Research Opportunity for MSTH Membership

Dear Moms Stop the Harm Membership,

We are sharing a research survey conducted by a clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia. The study is designed to learn about the experiences and ongoing needs of the members of the Moms Stop the Harm network whose loved ones are in active substance use. The survey will ask some basic questions about you (such as age and gender) and then will focus on your current emotional and health functioning, your loved ones experience with treatment, and your current access to resources. This information will help us all learn more about individuals who have a loved one still actively using and impacted by the overdose crisis, and help us learn how best to support families in need.  Altogether, this survey should take around 20-30 minutes. 

There is also an opportunity for some of you to be interviewed by the research team to share your stories and experiences. If you are interested, feel free to provide your contact information at the end of the survey and a small group will be contacted by the research team in the coming months to schedule an interview.  

Responses are strictly confidential and will only be seen by the researchers. Your responses to the survey will not impact your membership or standing in the Moms Stop the Harm group. 

If you are willing to complete this survey, please click the survey button below.

If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, you may call or e-mail the principal investigator (Jamie.piercy@ubc.ca 250-807-8514)

Thank you for participating,

Dr. Jamie Piercy, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Psychology, University of British Columbia

Partnership with Lookout Housing and Health Society

We are excited to announce our partnership with

Lookout Housing and Health Society is a British Columbia based not for profit with extensive reach across the province, and provides housing and support services (including harm reduction) to marginalized communities.

Through their foundation, Lookout has generously offered to accept donations on behalf of MSTH and are able to issue a tax receipt for amounts greater than $100.

100% of the donations will be used to cover MSTH expenditures.

As we await our charitable donation status, this will enable those individuals and organizations wishing to support MSTH to claim their donations on their tax returns. We are very grateful for Lookout’s support as we continue our fight to end the opioid crisis, and to support families who have been impacted by it.

Cheques can also be mailed to: Lookout Foundation, 544 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC V3L 1B1

We look forward to exploring more ways that Lookout and MSTH can work together towards our common goals!

Safe Supply Roundtable - Beyond Medical Models

When MSTH co-founders Leslie McBain and Petra Schulz first met with Carolyn Bennett, the Federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, we discussed the importance of developing scalable models for safe supply. When the Minister offered that she would attend a round table on the topic if we were to organize one, we immediately jumped at the opportunity and reached out to the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition to help us organize and host.  

The round table took place on March 10, 2022 with Minister Bennett, Deputy Minister Stephen Lukas and an expert panel led by people who use drugs (see list of panelists below), as well as observers from Health Canada, MSTH and other national organizations in attendance. The focus of our meeting was to explore models for non-medicalized safe supply. 

We posed six key questions

1. What is Safe Supply? 

2. What should non-medicalized Safe Supply look like in Canada? How can it be implemented?

3. What does the Government of Canada need to make these things happen?

4. Where are there gaps for substances other than opioids? Where are the gaps for different methods of consumption?

5. What do you need from us to make this happen?

6. How do we move forward, what are the next steps?

The round table discussion resulted in four key recommendations: 

1. Start legislative change to bring the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act (TVPA), the Cannabis Act, and any other relevant federal legislation under a single public health legal framework with regulatory structures that are specific to different types of substances

2. Have cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine available to buyers’ clubs or compassion clubs

3. Fund and resource Design Charrettes to develop safe supply models

4. For Minister Bennett to implement a nationwide s. 56(1) exemption to facilitate community-based safe supply, including via compassion club and other community-based distribution models

Next Steps: Minister Bennett agreed to meet with the panel again to explore a design process to develop non-medical safe supply models

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Summary of Meeting Highlights

Leslie McBain and Minister Bennett gave opening Remarks by Minister Carolyn Bennett and Leslie McBain, highlighting the importance of working together with people with lived and living experience in finding solutions to the drug poisoning crisis. 

Setting the stage

The Iron Law of Prohibition Global Commission on Drug Policy. Regulation: The Responsible Control of Drugs. 2018.

To set the stage Dr. Elaine Hyska focused on a public health approach to safe supply. The data she presented showed an exponential growth curve in drug poisoning mortality that has corresponded directly with expanding supply control efforts and larger and larger drug law enforcement budgets and facilitated by other socio-structural factors. 

Dr. Hyshka concluded her presentation with the following recommendations: 

• Develop a roadmap for tightly controlled regulation for currently illegal drugs

• Expand the range of substances available in standard doses with known purity 

• Educate the public and depoliticize drugs

• Issuing standing orders [allow access to a medication without a prescription to a specific patient] combined with a section 56 exemption were presented as a short-term solution that could provide access to safe supply [recommendation made during the discussion].

Frank Crichlow from the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD) spoke of the importance of safe supply for the African Caribbean Black (ACB) community. He explained that the ACB community is excluded from current safe supply models. To meet their needs cocaine and methamphetamine must be included in the formulary. Frank reminded round table participants that his community is disproportionately harmed by drug policies rooted in racism and colonialism. The community wants to work collaboratively on safe supply strategies. 

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Facilitated discussion

The facilitated discussion of the meeting was guided by the six key questions noted above and began with an exploration of what we define as safe supply.   

What is [not] safe supply?

• Safe Supply

  • is not treatment (OAT is not safe to supply)

  • is a replacement for the illegal drug market

  • has to be more appealing than the illicit market

  • has to include a clean supply of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine

  • is a consensual process that is based on the leadership of people who use drugs

  • responds to the range of reasons why people use drugs

  • means people know what the drug is, how strong it is and that they can get it when they need it

Safer Supply Checklist - Aids Vancouver Island, 2022

Guiding Principles of Safe Supply, Imagine Safe Supply project

In the facilitated discussion on the first four questions, several key issues emerged. The summary below captures contributions and questions from all participants, including Minister Bennett. 

Safe supply and treatment

To say that safe supply and harm reduction are against treatment is a false narrative. People who are pro-safe supply are pro-treatment, but most importantly they are pro about keeping [themselves and] our families and friends alive. We fully support treatment, especially when it is evidence-based, ethical and non-coercive.

The need for safe supply

People who die are not only those with addiction but include people who use only occasionally or for the first time. People die in greater numbers because the drug supply is becoming increasingly contaminated, especially during COVID19.  The longer we wait for regulated supply, the harder, more complex the street drug supply becomes. People use drugs for more reasons than just avoiding withdrawal. People want a safe supply that helps them function. A Safe Supply that the PWUD decides for themselves what success is.

Models of safe supply

We need to expand safe supply to include community models, as people do not deserve to die because the only available responses are medicalized programs. Overwhelming medicalized programs are not what people want to see. Currently, compassion clubs would have to buy on the street or the web and test, as there is no regulated pharmaceutical supply available.  Compassion clubs provide a cost-saving to the public health system as people would fund their own supply using the collective purchasing advantage. “We don't want others to pay for our drugs, we want to pay for them. We just don't want to die.”

Smoking options for safe supply

There is not an accessible safe supply for those who prefer smoking and that is who is dying right now. Options for powdered cocaine and morphine are being explored, but there are regulatory implications. 

Benzodiazepine contamination 

Participants highlighted the greater toxicity of substances that include benzodiazepines and explained that there is increased contamination during COVID19 due to disrupted supply routes. People who use opioids or stimulants do not necessarily seek out benzodiazepines, but have no choice as the substances they buy are contaminated. In a cross-Canada scan conducted by CAPUD, one of the findings is that people have ‘no consent’ to what they are taking - they didn’t consent to the benzos, they consented to opioids. People quickly become use dependent on benzodiazepines and the drug-poisoning response (Naloxone does not reverse Benzo poisoning), as well as withdrawal management, becomes increasingly more difficult. Safe supply alternatives have to be available to people who are using and want to use Benzodiazepine. 

Drug Checking/Testing

Drug testing was discussed as a possible solution to a contaminated supply, but it was pointed out that people are going to use the drug anyway, as they can't make a full consented choice when there are no other options. A concern was raised that conservative governments may try to use drug checking as a solution, but it is not an alternative to safe supply. Drug testing needs to go hand in hand with real safe supply. Drug testing is more effective for party substances where people have a choice not to use when there is contamination. Buyers' clubs are so important because of the quality of drug checking and then people will know what they are getting. 

Safe supply outside of the BC Lower Mainland and Ontario

In much of the country, especially in the north, safe supply is not available and opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is often equated with safe supply. Governments refuse to provide funding, even vilify safe supply (prairie region). 

Safe supply is a reconciliation issue and Indigenous people, much like the ACB community, are disproportionately affected by toxic drugs. The north, rural and remote can’t be left behind, because right now they are in crisis. 

What is needed and how do we move forward?

There is a lack of consultation with PWUD by provincial and regional actors and this needs to change to move forward. It is essential that the federal government hold the provinces/territories accountable for being authentic with any program funding they provide. We see provinces announce programs that are not implemented or if implemented not in the way in which they were intended. We need a commitment from the federal government to have clear benchmarks attached to payments to provinces. 

The BC Coroners Report released on March 9, 2022, highlights that people are dying from a toxic drug supply and that safe supply is urgently needed to stop the dying.

The important question we need to ask is not if we should do this [safe supply] but how! 

Safe supply models need to be developed from the bottom up with people who use drugs leading the way. We need to hold a rigorous design process across the country to find the best way to create safe supply and we need much stronger leadership at the federal level to make this happen.  People who use drugs, represented by CAPUD and other organizations need to be at the design table in all regions of the country. This needs to include a strong voice from the ACB and the Indigenous community. 

The panel discussed if the term regulated supply would be a better term than safe supply. There was agreement that regulation with a public health focus should be the aim, and preferred terminology should be explored with people who use drugs.  

The discussion concluded with the presentation of the key recommendations noted above. All participants, including Minister Bennett, agreed that there was an urgent need to meet again and to continue this important conversation. 

Closing remarks were provided by Petra Schulz who asked all participants to remember the In the thousands we mourn and read statements families used to describe their loved ones. One thousand such statements were collected in the See-Beyond project, in collaboration with Dr. Rebecca Haines Saah.

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Resources shared during the discussion:

• CAPUD Safe Supply document

• A pharmaceutical version of Methamphetamine is approved in the USA, but not in Canada.  

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Round table participants and observers:

Participants: Carolyn Bennett  Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health and Deputy Minister Stephen, Frank Crichlow and Natasha Touesnard (CAPUD), Leslie McBain and Petra Schulz (MSTH), Donald MacPherson (CDPC), Brontë Renwick-Shields (Blood Ties Four Directions), Celine Cote (Imagine Safe Supply), Corey Ranger (HRNC + AVI), Dr. Elaine Hyshka (University of Alberta), Erin Howley (Imagine Safe Supply), Jason Mercredi (Prairie Harm Reduction), Jeremy Kalicum (DULF), Sandra Ka Hon Chu (HIV Legal Network), 

Moderator: Catharine Vandelinde, Tech Admin: Shay Vanderschaeghe (CDPC)

Round table observers from the following organizations and government bodies: Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD), Moms Stop The Harm (MSTH), Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC), Drug User Liberation Front (DULF), EACH&EVERY Businesses for Harm Reduction, National Safe Supply Community of Practice (NSS).  Number of observers: 40

EACH+EVERY and MSTH withdraw from biased Alberta Safe supply panel!

Open Letter to the Alberta Legislature Select Special Committee to Examine Safe Supply

Dear Members of the Select Special Committee to Examine Safe Supply,

While we are honoured by the invitation to contribute our perspectives to the Select Special Committee to Examine Safe Supply, we hereby withdraw our participation as panel presenters.

UCP Caucus Tweet regarding the Safe Supply Panel, Feb. 4, 2022

Regrettably, it was made clear from the moment of the Committee’s announcement by Associate Minister of Mental Health & Addictions Mike Ellis that the outcome of the Committee had been predetermined: the potential benefits of providing safe supply to Albertans at risk of death from drug poisoning would not be weighed fairly against perceived risks.

Further comments from MLA Calgary-Cross MLA Mickey Amery suggested that the Committee would “follow the evidence and use the information provided by North America's leading experts, not the radicals or the activists", presumably referring to us and others working to mitigate the rapidly increasing death toll of Alberta’s drug poisoning crisis.

Unfortunately, the UCP-selected panelists appear to have been hand-picked for their stances against safe supply.

While American-style prohibitionist views feature prominently among the UCP-selected panelists, critical omissions among the UCP selections betray unmoveable bias in the committee that lends itself to consent manufacturing for maintaining the status quo:

• Representation of people who are prescribed safe supply,

• Representation of the academic community conducting primary research on safe supply, and

• Representation of safe supply-prescribing physicians.

This knowledge manufacturing echoes the 2020 Supervised Consumption Services Review, a hopelessly biased proceeding that provided false justification for closure and cancellation of desperately needed services for Albertans who use drugs. The evidence presented by those in

support of supervised consumption was not included in the final report and many participants were left traumatized by a hostile process.

We ask: in what ways does this government’s track record encourage us to take part in a process that appears to be following a similar predetermined course?

We hope these critiques help steer improvements to translation of academic, practical and lived knowledge to public policy by our United Conservative government. We remain open to evidence-informed dialogue on safe supply with a shared purpose of ending the compounding traumas of the drug poisoning crisis.

Sincerely,

Petra Schultz, Moms Stop the Harm

Euan Thomson, EACH+EVERY: Businesses for Harm Reduction

Alberta appeal court chooses government policy over the lives of people

Our Statement on the Court of Appeal decision to reject our emergency appeal to stop the Alberta consumption site regulations

(Moms Stop the Harm Society v Alberta, 2022 ABCA 35)

The Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society (LOPS) and Moms Stop The Harm (MSTH) are horrified and appalled at the appeal court decision, and their reasoning. 

In this decision, the court has put regulations above lives with an argument that the amount of harm can not be determined. Harm in the context of using toxic substances too often means death, as most of our member families know. Our position, as stated throughout our oral submissions, was that even one death is too many. 

Here is a key paragraph in the decision that is interesting on the factual record before the Court: 

In summary, interlocutory judicial intervention is not warranted unless the decisions made by the government are so obviously unreasonable that the Charter is engaged, and the challenged policy cannot be justified. The appellants point out that there may be a risk for some potential users who will be deterred by having to provide their Personal Health Numbers. As noted by the chambers judge, the exact extent of that risk is difficult to ascertain and will have to be explored at trial. However, whatever that risk may be, it has to be balanced against the advantages that will accrue to all of those who do provide Personal Health Numbers and are therefore successfully directed to other supports. (Moms Stop the Harm Society v Alberta, 2022 ABCA 35, [Emphasis added]).

In essence, the court is saying our family members, friends, and neighbours can die, and their death is justified in the circumstances as long as there are no temporary restraints put on Alberta’s policy.  

We disagree and strongly assert that this court ruling violates the constitutional rights of the people we love. 

I am extremely dismayed at a justice system making decisions that appear to be taken from the UCP playbook, a book full of moralistic, cruel and misinformed judgements. I try not to add to the polarization happening in the world right now and this is something I take responsibility to work on. For the most part, from the questions and comments made by two of the three judges, it was obvious their preconceived notions involving people who use drugs, who have been stripped of their voice by our condescending society, were not in favour of this appeal nor of the value of a safe life for some people. This ruling leaves blood on their hands. They are now accountable for the loss of life because of this decision. This is not a decision based on what is in the public’s best interest but a decision that keeps them in a position of power with the ability to celebrate with an expensive bottle of champagne. Personally, I was disgusted with their egotistical pandering. This decision uses people's lives to gain votes for their friends in political places. It does nothing to advance our direction as a society. We should be ashamed and embarrassed and angry. I know I am. We do, however, need to remain hopeful for without hope, there is no meaning. Kym Porter, Moms Stop They Harm.

I am extremely disappointed in the decision made this week by the Alberta Court of Appeal. I firmly believe no reasonable person, when weighing the value of lives with the convenience of regulation, would find it acceptable to sacrifice the collective sons, daughters, parents and children of our province in service to a policy scheme that has only seen the drug poisoning crisis spiral ever further out of control. The Government of Alberta has repeatedly stated in the media that they do not intend to deny service to anyone who does not show ID - a claim the court has chosen to take at face value - without explaining why the simple matter of amending the regulations to clarify and guarantee this promise could not be followed through with. By placing such important decisions in the realm of discretion, the government forces providers to weigh the right of Albertans to accessing medical care without undue barriers in direct conflict with nebulous, unwritten standards of what constitutes adherence to PHN collection requirements - standards which determine who has their licensing renewed and who does not. In Lethbridge, where the government has been trialling a “soft practice” of enforcing these regulations, we have seen client volumes fall by 75% compared to the average for the independently operated SCS that did not enforce these ID requirements. This shocking failure to connect with people who use drugs has resulted in the deadliest year on record for overdose in Lethbridge, with no hope for improvement on the horizon unless a dramatic course correction takes place. I call on the federal government to exercise its authority to amend exemption letters to guarantee access to life-saving harm reduction services to all Albertans. Timothy Slaney, Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society

For us, this is not the end of the road. This was the decision on the injunction we were seeking while we wait for the case of our human right to go before the court. As this may take 12 to 24 months, we were seeking the injunction to prevent loss of life in the interim. We will also be exploring an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and we will continue to pressure the federal government to intervene. Federal intervention in this matter is crucial, not only to address the impact of the new regulations in Alberta but also to preempt other provinces from implementing similar measures. We wrote to the Honourable Ministers Lametti (Justice) and Bennett (Mental Health and Addictions) with the following request:  

"A potential solution to this matter is Canada revising the framework for section 56.1 exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, SC 1996, c 19. As part of any approval, the federal government should mandate that the delivery of any supervised consumption services must occur in an anonymous and confidential manner, with exceptions provided to in-patient supervised consumption sites or in other circumstances where it is assured that identity verification measures at a site will not deter substance users from accessing these services." (Letter to Minister Bennett dated January 22, 2022, presented January 24, 2022, see attached). 

We will continue to fight for the rights and the lives of the people we love with every political and legal avenue available and how we feel is summarized in this quote by  Wallace Stevens: ”After the final no, there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends. No was the night. Yes is this present sun.”

For more information on our legal action and supporting documents go to the Nanda Law Blog Post.