VPD has zero credibility in reporting violent crime statistics. By selective & sensational use of stats, they helped their friends get elected to city council. Now Task Force Barrage is out of gas & VPD wants more money. dailyhive.com/vancouver/va...

A new research paper shows that an inability to access health and social services, as well non-fatal overdose, was a positively tied to street sweeps.

Read the report : www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The last time the Liberals proposed bail reform their justice minister admitted they had no evidence to back it. Curious what's changed. - www.reuters.com/world/americ...

@avierkant.bsky.social and I also did an amazing symposium on Marta Russell with @kmtani.bsky.social for @lpeblog.bsky.social in 2022, featuring contributions from @nhold.bsky.social, Ruth Colker, Jules, @deanspade.bsky.social & Liat Ben-Moshe

two scandals here: VPD fuelled panic over stranger attacks even as they fell dramatically in 2022, and then refused to release records about them for 14 months, which is against the law

Ontario misled the public on crime data to justify closing supervised consumption sites. Evidence shows these services save lives & improve community safety. #HarmReduction tinyurl.com/ybuhw3hf

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is a top Canadian think tank—here’s how it got involved in opposing trans rights.

Alberta will "award $180 million for the construction of 'Compassionate Intervention Centres.'"

"The drug jails will each detain up to 150 people [..] under Alberta's new forced abstinence legislation, which eliminates the right to due process."
#Alberta #Canada #Drugs #Healthcare #Incarceration

Exclusive: Alberta Recovery Model

A private company with its hands in most stages of Alberta's abstinence-oriented drug strategy has evaded public scrutiny.

Here, I show how its 'recovery coaches' are becoming mandatory to access publicly funded recovery centres.
drugdatadecoded.ca/substance-us...

the decades long fight to get needle access in prisons is also a helpful tool of how rights-based approaches, while limited, can be critical tools in fighting for material resources & basic dignity.

uptake on the program is extremely low, especially among women, because of lacking confidentiality protections & risk of reprisal. several prisons hosting a program have ZERO people accessing it. canada is an outlier internationally with its high barrier and security-oriented approach.

needle distribution, in community and in prison, began through impacted communities and healthcare allies engaging in unsanctioned practices — defying 1-for-1 exchange policies, smuggling, creative professional disobedience.

established measures like needle distribution that have been around since the 80s are facing renewed attacks; in ontario, established agencies are being barred from distributing them under new draconian funding agreements.

eligibility is effectively determined by prison wardens. close to 1/3 of applicants are deemed ineligible based on a ‘threat risk assessment’. imagine the health fallout if we subjected people in community to the same process just to access sterile equipment.

canada’s prison needle exchange program is a helpful case study in how crucial reforms can be undermined through bad implementation, punitive barriers, conditioning entitlement, or policy sabotage. it provides helpful lessons for other areas of drug policy & law reform-open access in Health&Justice

"Members of the research team heard about frequent unannounced police visits to local [Ontario] harm reduction programs."

"[P]olice would enter the premises, search clients' belongings, interrogate staff, and at times arrest service users."
#Ontario #Canada #Drugs #Healthcare #Policing

The situation also underscores urgent need for public health and municipal leadership to reign in excessive and abusive enforcement practices that violate the right to health & access emergency care.

Police interference w/ harm reduction services is a growing crisis. Surveilling services, arresting clients & other abuses cause service avoidance, violate peoples right to healthcare & highlights urgent need for binding non-interference policies. @filtermag.bsky.social @hivlegalnetwork.bsky.social

As public officials post about Juneteenth...

Remember that @baltimorebeat.bsky.social published articles just this week detailing how the War on Drugs almost exclusively impacts Black residents, and how the BPD just killed a beloved arabber.

baltimorebeat.com/in-baltimore...

per usual—as the political class creates spectacle from the toxic drug crisis, @crackdownpod.bsky.social shows us the intimate realities. important new episode: www.crackdownpod.com/episodes/epi...
ft. @momsstoptheharm.bsky.social @4bharmredux.bsky.social

BREAKING: Canada exported $18.9 million of military goods to Israel in 2024, despite the Liberal government's "pause" on new export permits. international.gc.ca/transparency...

Canada’s sovereignty is facing an existential threat over disproven allegations that illicit fentanyl, originating from Canada, is significantly contributing the American drug poisoning emergency.

This Bill is a dangerous and unfounded admission of guilt

🧵

#cdnpoli

www.canada.ca/en/public-sa...

This is bad: the Ford government's Bill 25 gives the Minister of Children, Community & Social Services new powers to issue directives to ministry-funded entities.

Bill 25 can be used to force government ideology into community services under threat of defunding. www.ola.org/en/legislati...