Surrey Union of Drug Users

Addiction Practice Pod Medicine Podcast · 4 Seasons

You can listen to the full episode here:

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a...

In this episode, Robin recounts her experiences of being pushed away from care as a South Asian woman who uses drugs. Anmol adds historical context, connecting Robin's experiences, drug war colonialism, and recent crackdowns on traditional medicines which harmed South Asian elders in Surrey.

South Asian people who used drugs are systematically underserved and oppressed by drug war violence in Surrey and throughout so-called Canada.

In Newton, where 60% of the population self identifies as South Asian, there are no OPS’ and a single Take Home Naloxone site.

Addiction Practice Pod Medicine Podcast · 4 Seasons

SUDU South Asian Committee member and leader Robin and SUDUs Executive Director Anmol Swaich were interviewed on the BC Centre on Substance Use’s Addiction Practice Pod.

BC government caves to right-wing demands on safe supply Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Petra Schulz responds to the news that BC's miniscule safe supply pilot programs will end take-home prescriptions, throwing the lives of thousands into disarray and immin...

There remains little meaningfully separating Danielle Smith's UCP from David Eby's NDP on drug policy & policing.

The Alberta Model of Marshall Smith, at the centre of privatization scandal allegations, has overrun western Canada.

@msthpetra.bsky.social:
drugdatadecoded.ca/bc-governmen...

BC government caves to right-wing demands on safe supply Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Petra Schulz responds to the news that BC's miniscule safe supply pilot programs will end take-home prescriptions, throwing the lives of thousands into disarray and immin...

The BC government's tepid leadership on safe supply collapsed this week in the face of a coordinated disinformation by right-wing politicians, police and private addiction service providers.

@msthpetra.bsky.social, co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm, responds:
drugdatadecoded.ca/bc-governmen...

Minister Osborne, this decision will exponentially increase our members risk of drug toxicity death.

Your government knows that witnessed ingestion for methadone, suboxone, and hydromorphone reduces accessibility.

Why does Elenore Sturko’s career matter more than our lives?

The BCNDP is not interested in seeing us live, thrive, or access the basic necessities of life.

Our members lives are thrown around as political capital to appease Elenore Sturko.

Ex-coroner says B.C.’s drug policy overhaul looks like ‘impulsive political decision’ British Columbia's former chief coroner says she's disappointed by the province's overhaul of its program that...

cfjctoday.com/2025/02/21/e...

BC Restricts Safer Supply, Promises Pharmacy Crackdown | The Tyee The move appears to come in response to a leaked government document about the diversion of prescribed opioids.

“It feels like moral panic,” Streukens said. “There’s this stigmatizing focus on people who use drugs as if they’re inherently untrustworthy. Stigma fuels isolation and harm, and I worry when we build stigma into policy, it will not reduce harm.”

thetyee.ca/News/2025/02...

A black tshirt with a yellow lotería card. It has a gay pride flag with the trans flag and a black + brown stripe added. The title is “La liberación”, meaning “the liberation”.

The back of the black tshirt. It reads “the Texas drug user health union proudly stands in community with all people oppressed by fascism. Your liberation is bound up in mine - Lilla Watson” TDUHU.ORG

A black tshirt with a yellow lotería card. It has a gay pride flag with the trans flag and a black + brown stripe added. The title is “La liberación”, meaning “the liberation”.

New Drug User Union swag baybeeee

'Moral panic': Surrey drug advocate says B.C. safe supply shift will cost lives Surrey Union of Drug Users says B.C. Ministry of Health decision is going the wrong direction

The BCNDPs reckless scapegoating of drug users, most recently by ending carries for prescribed safe supply recipients in response to police-dictated moral panic, will kill even more of us.

www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/m...

COVID led causes of lower life expectancy in B.C. women during pandemic. For men, it was toxic drugs: report | CBC News A new report from Statistics Canada, co-authored by several members of B.C.'s Office of the Provincial Health Officer, shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy at birth decreased — a d...

Mona Woodward (Sparkling Fast Rising River Woman) of SUDUs Board of Directors spoke to CBC News about a new report which confirms what we already knew - That people who use drugs were killed by the toxic drug supply in greater numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

SUDU members are standing with the Surrey organizers of the Women’s Memorial March.

Ongoing violence against Indigenous women, girls, two spirit, queer and trans people is part and parcel to the colonial project that we have a responsibility to resist. We hold our hands up to the families.

SUDU meetings are cancelled for the week of February 17th - 21st!

Our committees and general membership are building momentum, but we all need a break to maintain it.

We will see you again at our February 24th general meeting 💉💊✊❤️

The Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance is hosting a virtual town hall to discuss the effects of CTS/SCS closures in Toronto communities on Wednesday, February 26 from 7pm to 9pm.

Send an email to THRalliance(at)gmail.com to get the Zoom information.

October 26 2023 – The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) affirms its solidarity with the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) following the October 25th arrest of co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum. The repressive actions of the Vancouver Police Department are part and parcel with a coordinated campaign to discredit and dismantle harm reduction in British Columbia and Canada at large.1 This is a dangerous political strategy that stokes and preys upon stigma against drug users and the poor. 2023 alone has seen overdose prevention sites closed or prevented from opening across the province2 , the de-prescribing of medical safer supply3 , and Bill 34: proposed legislation that will criminalize people who use drugs in public spaces.4 We condemn this brutal escalation of the war on our community and stand with DULF at this critical juncture in drug policy history. DULF saves lives. VANDU has long advocated for access to a regulated, safer alternative to the increas

In one year of operation, DULF’s Compassion Club has proven to have vastly benefitted the health and safety of people who use drugs in our community. A rigorous evaluation of DULF’s Compassion Club found that enrolment (n=43) was associated with a 35% reduction in overdoses, while overdoses requiring Naloxone were reduced by 32%. There have been no deaths related to substances procured through DULF. Club members had fewer hospitalizations (-50%), experiences of violence (-39%), and police interactions after joining (-48%). Compassion Club enrollment also improved overall health, reduced reliance on the unregulated drug supply, and supported many to reduce their drug use.9 DULF’s findings are consistent with an extensive body of research and community testimony supporting the scaling of non-medicalized safe supply to reduce drug-related harm and death.10 By any reasonable scientific or moral standard, DULF’s life-saving work should be praised for its success and recognized as...

Laws are made and remade through social action. The Downtown Eastside’s activist history and the continued struggle of drug user movements worldwide prove that drug laws can and must be challenged to save the lives of those abandoned by society. Public health professionals have always relied on drug user knowledge to create policy. Across North America, life-saving harm reduction measures originated from the courageous actions of drug users fighting against the routine persecution and abandonment of their peers. DULF continues in this tradition of civil disobedience against a barbaric regime of drug prohibition. Like generations of freedom fighters before them, DULF strives to fulfill humanity’s moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws, especially those which cause provable harm. We will continue to defend the survival of our peers and honor those taken too soon by the drug war. With thousands of lives on the line, the drug user liberation movement will not be intimidated...

Statement from VANDU on the criminalization of the Drug User Liberation Front, the organization running Vancouver's heroin / cocaine / methamphetamine compassion club, by Vancouver Police following the sudden cut of their provincial funding.

We were joined by Aman and Fraser from @fraserhealth.bsky.social tonight to discuss withdrawal management services in Surrey.

Our members want to work with FHA to make withdrawal management more accessible, including by allowing clients to smoke cigarettes outside while at detox, like in Vancouver.

Alberta is a crime scene.

People aren't dying from safe supply, they're dying from unregulated drugs — that's what Bonnie Henry was "downplaying" and she's correct. This moral panic needs to stop.

Alberta data shows decrease in opioid deaths and overdoses, but some groups are dying more than others Drug-poisoning deaths in Alberta have dropped nearly 40 per cent since 2023, according to data from the provincial government. But a deeper look is needed to understand the full picture, harm reductio...

What’s behind declining drug poisoning numbers?
What policy changes are needed?

Important insight and analysis from @4bharmredux.bsky.social and @drugdatadecoded.ca.

#ABpoli #yeg #drugsky

www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/art...

Earlier this week we sent a letter to Island Health in response to their treatment of Dr. Wilder following her harm reduction advocacy work.

If our health authority is more willing to take action based on politics than academic research then we are all in trouble. Our community deserves better. 🧵

the rift is between "save them" and "let them die" approaches to drug policy and doctors are (finally) resigning over the government's policy choice

*reminder that the legislature returns Feb 18

#bravery
@docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social

Harm reduction doctor behind Nanaimo overdose site resigns in protest – The Discourse. Dr. Jessica Wilder steps down from harm reduction leadership roles at Island Health and at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital after being put on administrative leave following participation in an unsan...

Two Vancouver Island addictions medicine doctors have resigned in protest following Nanaimo doctor Jess Wilder being put on administrative leave by Island Health after organizing an unsanctioned overdose prevention site with @docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social. Island Health denies that it was punitive.

'Chilling message': Surrey drug advocacy group backs B.C. addictions doctor Dr. Jess Wilder was part of a group involved in pop-up sites in Nanaimo and Victoria

"We've seen countless examples of allied physicians doing work just like Dr. Wilder and have always been vindicated by history and health evidence," Bailey said. "So that's the lens through which we see Dr Wilder's work in Surrey. "

www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/s...

KPU instructors participate in research initiative to address Surrey drug crisis In response to the ongoing unregulated toxic drug crisis that has gripped communities across B.C., the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) is leading a research initiative to address the challenges face...

"In response to the ongoing unregulated toxic drug crisis that has gripped communities across B.C., the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) is leading a research initiative to address the challenges faced by people who use drugs in Surrey. "

runnermag.ca/2025/02/kpu-...

Marshall Smith allegations should expand procurement investigation The Globe & Mail is reporting top-level allegations that Marshall Smith, former chief of staff to the Alberta premier, interfered in AHS procurement. If a forensic investigation proceeds, it must exte...

"While the allegations around Alberta Health Services implicate hundreds of millions of dollars in procurement spending, Mental Health and Addiction expenditures should be similarly examined in light of the new allegations."
Analysis by @drugdatadecoded.ca
#ABpoli
drugdatadecoded.ca/marshall-smi...

40 mg is 0.04grams. Fentanyl on the streets is sold as a point. 0.1 of a gram. 10 points equals 1 gram. 1000 mg equals 1 gram. 40mg is a minuscule amount. Basically every single person using fentanyl would be locked away for life.

BC Doctor Who Organized Pop-Up OPS Resigns Following Retaliation Two months after organizing one of the unsanctioned overdose prevention sites (OPS) that launched a movement across Canada, a British ...

Dr. Jess Wilder was placed on administrative leave in January. Island Health said only that there had been concerns over her recent advocacy.

By @brishti.bsky.social:

a reminder that this type of intervention has shaped the toxic drug crisis – which is about prohibitionist drug war policies and resource allocation, not any specific analogue of fentanyl or other drug – and made it worse
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
bsky.app/profile/luke...