in Vancouver. (Photo: Alexander Kim)

Last month, Crackdown Editorial Board member Greg Fresz passed away. As usual, we held a memorial for our comrade at VANDU. Sadly, we do this a lot.

There’s nothing really that makes this constant death feel better, but at least we can feel “not better” together. That camaraderie? It's the only thing that helps.

When we come together to mourn our dead, there’s grief, but also anger. And resolve. Our memorials are political actions. For the revolutionary, death is not the end.

Credits

Crackdown is produced on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

If you like what we do, please consider donating at patreon.com/crackdowpod.

Special thanks to Brent Olson and Susan Boyd for taking time out to share their memories of Greg with us.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. And, rest in Peace Greg Fresz, Dave Murray, and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Liz McDonald, Jade Boyd, Lisa Hale and Garth Mullins.

Our academic director is Ryan McNeil.

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by James Ash.

Crackdown is funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe and keep six.

Episode 31: Love, Death and Benzodope

Image: Laura Shaver and Martin Steward pose for a picture. Laura wears a backwards Christmas-themed baseball cap. Martin wears a baseball cap, camouflage t-shirt and a skull pendant on a cord around his neck. Martin has his arm around Laura’s shoulders. (Photo: Alexander Kim)

Can Martin and Laura's fairy tale love story survive benzodope – the next lethal era of the drug war?

British Columbia has seen a surge of unusual overdoses - including Martin and Laura’s. People are passing out for hours, losing their memories, and getting robbed and assaulted. And deaths have spiked. Again.

But our community is responding. Harm Reduction workers like Trey Helten at the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society are coming up with ways to keep people OD-ing on benzodope safe and alive – all without adequate resources or space. You can donate to Vancouver OPS here. 

Benzo contamination of the drug supply continues to get worse. Almost half of the illicit opioids sampled in B.C. now have benzos in them. More than 100,000 of us depend on this street drug supply - including Martin Steward and Laura Shaver.

After withstanding so many other crises, now Martin and Laura need to survive benzodope – a scary new challenge confronting their decade-strong relationship and their work as drug user activists.

But what do we do now that so many of us are wired to benzos? How much longer can we wait for safe supply?

Transcript

A full transcript is available here.

Call to Action and Political Demands

• Prohibition has made the drug supply unregulated, unpredictable and potentially lethal. Drug users need a safe supply - that is, access to a safer pharmaceutical version of their drug of choice; coke, meth, heroin, fentanyl, whatever. A safe supply could end the overdose crisis overnight.

• Police must stand down and stop enforcing prohibition. Enforcement makes illicit drugs stronger and more contaminated. Drug war policing is what brought us benzo-dope.

• Doctors must start prescribing benzodiazepines and opioids in combination to substitute for the illicit and potentially-lethal street benzo-dope.

• OPSs should be expanded & funded to accommodate the longer duration of benzo-dope overdoses.

• Safe supply, substitution treatment and withdrawal management services must be made available to people who are wired to benzo-dope.

• OPS workers — especially peers — should have unionized jobs with benefits.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 31 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• The outsized role of peers at overdose prevention sites in responding to the poison drug crisis.

• Ruptures and changes within the illicit drug supply.

• Romantic relationships and structural vulnerability.

• Public health outcomes of the benzodope crisis on people who use drugs.

Works Cited

News stories/journal articles:

• Crawford, Robyn. “Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society blames new drug for 16 overdoses in 2 days.” Global News. July 7, 2019.

• Daflos, Penny. “B.C. paramedics understaffed by up to 40 per cent daily due to burnout, injuries, vacancies.” CTV News, November 10, 2021.

• Harris, Magdalena, Kirsten Forseth, Tim Rhodes. "'It's Russian roulette': Adulteration, adverse effects and drug use transitions during the 2010/2011 United Kingdom heroin shortage." International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 26, Issue 1, (2015): 51-58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.09.009.

• Hennig, Clare. “Spike in overdoses reportedly due to opioid-sedative mix that acts like’ date rape drug.’” CBC News. July 8, 2019.

• Howard, Paul et al. "Benzodiazepines." Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Volume 47, Issue 5 (2014): 955-964.

• Jones, Jermaine D et al. “Polydrug abuse: a review of opioid and benzodiazepine combination use.” Drug and alcohol dependence vol. 125,1-2 (2012): 8-18. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.07.004

• Laing, Matthew K et al., “An outbreak of novel psychoactive substance benzodiazepines in the unregulated drug supply: Preliminary results from a community drug checking program using point-of-care and confirmatory methods.” International Journal of Drug Policy. no 93 3:103169 (Feb 2021): 1-4, 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103169.

• Melnychuk, Mark. "New Varieties of Drugs Fuel Surge in OD Deaths; Fentanyl Containing Benzodiazepine Less Responsive to Narcan Antidote." Leader Post, Oct 27, 2021. 

• Ti, Lianping and Samuel Tobias, “‘Benzo-dope’ may be replacing fentanyl: Dangerous substance turning up in unregulated opioids.” The Conversation. August 11, 2021. 

• Vescera, Zak. “B.C. harm-reduction sites, doctors struggling with new type of overdose: Benzodiazepines don’t respond to emergency treatments such as naloxone.“ Vancouver Sun, July 9, 2019.

Reports:

• Kielty, Collin. “February 2022 Monthly Report.” Vancouver Island Drug Checking Project. March 22, 2022, https://substance.uvic.ca/blog/february-2022-monthly-report/. 

• BC Centre for Substance Use Drug Checking Report February 2022 which found 37.9% of opioids tested positive for benzos in Feb 2022. The report states that the true number may be higher because of limits on drug testing technology.

• Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths in BC January 1, 2012 – January 31, 2022 states the number of illicit drug toxicity deaths in January 2022 equates to about 6.7 deaths per day.

• Illicit Drug Toxicity Type of Drug Data: Data to February 28, 2022 BC Coroners service report links benzos to 43% of last year’s deaths.

Additional Reading

• Betsos, Alex, Jenna Valleriani, Jade Boyd, Geoff Bardwell, Thomas Kerr and Ryan McNeil. “‘I couldn't live with killing one of my friends or anybody’: A rapid ethnographic study of drug sellers’ use of drug checking.” International Journal of Drug Policy Volume 87, (2021): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102845.

• Bardwell, Geoff, Jade Boyd, Jaime Arredondo, Ryan McNeil and Thomas Kerr. “Trusting the source: The potential role of drug dealers in reducing drug-related harms via drug checking.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Volume 198, (2019): 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.01.035.

• Ivsins, Andrew, Jade Boyd, Leo Beletsky, Ryan McNeil. "Tackling the overdose crisis: The role of safe supply." International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 80, 102769, (2020): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102769.

• McNeil, Ryan, PhD., Taylor Fleming M.P.H., Samara Mayer M.P.H., Allison Barker B.M.A., Manal Mansoor B.A., Alex Betsos M.A., Tamar Austin M.A., Sylvia Parusel PhD., Andrew Ivsins PhD., and Jade Boyd PhD. "Implementation of Safe Supply Alternatives during Intersecting COVID-19 and Overdose Health Emergencies in British Columbia, Canada, 2021." American Journal of Public Health 112, 04, (2022): S151-S158: http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306692. 

• Zawilska, Jolanta and Jakub Wojcieszak. “An expanding world of New Psychoactive Substances – Designer benzodiazepines.” NeuroToxicology. 73 (2). (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuro.2019.02.015. 

Credits

Crackdown is produced on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

If you like what we do, please consider donating to the show on Patreon.

Special thanks to Sara Blyth and Trey Helton for allowing us to record at OPS. If you’d like to provide them with a donation you can do so on their website here.

Thanks as well to Hugh Lampkin for helping us remember the details from Martin’s benzo overdose. 

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fresz, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Jade Boyd, Lisa Hale and Garth Mullins.

Our academic director is Ryan McNeil.
Thanks also to Martin Steward and Laura Shaver for reviewing drafts so we could get this right.

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by James Ash. 

Academic advising and direction for this episode was provided by Professor Jade Boyd. 

Additional research by Alex Betsos. 

Thanks to Brenda Longfellow and Darkfield Radio for additional project management and production support. 

Crackdown is funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Additional funding for this episode was provided by the Canadian Media Fund.

Episode 30: DULF

Eris Nyx, co-founder of the Drug User Liberation Front, leads a march for a safe supply down Hastings Street on April 14, 2021. (Photo: Alexander Kim)

In spite of a massive spike in overdose death, BC’s government still refuses to offer a genuinely safe supply of drugs. Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum tell the story of how the Drug User Liberation Front has stepped up to do what the policy makers refuse to do themselves: offer people a safe version of the drugs they already use. 

Then, Crackdown’s science advisor, Professor Ryan McNeil talks about his recently published work on BC’s “risk mitigation guidelines.” Why has this program failed to curb overdose deaths and what needs to be done to improve it? 

Works Cited

• Bohdan Nosyk. Towards a comprehensive performance measurement system for opioid use disorder in British Columbia: VCH Presentation [PowerPoint slides]. Health Economic Research Unit at the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences and Simon Fraser University.

• Ed Day, Julie Ison, and John Strang, “Inpatient Versus Other Settings for Detoxification for Opioid Dependence,” Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2 (2005). 

• Jake R. Morgan et al., “Comparison of Rates of Overdose and Hospitalization After Initiation of Medication for Opioid Use Disorder in the Inpatient vs Outpatient Setting,” JAMA Network Open 3:12 (2020).

• Jason Luty, “What Works in Drug Addiction?” Adv Psychiatr Treat 9 (2003): 280–288.

• Jeong E. Min et al., “Estimates of Opioid Use Disorder Prevalence from a Regression-Based Multi-Sample Stratified Capture-Recapture Analysis,” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 217 (2020).

• John Strang et al., “Loss of Tolerance and Overdose Mortality after Inpatient Opiate Detoxification: Follow Up Study,” BMJ 326:7396 (2003): 959–960.

• Ryan McNeil et al., “Implementation of Safe Supply Alternatives During Intersecting COVID-19 and Overdose Health Emergencies in British Columbia, Canada, 2021,” American Journal of Public Health, March 9, 2022, 1-8. 

• The Canadian Press, “B.C. Cabinet Ministers in Line to Keep 10% Portion of Pay Usually Withheld in Deficit Years,” CBC, Feb 24 2022. 

Dr. Unger’s Email

In this episode we quote an email sent by Dr. David Unger, the Deputy Registrar of BC’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, expressing opposition to the province’s then proposed risk mitigation guideline program. Here is that email in its entirety: 

Credits 

Crackdown is produced on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

If you like what we do, please consider donating to the show on Patreon.

Special thanks to Professors Bohdan Nosyk and Bernie Paulie for their help. 

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fresz, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Rainbow, Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex De Boer, Danya Fast, Ryan McNeil, Lisa Hale and Garth Mullins.

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Garth Mullins.

Crackdown is funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada.

Episode 29: Resign

Image: A microphone and two boxes of tested and labeled heroin distributed by the Drug User Liberation Front rest on a mixing board. (Photo: Garth Mullins)

The Chief Coroner says 2,224 people died of toxic drug overdose in BC in 2021. How many months of fatal OD statistics have we seen since 2016? Fifty? Sixty? How many health and addictions ministers have passed through our lives as those numbers got bigger, only to move on after a few years? Enough.

Politicians must face the music after another year of record-breaking overdose deaths. Since there’s no change, there must be consequences. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson and Minister of Health Adrian Dix must resign.

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode is in preparation and will be published here when ready.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 29 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• Poor implementation of “safe supply” policies

• Civil disobedience by organized drug users

• Co-optation of activist demands by government

Policy Recommendations

1. All levels of government must immediately fund programs for safe and accessible supplies of all drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth, by directly listening to user groups and people who use drugs, and covering these drugs under Provincial Health Insurance by adding them to the formularies, or allow us to create routes of access ourselves.

2. All levels of government must immediately develop an accessible legal framework that decriminalizes, licenses, funds, and provides facility spaces for heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine compassion clubs.

3. All government commissions on drug policy, safe supply, and decriminalization must include meaningful representation from drug user groups. Nothing about us without us.

Press Releases

• BC Association of People on Opiate Maintenance (BCAPOM), the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF), and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU): BCAPOM and DULF Release 2021 Overdose Stats and Distribute a Safe Supply of Drugs (February 8, 2022)

• BC Coroners Service: More than 2,200 British Columbians lost to illicit drugs in 2021 (February 9, 2022)

• BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions: Minister’s, PHO statement on lives lost to poisoned drugs in 2021 (February 9, 2022)

• BCAPOM and DULF: Drug user activists commemorate 2021 overdose deaths by distributing a safer supply of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine (February 9, 2022)

• BCAPOM and DULF: Press Conference on 2021 Coroner’s Report [Video] (February 9, 2022)

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

If you like what we do, please consider donating to the show on Patreon.

Special thanks to Alex Betsos for help with research.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fresz, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Ryan McNeil, Lisa Hale, and Garth Mullins.

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by Garth Mullins, James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Kai Paulson.

We make this podcast with funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. And from our Patreon supporters.

Episode 28: After the Flood

Image: A cargo barge washed ashore at Sunset Beach in Vancouver. Photo by Rainbow.

2021 was a year of very ominous weather reports. There were unprecedented heat emergencies, wildfires, and Biblical floods. Meanwhile COVID-19, income inequality, and the overdose crisis continued to become more and more grim.

What would it feel like to endure all of this as a young person? What would it be like to try to build a life through the chaos?

To find out, we asked Rainbow, a young woman in her 20s, to record big and small moments from her life for 40 days.

This is Rainbow’s story.

“Everyday’s a FLOOD” by Rainbow

Transcript

A full transcript is available here.

Policy Recommendations

1. We oppose approaches to preventing drug-related harms that are premised on abstinence.

2. Young people’s engagement with harm reduction programs and sites should be kept confidential.

3. We demand investment in low-barrier and youth-led harm reduction programs and spaces, including safer consumption sites.

4. Youth-oriented programs and spaces must account for the needs of polysubstance-using youth, BIPOC youth, gender diverse and queer youth, and self-identified young women.

5. Stop pathologizing young people who use drugs (YPWUD) and trying to “save” or “fix” us.

6. The services and systems that YPWUD traverse must be re-designed to foster youth’s self-determination in relation to their drug use, harm reduction, care, and families.

7. We add our voices to those demanding the decriminalization of drug use and an end to the war on drugs.

8. We add our voices to those demanding a safe supply of drugs via peer-led compassion clubs.

9. Youth voices should be better integrated into both bottom up, grassroots and top down, state-sponsored harm reduction movements.

10. YPWUD in the context of greater privilege and allies should focus energy on fostering and extending the activism of YPWUD in the context of street involvement.

—Adapted from Canêdo et al. (2022). Harm reduction calls to action from young people who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver and Lisbon. Harm Reduction Journal 19:43.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 28 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• Navigating systems of care as a young person in Canada

• Supportive housing

• Romantic relationships and structural vulnerability

• Stimulant use and productivity

• Safe supply prescribing

Suggested Additional Readings

For more discussion theorizing about romantic relationships and drug use, see:

• Bourgois, Phillippe and Jeff Schonberg. Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

• Proudfoot, Jesse. “Drugs, Addiction, and the Social Bond.” Geography Compass 11, no. 7 (2017): 1-11.

Works Cited

• CBC News. “2021 now deadliest year for illicit-drug overdoses in B.C.” CBC News. December 9, 2021.

• CBC News. “B.C. Bracing for Increase in COVID Hospitalizations Amid 5th Wave.” December 29, 2021.

• Fast, Danya. “Going Nowhere: Ambivalence about Drug Treatment during an Overdose Public Health Emergency in Vancouver.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 35, no. 2 (2018): 209-225.

• Fast, Danya. “‘We Don’t Belong There’: New Geographies of Homelessness, Addiction, and Social Control in Vancouver’s Inner City.” City and Society 30, no. 2 (2018): 237-262.

• Fast, Danya, Thomas Kerr, Evan Wood, and Will Small. “The Multiple Truths about Crystal Meth among Young People Entrenched in an Urban Drug Scene: A Longitudinal Ethnographic Investigation.” Social Science and Medicine 110 (2014): 41-48.

• McNeil, Ryan, Taylor Fleming, et al. “Navigating Post-Eviction Drug Use Amidst a Changing Drug Supply: A Spatially-Oriented Qualitative Study of Overlapping Housing and Overdose Crises in Vancouver, Canada. Drug and Alcohol Dependence.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence (2021).

• Nosyk, Bohdan et al. “Evaluation of Risk Mitigation Measures for People with Substance Use Disorders to Address the Dual Public Health Crises of COVID-19 and Overdose in British Columbia: a Mixed-Method Study Protocol.” BMJ Open (2021): 1-15.

• Stacey, Jocelyn. “The Year the Climate Emergency Came to British Columbia.” December 13, 2021.

Credits

Crackdown is produced on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

If you like what we do, please consider donating to the show on Patreon.

Special thanks to Lee and Reith Charlesworth.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fresz, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Rainbow, Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex De Boer, Danya Fast, Ryan McNeil, Lisa Hale and Garth Mullins.

Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Garth Mullins.

We produced this episode in Partnership with Professor Danya Fast. It was funded in part by  Frayme and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Episode 27: Cop Baked In

Self-portrait by Reija Jean.

Suboxone has a “cop baked in;” it produces very little euphoria and can stop you from getting high on other opioids. Some doctors and policy makers say this enables people to pursue a more meaningful life, but drug user activists worry this kind of war on euphoria will only lead to more overdose deaths.

Can Crackdown’s editorial board member Reija Jean use Suboxone to kick dope? Who will win the battle for her opioid receptors?

Editorial Statement on the Criticism of Suboxone 

“Beans” by Reija Jean. Note: Beans is healthy and happy. Don’t worry about Beans.

The phrase “cop baked in” was coined by Garth in a 2017 BCAPOM meeting.

Transcript

A complete transcript for this episode is available here.

Interviewees

• Reija Jean

• Dr. Danya Fast

Policy Recommendations

• Nothing about us without us - drug users should be given power over the design and implementation of the pharmaceutical policies that dominate their lives. We are the experts and we deserve a real seat at the table.

• Drug users should have a real choice - not limited by the moral or political concerns of their physicians: Suboxone, Methadone, Dilaudid, prescription heroin, safe supply fentanyl, whatever.

• End the war on euphoria.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 27 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• Patient experiences with Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) treatment

• Complexities and stigmatization within the patient-prescriber relationship

• “The war on euphoria”

Suggested Reading

• Danya Fast, “Going Nowhere: Ambivalence about Drug Treatment during an Overdose Public Health Emergency in Vancouver,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 35:2 (2021): 211.

• David Moore. “Erasing pleasure from public discourse on illicit drugs: On the creation and reproduction of an absence,” International Journal of Drug Policy 19 (2008): 353–358.

• Helena Hansen, Caroline Parker and Jules Netherland. “Race as a Ghost Variable in (White) Opioid Research,” Science Technology and Human Values 45:5 (2020): 848-876.

• Nancy Campbell and Anne Lovell. “The history of the development of buprenorphine as an addiction therapeutic,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1248 (2012): 124-139.

• Valerie Giang, Thulien M, McNeil R, Sedgemore K, Anderson H, Fast D. “Opioid agonist therapy trajectories among street entrenched youth in the context of a public health crisis.” SSM Popul Health. 11 (2020):100609.

Works Cited

• Alan Cowan, Braude MC, Harris LS, May EL, Smith JP, Villarreal JE. “Evaluation in nonhuman primates: Evaluation of the physical dependence capacities of oripavine-thebaine partial agonists in patas monkeys,” in Narcotic Antagonists (1974): 427–438, Raven Press, New York.

• British Columbia Centre on Substance Use and B.C. Ministry of Health. “A Guideline for the Clinical Management of Opioid Use Disorder,” (2017).

• B.C. Coroners Service. “Illicit Drug Toxicity Report: Fentanyl-Detected Suspected Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths, 2012-2021” (2021).

• Danya Fast, “Going Nowhere: Ambivalence about Drug Treatment during an Overdose Public Health Emergency in Vancouver,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 35:2 (2021): 211.

• David Moore. “Erasing pleasure from public discourse on illicit drugs: On the creation and reproduction of an absence,” International Journal of Drug Policy 19 (2008): 353–358.

• Helena Hansen, Caroline Parker and Jules Netherland. “Race as a Ghost Variable in (White) Opioid Research,” Science Technology and Human Values 45:5 (2020): 848-876.

• John Lewis. “Nathan B Eddy Award Lecture: In Pursuit of the Holy Grail,” Proceedings of the 60th Annual Scientific Meeting of The College of Problems of Drug Dependence, Inc. (1998): 7-13.

• Marteau D, McDonald R, Patel K. “The relative risk of fatal poisoning by methadone or buprenorphine within the wider population of England and Wales.” BMJ Open 5:5 (2015):e007629.

• Megan Kurz, Jeong Eun Min, Laura Dale, Bohdan Nosyk. “Assessing the determinants of completing OAT induction and long term retention: A population-based study in British Columbia, Canada” Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction Issues of Substance Conference (2021): F6.3.

• Nancy Campbell and Anne Lovell. “The history of the development of buprenorphine as an addiction therapeutic,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1248 (2012): 124-139.

• Valerie Giang, Thulien M, McNeil R, Sedgemore K, Anderson H, Fast D. “Opioid agonist therapy trajectories among street entrenched youth in the context of a public health crisis.” SSM Popul Health. 11 (2020):100609.

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

We make this podcast with funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. And from our Patreon supporters.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fess, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alexander Kim, Alex de Boer, Danya Fast, Ryan McNeil, and Garth Mullins.

Original score was written and performed by Garth Mullins, James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Kai Paulson.

Episode 26: Artificial Energy

Image: Blurry night-time photo of a dumpster in a Vancouver alley. (Photo: Garth Mullins)

On last month’s show, we looked at the history of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction. That’s the idea that drug users have a chronic, relapsing brain disease. The reward system in our brain is wired wrong and that’s why we want to get high.

On today’s show: a different theory. Academics call it the “social adaptation” model of addiction. This is the idea that people take drugs because they are useful. There’s something about the world that makes drug use more appealing, rational, or necessary.

This is true for lots of drugs. But on episode 26 of Crackdown, we look at how crystal meth helps people keep up with an unrelenting world. 

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode is in preparation and will be published here when ready.

On “Indian Residential Schools”

Garth: This month Crackdown’s Editorial Board is thinking of all the Indigenous children who were snatched up by the RCMP and forced to live in residential schools. These were really prison camps run by religious fundamentalists, contracted by the Canadian state. Many of these children never came home. Many were buried in unmarked graves, over a thousand of which have been found recently on the sites of former residential schools. There will be more.

I think about my niece and nephews. Their Mooshum was abducted to a residential school in Manitoba. He was a red road, east van legend. Residential school trauma transmits down the generations like electricity. This is no “dark chapter of Canadian history,” like politicians say. It’s the whole fucking book, right up to the present page. And there’s a direct line from residential schools to the over-representation of Indigenous people in coroners’ overdose death stats.

There’s a 24 hour residential school crisis line at 1-866-925-4419.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 26 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• The social adaptation model of addiction

• Stimulant use and productivity

• Informal work and income generating strategies

Further Reading

• Geoff Bardwell, Taylor Fleming, Alexandra B Collins, Jade Boyd, and Ryan McNeil. 2018. Addressing Intersecting Housing and Overdose Crises in Vancouver, Canada: Opportunities and Challenges from a Tenant-Led Overdose Response Intervention in Single Room Occupancy Hotels. Journal of Urban Health.

• Jade Boyd, Lindsey Richardson, Solanna Anderson, Thomas Kerr, Will Small, Ryan McNeil. 2018. Transitions in income generation among marginalized people who use drugs: A qualitative study on recycling and vulnerability to violence. Int J Drug Policy.

• William Damon, Ryan McNeil, M-J Milloy, Ekaterina Nosova, Thomas Kerr, and Kanna Hayashi. 2018. Residential Eviction Predicts Initiation of or Relapse into Crystal Methamphetamine use Among People who Inject Drugs: A Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of Public Health.

• Matthew Desmond. 2012. Evictions and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty. The American Journal of Sociology.

• Danya Fast, Thomas Kerr, Evan Wood, and Will Small. 2014. The multiple truths about crystal meth among young people entrenched in an urban drug scene: a longitudinal ethnographic investigation. Soc Sci Med.

• Taylor Fleming, Will Damon, Alexandra B Collins, Sandra Czechaczek, Jade Boyd, and Ryan McNeil. 2019. Housing in crisis: A Qualitative Study of the Socio-Legal Contexts of Residential Evictions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. International Journal of Drug Policy.

• Mary Clare Kennedy, Ryan McNeil, M-J Milloy, Huiru Dong, Thomas Kerr, and Kanna Hayashi. Residential Eviction and Exposure to Violence Among People Who Inject Drugs in Vancouver, Canada. The International Journal of Drug Policy.

• Ryan McNeil, Taylor Fleming, Alexandra B Collins, Sandra Czechaczek, Samara Mayer, and Jade Boyd. 2021. Navigating Post-Eviction Drug Use Amidst a Changing Drug Supply: A Spatially-Oriented Qualitative Study of Overlapping Housing and Overdose Crises in Vancouver, Canada. Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

• J Wittmer, and Parizeau K. 2018. Informal Recyclers’ Health Inequities in Vancouver, BC. New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy.

Credits

Crackdown is made on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

Thanks this month to JJ Rigsby at VANDU and Trey Helten for walking us through this topic. Thanks as well to Sean Dope.

Additional thanks to Brianne de Man of the Binner’s Project, as well as Richard Henry and Ken Lyotier of United We Can.

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fess, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Alex de Boer, Danya Fast, Ryan McNeil, and Garth Mullins. Sound design by Alexander Kim.

Original score was written and performed by Garth Mullins, James Ash, Sam Fenn, and Kai Paulson.

Episode 25: The Lab

Image: In a laboratory at the Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky, a researcher in a white lab coat prepares a participant for an experiment. The participant is seated and the researcher stands over him. The laboratory is crowded with scientific machines. (Photo: Bill Eppridge/LIFE Magazine)

While overdoses in BC are climbing to unprecedented rates, some doctors still refuse to provide drug users with access to pharmaceutical versions of illicit drugs. Instead, many doctors view addiction as a chronic disease to be treated by limiting euphoria, prescribing “safer” analogues, or surveilling their patients. 

On episode 25, Garth interviews Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor, Nancy Campbell, about the so-called “Brain Disease Model of Addiction” (BDMA). How did this idea rise in prominence and what does it misunderstand about the reasons why many people use drugs? 

Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Learning Outcomes

Crackdown episodes are frequently used as educational tools by teachers and community organizers. Please let us know if your class or group listens to our work!

Episode 25 is especially useful for exploring the following themes:

• History of the development of the brain disease model of addiction

• Ethics of research on incarcerated people

Works Cited

• Campbell, Nancy. 2007. Discovering Addiction: The Science and Politics of Substance Abuse Research. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 

• ———. 2008. The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts. New York: Abrams.

• Fast, Danya. 2021. “Going Nowhere: Ambivalence about Drug Treatment during an Overdose Public Health Emergency in Vancouver.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

• Fast, Danya, and David Cunningham. 2018. “‘We Don’t Belong There’: New Geographies of Homelessness, Addiction, and Social Control in Vancouver’s Inner City.” City & Society 30 (2): 237–62.

• Harlow, Harry. 1959. “Mother Love.” Carousel Film & Video, CBS Television Network.

• Olsen, J.P., and Luke Walden. 2008. “The Narcotic Farm.” ITVS.

• Preminger, Otto. 1955. “The Man with the Golden Arm.” United Artists.

• Rasmussen, Nicolas. 2010. “Maurice Seevers, the Stimulants and the Political Economy of Addiction in American Biomedicine.” BioSocieties 5 (1): 105–23..

• Tatum, A. L., and M. H. Seevers. 1931. “Theories of Drug Addiction.” Physiological Reviews 11 (2): 107–21.

In Memoriam 

On this week’s show, we remember our friend and comrade Hawkfeather Peterson’s son Edward Biggs, who died suddenly this month. Hawkfeather says, “He was only 22 years old. He hadn’t even begun to live life.” Rest in peace Edward. 

Janis Warren was a harm reduction worker and the lead singer of the band Lashback. She died of a fatal overdose in May. Rest in peace Janis. 

Gerrald Peachey–who most of us knew as Spike–was a drug user and a force within the movement. In 2018, he ran for city council with the campaign slogan “Put a Spike Through City Hall.” Rest in Peace Spike. 

Credits

Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. 

Thanks this week to Nancy Campbell and Steve Pierce for their help locating and digitizing the archival footage you heard on this month’s show. Thanks, as well, to Steve for recording our conversation with Professor Campbell. 

Our editorial board is: Samona Marsh, Shelda Kastor, Greg Fess, Jeff Louden, Dean Wilson, Al Fowler, Laura Shaver, Reija Jean. Rest in Peace Dave Murray and Chereece Keewatin.

This episode was conceptualized, written, and produced by Sam Fenn, Lisa Hale, Alexander Kim, Danya Fast, Ryan McNeil, and Garth Mullins.  

Original score was written and performed by James Ash, Sam Fenn, Kai Paulson and Garth Mullins.