heroin

  • The injecting room at the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings CrossDozens of people have fatally overdosed on heroin in the gutters, laneways and front gardens of Richmond. Not a single person has ever died in a safe-injecting space anywhere in the world. Yet the Victorian Labor government and Coalition opposition ignore growing calls to expedite something that not only prevents death, but puts addicts on a pathway to recovery. Experts in addiction and public health want a trial. Although some citizens are concerned by a safe injecting room, more and more residents and business owners, distressed by seeing ill and dead people and by being burgled, support a trial. Academic studies and official inquiries recommend a trial. The Coroner's Court wants one. And now the Police Association is adding its voice.

  • Let’s give out heroin, for free, to anyone who wants it. This is not a provocation meant to make you gasp or to elicit angry clicks—rather, it’s a proven strategy for reducing the harm of opioids that’s already in use in several countries across the globe. We face two drug-related crises in the United States. The first we can all agree on: Drugs are killing people at unprecedented rates. Over 90,000 people die each year from overdoses in the US, an amount that has quintupled since 1999. The second crisis is disputed, but no less deadly: Our drug policy leaves people to fend for themselves, while we waste time and resources.

  • afghanistan opium harvestA perfect storm of conditions over the last decade led to the current fentanyl epidemic in the US. It began with rising social deprivation and excessive opioid prescribing by doctors, leading to mounting addiction. Then came a crackdown on over-prescribing and a surge in demand for street heroin, which at the time happened to be poor quality and in short supply. In order to meet demand, heroin suppliers were boosted with the addition of fentanyl imported from China. Apart from its better management of prescription drugs, perhaps Europe's unsuspecting saviour from fentanyl is its historical nemesis, Afghanistan. Unlike in the US, regional heroin distributors in Europe have had a stable supply of high purity, low-cost heroin for nine years running.

  • canada safe supply cocaineThe Drug User Liberation Front, a Vancouver-based activist group, made a serious statement on June 23. During a protest in the city’s Downtown Eastside, they gave out free, checked and illegal drugs to their community. They did this in response to British Columbia’s monthly overdose death numbers reaching a then–record high of 170 in May. Over 200 people are estimated to have received small quantities of drugs, including opium and cocaine, at the event. Given the dangerous adulteration of the drug supply, exacerbated by the pandemic, there’s a good chance that one or two lives were saved that day. (See also: A domestic safe supply of injectable heroin would save lives)

  • Ontario is undoubtedly in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis. From January to September 2018, an incredible 1,031 Ontarians died of an overdose. The number of deaths in the province is second only to the 1,155 deaths in British Columbia, dubbed the “ground zero” of the overdose epidemic in North America. Yet with no signs of the crisis slowing down, the Ontario government announced in April that they would abruptly halt funding for several safe injection sites — an unprecedented and dangerous step backwards in curtailing the public health emergency.