Does anyone wonder how long the US has viewed Venezuelan boat-runners supposedly w drugs before they suddenly decide to blow ‘em outta the water? It doesn’t add up. #WaronDrugs#MilitaryIndustrialComplex
Just becos it’s law, doesn’t make it right. Bad laws are just bad law, the repercussions affect us all. Flagrant human rights abuses is unacceptable, no exceptions, no excuses #HumanRights
In case you missed see this important report from @harmreductionau and RLC. The NSW Supreme Court agreed today that strip searching at festivals is a human rights violation that needs to stop now ✋ @nswpolice end strip searching - no excuses, no justifications, just stop it
Checking out replay Paris Olympics closing…expecting to see Chewbacca and Han come outta the Millennium Falcon any second now… #LifeImitatesArt#DoUCWotIC
This International Harm Reduction Day, we are featuring a powerful set of films made for INPUD by Drog Reporter documenting the history of the global drug user movement with a focus on the activism that delivered us harm reduction. 1/4
“Taking Back What’s Ours” documents peers that have worked tirelessly for our community over many years.
These incredible stories show ordinary people doing extraordinary things with courage, resilience, passion & intelligence. 2/4
This 1st-hand story of grass roots activism is essential viewing.
#1 spotlights The Netherlands, Belgium & France. It tributes amazing peers like former INPUD Board member Tonny Van Montfort who recently passed, leaving a powerful legacy of seminal harm reduction services. 3/4
Music Festivals:
Authorities play guessing games w the health of young people: prefer to trust a dog’s nose, test sick peeps in ICU, info releases after the event.
Peeps die.
Instead, try knowing of drugs using mass spectrometry & direct peer-to-peer conversations.
Peeps thrive.
NEW RESEARCH FROM BC: SAFER SUPPLY WORKS!
Cue up the marching band! 🎶🥁🎺🎉🎉🎉
We all care a lot about the escalating toxic drug crisis and have many ideas about what will end this public health emergency.
According to an evaluation of the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy, between 2017 and 2022, Canada spent more than $800 million on many of those ideas, including:
➡️$433 million on Enforcement (58% of the budget - WOW!)
➡️$134 million on prevention (18% of the budget)
➡️$93 million on treatment (13% of the budget)
➡️$61 million on harm reduction (8% of the budget)
(HT to @mindingottawa for alerting me to this excellent resource, though you pretended all $800M+ went to Safer Supply, which is a special kind of BS, since it’s not even a line item here)
In fact, only a teeny, tiny amount of the harm reduction budget was spent piloting safer supply programs, introduced in 2020 when the pandemic shut down other harm reduction services.
So it’s THRILLING to learn today that those programs WORK! New research from @CDCofBC found people with an opioid use disorder prescribed 1+ day's supply of opioids were 61% LESS LIKELY TO DIE in the following week, compared to a similar group of people who did not receive a prescription.
The study looked at outcomes for 5,882 people with opioid or stimulant use disorder who filled a prescription for safer supply between March 2020 and August 2021. This cohort was compared to a very similar cohort that did not receive safer supply.
Although this is a pretty small number (less than 1% of BC drug users have been able to access safer supply so far), the research shows that deaths from the toxic drug supply are preventable, and that pharmaceutical alternatives can reduce the risk of death from the unpredictable and toxic drug supply!
Woohoo 🎉 Another tool in the toolbox to help us fight this emergency that is killing 7 British Columbians every day. So this means all the “skeptics” out there (aka @adamzivo & friends) will finally quit with the misinfo campaign and get behind an intervention that is proven to save lives, right?
RIGHT??
Guys, where’s the marching band?
More info about the study here: (link) 🔗 https://t.co/C1RGTf12nV
Through with what if
Just leave
Authentic
Basic
Dictate what I wanna be
Fo’ myself
Futures now
Break that back when
Now hold me here
Too critical
Break through
To the mystical
Breathe
Smile
Oxygenate the room
Be a leaf
Belief
Be a breeze
Believe
You yourself I
❤️together❤️
Revellers at Canberra's Spilt Milk music festival will be able to have illicit substances checked at EPIC, after Pill Testing Australia received the eleventh hour go-ahead.
Drug testing hasn't been available on-site at any Aus music festival since Canberra's Groovin the Moo festival in 2018 and 19.