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Then you shall have corpses
130 Plays3 years ago
Petra Schulz of Moms Stop the Harm joins us to talk about the ongoing disaster that is the opioid poisoning crisis, how the UCP is making it worse and what we can do to stop it.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Progress Report
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here to remind you that the Progress Report is a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network. A pod on the network that I want to highlight is the latest from Left Turn Canada. Nora Loretto joins the show to talk about her new must-read book called Spin Doctors, how media and politicians misdiagnosed the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's a fantastic episode. She is one of Canada's premier political commentators, and I just recommend you listen to it.
Importance of FOIPs in Journalism
00:00:25
Speaker
But I'm also here to give you the latest pitch on why you should become a Progress Report recurring donor. And it's just that this week we filed six Freedom of Information requests. These are sometimes also called FOIPs, you may have heard them, and we use them to pry information out of governments and public agencies in order to do the original investigative journalism that, you know, we do. Aside from this podcast, we also do that as well.
00:00:49
Speaker
And one of the foips that I want to talk about is going to the Edmonton Police Service to figure out just how much it's going to cost them to fix their $500,000 tank that they bought just last year after it ran into every tank's mortal enemy, a tree stump. Yes, it hit a tree stump, started spewing fluid everywhere, had to be towed away. The pictures, we put the pictures online, it's very funny.
00:01:13
Speaker
But that's just one FOIP. We get excellent tips all the time from people who are deep within government, and sometimes the best way to confirm these tips is with a FOIP request. But these things are not free. Even though this is public information held by a public body, they charge us $25 per request, and sometimes they even come back with ridiculously high fees just in order to provide this info to us. So if you have a few extra bucks to spare every month, the best way to support our independent investigative journalism is to become a regular donor.
00:01:43
Speaker
The link is in the show notes, or you can just go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons and give what you can. Now onto the show.
Interview with Petra Schultz on Alberta's Supervised Consumption Sites
00:02:04
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwitchi, Wisconsin, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory. And we're on the banks of the Kasiscasa, Wannasippie, or the North Saskatchewan River. And joining us today is Petra Schultz with Moms Stop the Harm, an organization of Canadian families that have been impacted by the opioid poisoning crisis. Petra, welcome back to The Progress Report.
00:02:33
Speaker
Thank you, Duncan. It's always great to talk with you about the many exciting and often horrifying things that happen in this province. I know. I mean, literally our last episode was also on the opioid poisoning crisis, but in a different way. So it's like you could really do nothing but content about that and every week and you'd still be telling news stories every week.
00:02:59
Speaker
Petra, the reason we're having you on, the reason why we thought to have you on, is that you, with Mom Stop the Harm, the group that you're a part of, have brought forward a lawsuit with Mom Stop the Harm, as well as the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society, with Avneesh Nanda, who's also a friend of the pod, as your lawyer, and you've brought that
00:03:21
Speaker
lawsuit forward and it's actually in court next week. What can you tell the audience about that lawsuit and why are you bringing it forward? Yeah. I mean, what I can tell the audience that I didn't wake up one morning and thought I should take my government to court.
00:03:40
Speaker
but lost many sleepless nights to came at the decision that this was the only only route that was left to us. Mom stopped the harm and Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society or otherwise called LOBS. We are the core litigants on this case.
00:03:59
Speaker
And we are taking the province to court because they are implementing new guidelines for supervised consumption over those prevention services. And these guidelines are so arduous and also they have some elements that will deter people from using them that we are afraid that these guidelines will result in a loss of life.
00:04:23
Speaker
So we want to, first of all, stop the province from implementing the guidelines. So the lawsuit next week, the 15s and 16s on Wednesday and Thursday, it's an injunction hearing. So here we just first try to stop the province in their tracks.
00:04:41
Speaker
And then hopefully our legal team tells us it can take one to two years to have the actual case heard in court. But if we can get an injunction, we can make sure people are protected and we can save lives. And what are the measures that the Alberta government is putting in place that is going to make it more difficult for people to use these supervised consumption sites and by making it more difficult, make it more likely for people to die of opioid poisoning?
00:05:12
Speaker
The most sticky point, the most concerning point, is the request for Alberta healthcare numbers.
00:05:23
Speaker
First, they started out saying that it would be a requirement and that the province has already backpedaled on that and say, no, it's not a requirement, but it will be required to ask for it and people don't provide it, then they can still use the site. So the idea would be if I come in and you say to me, and normally I wouldn't have given you my name, maybe I would have called myself Pat.
00:05:48
Speaker
And you'd say, Pat, what's your healthcare number? And then I'd have to think about it. Wow. If I give my healthcare number that connects it with all the other health services I've ever had, will somebody find that out? Who will have access to the information? How can this information be used against me?
00:06:09
Speaker
And at that point, I might not even stay long enough to you telling me that I don't have to provide the number. I might just walk out or somebody might have told me I need to give my health number. And I decided not to even come in in the first place. So that is a very, it's very, very problematic. This request for Alberta health care numbers to be provided at consumption services.
00:06:32
Speaker
Okay, so the two things really jump out at me from hearing that. One is that you're gonna tie the use of a supervised consumption site to a healthcare number. Do you know what your healthcare number lives on? It lives on a piece of paper that, does anyone still have it in any kind of condition? Our healthcare numbers, our healthcare cards that have our healthcare numbers on them are a joke. They're like, everyone makes fun of them. They fall apart to pieces.
00:06:59
Speaker
They're made of the thinnest of paper. And then two, like, why do you need a health care number to or to sit in a booth and to like, you know, get access to a clean needle? And like, what's the rationale that they're using to like, oh, you need to have this? Well, the rationale, they have this terminology where they used recovery based
00:07:27
Speaker
care, you know, yeah, recovery based system of care. So they say, well, if we want to connect people with recovery, we have to have their health care numbers. So if they want treatment, we know how to collect them. So that is one of the rationales they're using. They also really have a very arduous reporting system for consumption services. Like somebody like LOBS under this system, they could probably not operate because
00:07:54
Speaker
You need computer equipment on site. You need a database that is expensive. You need a license. You need people to operate it. You need staff time. And to provide an overdose prevention site, you need a location like a lot of people started out by setting up in a tent.
00:08:12
Speaker
You need people who care, people who know how to respond to an overdose. You need naloxone, ideally need oxygen. You need a first aid kit and you need safe supplies for people. You need some food, some snacks. You need to have a
00:08:28
Speaker
a kind heart. That's what you need for an overdose prevention site. But then if you need a computer and you need network access... You need an internet connection, you need an IT guy, you need $20,000 worth of bullshit in order to give people safe supplies in order to use drugs so they don't die and to hit them with some naloxone if they get a bad batch, right? Yeah.
00:08:55
Speaker
And the thing is really with supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites is that they are supposed to be low barrier. The goal is to keep people healthy and to save lives and to connect with people. We always say meet people where they are at.
00:09:10
Speaker
So asking for healthcare numbers is not low barrier, even if you make it optional. And if you make it optional, my concern, this is always you give discretion. And I have at pharmacies, my oldest gets daily medication for opioid use disorder. And I've witnessed, I've gone to pharmacies with them and I've witnessed pharmacy staff. Some are different.
00:09:39
Speaker
Some are outright hostile, some are really kind and friendly. And the ones who are indifferent and especially the ones who are hostile, they always present a barrier to accessing the system.
00:09:52
Speaker
And if we have staff at the consumption side who have the option to be very easy on the healthcare question or be very hard on it, that again creates a huge barrier. And anybody who uses substances has had bad experiences with the health system.
00:10:09
Speaker
because of the stigma, shame, and blame. And anytime you connect people with the health system, through the number, for example, that's a scary thing and something people want to avoid. And they'd maybe rather go outside and use somewhere alone, which puts them at an immense risk of overdose and dying.
Opioid Crisis in Alberta
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
part of a pattern of behavior by this UCP government to, you brought it up earlier, recovery oriented focus, they view supervised consumption, they view essentially all harm reduction as something that they will maybe kind of tolerate, but they will, again, as you've shown, they'll put up barriers, they'll make it harder for people to use.
00:11:01
Speaker
a supervised consumption site or an overdose prevention site, as opposed to just being like, hey, people are dying and we need to make sure that more people don't die. And I think it's time to just take a step back and consider the state of the opioid crisis in Alberta right now, because it's still bad. 2020 was the worst year on record for deaths from opioid poisonings with 1,316.
00:11:29
Speaker
And 2021 is on track to be the worst year on record for opioid poisoning deaths. There was, between January and August, there were 1,026. And so if trends hold, and they likely are going to hold based on some other stuff I'm going to talk about, we will see a new record. And every year since like 2013, it goes up every year. Like the opioid poisoning crisis is an ongoing
00:11:58
Speaker
disaster that is slowly unfolding in front of our eyes.
00:12:14
Speaker
I can't look at when these statistics come out. To me, they are not numbers. They're people who were loved. Everybody was somebody, someone. I think about their families, you know, with holidays coming up. I know how hard it is to have that empty chair at your table. And I know how hard it is, you know, for the inner city communities who've been losing so many of their, like even if you have your street family, it's a family.
00:12:42
Speaker
And there are losses that people mourn. There are losses all over. But I have the feeling that our government actually doesn't care if Albertans live or die. And I always suspected that, but COVID really told me that because their COVID response
00:13:01
Speaker
was so laissez-faire in the summer like so ignorant where they didn't act on things and people were dying in increased numbers and it's not just those with COVID who are filling up the emergency rooms and the ICUs it's also people with other health conditions like cancer
00:13:21
Speaker
who got delayed care because of all of that. And that made me realize it's not just people who use drugs where they don't care if they live or die. They live by their dogma and giving money to their friends and staying in power. And everybody else in this province seems to be collateral damage.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, last podcast, literally the last podcast we did, uh, we were breaking down a, uh, a bit of misinformation from EPS about fentanyl and how, you know, it's his page on the EPS website. And it's like, Oh, if a few grains of fentanyl touch your skin.
00:13:58
Speaker
you could die or whatever, which is, of course, hilariously wrong and incorrect. But this page was published in like 2015 because the stats they had was like, oh yeah, in 2014, 100 people died of fentanyl overdoses and it's 2021 and we are literally going to be like 10, 11 times that number
00:14:17
Speaker
It has not gotten worse. It has gotten worse. It has not gotten better. It has gotten worse every year since that page was published. It is wild to me that this is not like a five alarm fire where the entire resources of the state are being put to use to make sure more people don't die. But it is, as you said, this government just doesn't give a shit.
00:14:40
Speaker
No, they don't. They really don't. And if you think about it, COVID has also really made things worse.
00:14:49
Speaker
A couple of reasons. One is the, of course, the disruption in the supply routes, you know, the old supply chain that we all hear about doesn't just apply to what you buy at your local supermarket that also applies to substances. And substances just have become a lot more toxic. There are more wild mixes with benzodiazepines mixed in with opioids.
00:15:18
Speaker
something we hadn't seen before. And the other issue is that because of COVID we were all told to stay apart. And if you use
00:15:27
Speaker
the most dangerous situation to be in is to be alone. Because if you overdose and you're alone, there is nobody there who can assist you. And social distancing resulted in services going to reduce capacity. So it was just like a perfect storm. In 2019, we actually held our own a bit of the numbers and they even went down a smidgen in 2019 before the UCP won the election.
00:15:54
Speaker
I felt hopeful that maybe we could, we were going in a direction where we could get a handle on this. But ever since they got into power, it got worse. They made things worse. They fight a war against harm reduction. And COVID has just made it exponentially worse.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, and when we talk about how we're going to set a new record for opioid poisoning deaths in 2021, like we're on track to, like literally yesterday, we're recording this on Thursday, December 9th, literally yesterday on December 8th, the Canadian press put out a report which was picked up widely by all major news sources with the headline, opioid related emergency medical calls spike in Alberta's biggest cities.
00:16:39
Speaker
You know, the quote here is, emergency medical services responded to 140 opioid related calls in Edmonton and 85 in Calgary between November 29th and December 5th. Alberta Health Services says this is higher than average and notes it is working with local agencies to understand the circumstances and what immediate supports are needed. It's like, again, this is a ongoing disaster every day.
00:17:08
Speaker
someone dies from an opioid poisoning, and usually more than one. And it's absolutely wild. You brought it up. Let's get into it. The UCP response has been, again, actively, they've shown active antipathy and hostility towards harm reduction and supervised consumption sites. They've shut down supervised consumption sites in Edmonton and Calgary and Lethbridge.
00:17:38
Speaker
replacing them usually with what, like poorer or smaller kind of pay limitations of what used to be. Isn't that right? Well, in Calgary, actually, they took away the mobile site just before it was open. So technically, yes, in reality, they shut it down by not letting it open. But what they did with that mobile unit, when they shut down Arches in Lethbridge, which was the largest consumption site in all of North America,
00:18:08
Speaker
probably one of the largest globally, was open 24 hours a day and had 24 booths to inject and probably another six for inhalation, was the first one with inhalation. When they shut that down, they replaced it with a mobile site that had three seats but only used two because of physical distancing with COVID. So you go from almost accommodating 30 people to accommodating two.
00:18:37
Speaker
And then they parked it outside of a shelter where a lot of people were staying, so people were feeling stigmatized and watched and observed and stayed away. And Lethbridge now has the highest number in all of Alberta. And yesterday I saw a tweet from Terrell Tailfeathers who said 200 people of the blood drug tribe, 200 members have died.
00:19:04
Speaker
recently due to opiate overdoses. I'm not certain of the time frame. I think he was talking this year, but it's heartbreaking. Indigenous people are five times as likely to die and five times as likely to be hospitalized for a drug poisoning event.
00:19:22
Speaker
That really comes a lot from shutting down those sites that actually supported people. And in Edmonton, again, they shut down the biggest site. People ask me, well, why do we have so many more ambulance calls in Edmonton than Calgary? Well, it's obvious. They shut down the site at Boyle Street Community Services.
00:19:43
Speaker
and expanded a bit at Spadey, but we are down five booths, five spaces where people could use and just an amazing staff team here in Edmonton due to that shutdown.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Terrell Telfeathers because he has made the analogy to this, again, murderous, necropolitics of the UCP, this anti-harm reduction, anti-supervised consumption site politics of the UCP as clearing the plains 2.0, right? Like a reference to the genocidal policies of starvation of the Canadian state that happened to indigenous folks who lived on the plains like 150 years ago.
00:20:22
Speaker
And again, not enough people are kind of like putting this crisis in that context, and Terrell is, and it's worthwhile to think about it that way. The UCP have constantly talked about recovery, recovery, recovery, recovery-oriented care, and getting people the support they need.
00:20:48
Speaker
They like to brag about how many recovery spaces they've created. They've flipped the conversation from like, oh yeah, we're not going to talk about how more people are dead of opioid poisonings this year than ever before. We're going to talk about how many recovery spaces we've opened. But what does this focus on recovery over everything else mean practically for the people on the ground, Petra? Well, recovery, I'm waiting for them to find a way for my son to recover. My son's dead. He's not coming back.
00:21:18
Speaker
Recovery is, focusing on treatment for people is important, but we have to first keep people alive. The dead don't recover. That's just the bottom line. The dead don't recover. And we can't replace recovery with, we can't replace harm reduction with recovery. We need to first focus that people are well, that they stay alive, that they stay as healthy as possible.
00:21:46
Speaker
And the other thing with their recovery rhetoric, most of the recovery they talk about is absence-based.
00:21:53
Speaker
which is scientifically proven not to be effective for what physicians call opioid use disorder. Like when you use fentanyl or any similar substance, abstinence is not the way to go. You go on what's called opioid agonist treatment, you go on methadone, you go Suboxone, you go on cadian, substances like that, or we have the injectable opioid agonist treatment program that
00:22:19
Speaker
Another lawsuit, thanks to Avanish Nanda's good work, we stopped that from being shut down, but it's not being expanded. So when they talk recovery, they're not focusing on evidence-based treatment. And when they talk about spaces, Kenny likes to say so-called harm reduction. I say so-called spaces.
00:22:41
Speaker
We're trying to do the math on those spaces because I always talk to families who say, I can't get my loved one in. It's several weeks. How are they going to live several more weeks? I need to get somebody in now into detox or into treatment.
00:22:57
Speaker
They're not creating any new spaces. They're just moving around how they pay them instead of through the income support program, through health, or stuff that used to be private user pay is now government pay, which in itself granted is a good thing that people don't have. But they're not new or additional spaces. They have not created 4,000 or 8,000 spaces. And the other thing that really bugs me that they have this
00:23:25
Speaker
horrible reporting system that they want to impose on supervised consumption side.
00:23:31
Speaker
try to find a report on any of these recovery facilities. How many people went? What happened to these people? How did they do afterwards? Well, that's the one thing they can tell you, Petra, is they can tell you how many people went through the program because they get paid by how many people go through their programs. But we wrote a story, Jeremy Appel for the progress report wrote a story for
00:23:57
Speaker
for us, essentially on the recovery industry earlier this year, trying to find out who benefits from this recovery approach. The answer he got from a spokesperson for an organization that runs one of these recovery sites was so airy-fairy. It's like, well, what is success? Is it a month without using? Is it a year? It's all about a continuing focus on sobriety and wellness.
00:24:23
Speaker
You're getting paid big dollars to put people through this recovery program and you can't even demonstrate that you're doing any good. I can tell you what success is. Saving lives, keeping people alive and well. That in my books is success.
00:24:39
Speaker
Everything else is just gaslighting is what they're doing. And I can also tell you what happens in and after the recovery programs. We have new members in a grief support group here in Alberta. One had a child who died in one of these programs, one that has been touted by a politician recently.
00:25:02
Speaker
and the other one died right after coming out of this program. Right after abstinence-based recovery is when the overdose death risk goes up exponentially.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if people are going to be dying in police holding cells, people are definitely going to be dying of opioid poisonings in these so-called, in these recovery centers, right? And the point you make about like, yes, if you haven't used, if you've dried out and then you get out of recovery and then you get your first hit.
00:25:33
Speaker
Like you're saying that's that's one of the most riskiest times for death and injury from an opioid poisoning, right? Well, because you've lost your tolerance. A physician friend explained this to me that it takes time to build up opioid tolerance and to tolerate a certain dose and people sort of hit a dose that they're comfortable in. And then then when they haven't used for a while, they have to guess. And then the street drugs are toxic as well. It's even hard to guess what's in there.
00:26:01
Speaker
So, without the tolerance and the toxic drugs, the risk is huge of overdosing and dying after, and that is for people who come out of these recovery centers, for people who come out of jail cells, and even people who come out of hospital sometime if the hospital doesn't maintain them on the substances that they are using. Interesting. So, there are a couple of recent news hooks about the opioid poisoning crisis that I think that we have to talk about, and that is
00:26:30
Speaker
You know, Jason Kenny and associate minister of mental health and addictions, Mike Ellis have stated publicly that they're going to be, they're going to be starting up a select legislative committee on safe supply. And then right after the announcement that they were doing that, they didn't spend several minutes slagging the idea of safe supply. Why don't before we get into what is sure to be a farce from the UCP here, can you walk our audience through like what safe supply is and why people who use drugs are advocating for it?
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah. Well, safe supply can be described as providing pharmaceutical alternatives to toxic street drugs. And there are a few safe supply models in Canada. The only one available to people right now is via a prescription pad. So we've made the physician the gatekeeper in that role, but in that situation.
00:27:22
Speaker
But people are prescribed, in most cases, it's hydromorphone or what people know is diluted. They would get diluted to replace what they are otherwise using from the street. In some programs in BC, they're also experimenting because so many people are on fentanyl now, not because they want to be on fentanyl, but because
00:27:45
Speaker
But because it's the only thing that's available. So at a program in Victoria, Vic Safer, they are also starting to offer people are offering people fentanyl patches to replace their fentanyl. So and what that does when we give people safer supply, of course,
00:28:03
Speaker
they're less likely to overdose and die. If you look at BC's overdose stats, and they've always been better than we are in keeping numbers, they, for the longest time, hovered between 200 and 250 until 2012, and we took OxyContin away by reformulation to OxyNeone when fentanyl entered the market. It was going up and up and up.
00:28:28
Speaker
Sometimes people have this argument, oh, people are dying of these pharmaceutical opioids anyways. Well, yeah, some people are also dying from wine and beer, but most of us are not. With any substance, there are some risks, but by having a controlled substance, you really mitigate that risk. And the other good aspect of it, if you have to find $200, $500, $700 a day to buy street drugs,
00:28:59
Speaker
You have to engage in certain activities to find that money, right? So when we give people safe supply, we also make communities safer. And we reduce some of the risks that come for individuals and communities in trying to find that money such as sex work and all kinds of other things that are risky for people who have to engage in that to find the money to buy drugs.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we have safe supply for all sorts of drugs, right? I am able to go to the liquor store and know that the wine I am buying is not going to turn me blind. I'm able to go into a cannabis store and know that what I'm buying is actually cannabis. I'm able to go to a coffee shop and be sure that a professional who knows what they're doing with coffee is able to pull me a shot of espresso.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And the model, as I said, the model we have in Canada for safe supply is a prescriber model. But there is a group in BC, it's called the Drug User Liberation Front. They've kind of taken that a step further. And they have said that really, we have to look at a situation where we let
00:30:07
Speaker
Adults make adult decisions and provide a model that gives autonomy to people who use substances and they are looking at compassion clubs which were used when people first got HIV AIDS medication that wasn't available and they were used
00:30:26
Speaker
early on when medical cannabis wasn't legalized yet. So kind of that model where people who use kind of buy in bulk and then distribute amongst each other, keeping each other safe. And some people say, oh, what about if the kid down the block comes and wants to buy drugs? And, you know, any drug, any person who uses drugs that I've ever met,
00:30:53
Speaker
they can tell within half a second that wine is my substance, that I can talk about opioids, and I can talk about methamphetamine, but it's like a foreign language to me, and they can tell immediately. So these compassion clubs would keep people safe, but that is kind of safe supply
00:31:14
Speaker
the next phase. Right now in Alberta, if we could get a prescriber model of safe supply, that would go a long way in keeping people safer and healthier and connecting them to meaningful health services.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, if people are dying of is a poison drug supply, making sure that they are using drugs that are not poison seems to be a way that would keep them alive. This committee on safe supply was announced and then Mike Ellis went to say a bunch of ridiculous things about safe supply and what it was that were just untrue or stupid.
00:31:53
Speaker
And so I think it's probably correct to expect more of the same on this government. I don't think they finally find religion on how or why safe supply is a good idea considering all their prior statements on it. And this is again, a pattern of behavior, right? Like they commissioned a study on supervised consumption sites that was just bad, bad science. It was confirmation bias from the very beginning. It was actually embarrassing that the government of Alberta produced this and it had real harm, not only in Alberta, but across the world where other jurisdictions
00:32:22
Speaker
who are seeking to punish people who use drugs, use this Alberta study as evidence for why they should roll back supervised consumption sites or harm reduction stuff. It's disgusting, but I don't know. They've accepted the frame of safe supply.
00:32:42
Speaker
And so I don't know how they're going to try and turn safe supply into a bad thing. Because again, if what people are dying is poison, let's give them stuff that isn't poison. But I'm sure they'll do some evil thing on this. The other news hook on this file that I think is worth talking about is a story that was broken recently by
00:32:59
Speaker
Alana Smith with the Canadian press formally of post media and that is a bit of an interrogation of What exactly how many people are using the digital overdose response system? Which was an app which was much ballyhooed by Jason Kenny and the UCP as this kind of like digital techno fix For you know to prevent opioid poisoning deaths, and I think the general premise is fine You know
00:33:28
Speaker
If you're going to use drugs alone, call into this app and if you black out, someone will call 911 for you. Is that a fair short description of what the app is supposed to do? Well, there are two different approaches and talking about the app.
00:33:44
Speaker
This app makes me so mad. It makes me so mad in so many ways because a year and a half ago, we had a virtual supervised consumption site in Alberta, homegrown virtual supervised consumption site, ready to go with trained staff and an excellent system. And they shut it down a day before it was supposed to go live. So we could have had that to save lives. Then in March, when they announced their app,
00:34:11
Speaker
There already is a National Overdose Prevention Service and there is a Lifeguard app and the Be Brave app, all those three systems.
00:34:20
Speaker
Our tried, proven, functioning people are using them. They save lives. But no, because Alberta has such a stellar record in app development, as we have seen from the COVID tracing app, no, we build our own. We spend $325,000. We said we could maybe spend on ads to tell people about the other ones to build our own.
00:34:44
Speaker
And, you know, have you ever downloaded an app and not used it? I clean up my phone every so often because somebody says, oh, you should try this. And then you download this and I don't really need this. So so when they have 230 like 650 downloads and 230 registered users,
00:35:02
Speaker
I would like to know how many people have ever used it while they were using substances. How many adverse events, drug poisoning events have they responded to? What's the outcome of those responses? On the Lifeguard app, you see it right on their homepage. If you Google Lifeguard app, then it tells you right on their homepage how many lives they have saved.
00:35:27
Speaker
You can also go to MomStopTheHarm, our resources on Overdose. We link all the apps there, except for the Alberta app. We won't link that until it's proven to be working because I would not put my life into the hands of this government to tell you the truth. The information that you're talking about, how many lives has this saved? How many people have actually used it and used the app while using?
00:35:55
Speaker
while using drugs, they refuse to release that information to the reporter, which I think shows just how much this app has been used. But yeah, just another kind of like instance of our government just needlessly making the problem worse. Again, if there's a solution that works, use it. You don't have to create a special bespoke Made in Alberta solution for everything, especially if you've already got something that already works.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. And what is actually interesting that the side of privacy concerns over not releasing the data, whereas we have huge privacy concerns over the data they are wanting to collect in consumption services. And they are releasing all kinds of data that one should have privacy concerns over. So it's really not an argument that holds water. And I encourage everyone who
00:36:47
Speaker
who maybe use this alone to check out the other two apps there is a difference between them one the lifeguard works like the alberta one where you you basically you interact with the app and tell them tell the app that you are alert it gives you alarms and you have to tell it that you are alert and if not it dispatches 911
00:37:07
Speaker
Whereas the Be Brave and the National Overdose Prevention Hotline, you actually talk to a real human, in many cases, volunteers, and you can kind of customize your response, which is important. Like, if you are in rural Alberta these days, you don't want to trust an ambulance to get to you. Like, when you overdose, you have minutes. You don't have an hour. So in those cases, it's better to use an app like Be Brave or the National Hotline,
00:37:35
Speaker
where you can negotiate and say, hey, my neighbor has a key to my house and my neighbor has an Aloxone kit and my neighbor is home and this is my neighbor's number. So you can make different arrangements. So I encourage people to check out that information because it is life-saving. They are great tools if you don't screw them up.
00:37:59
Speaker
Finally, I think the last news hook here to talk about is the City of Toronto recently moved to decriminalize small amounts of drugs under what's called a Section 56 exemption.
Drug Decriminalization Efforts
00:38:10
Speaker
We covered this on the last podcast, but it is worth bringing up again. Any municipality or provincial government can request this. Vancouver, BC, and Toronto have all requested this. The federal government still has not.
00:38:22
Speaker
assented to those requests, so it's worth keeping an eye on what the federal government does on this. But I actually did a bit of reporting, Petra, a bit of journalism, and I actually reached out to the government of Alberta about whether they would move to decriminalize drugs. And here is their response, and I think it's worth quoting in full, just to kind of see the internal contradictions you get, just even within a couple of sentences.
00:38:46
Speaker
This was their response to my question about whether they would move to decriminalize. Quote, Alberta's government believes in dealing with addiction as a health care issue while keeping communities safe. We are focused on improving access to treatment and recovery services that end the cycle of drug use. We believe that comprehensive and accessible system of care must be in place before decisions regarding the criminal justice system are made. Well,
00:39:14
Speaker
So if you really believe in dealing with addiction as a health care issue, then why don't you make sure that people who use drugs get health care instead of jail time?
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the decision has been made. They have made the decision to deal with it as a criminal justice matter. They talk about stuff like minimum sentences for dealers and all these things. With every one of them, you know, my litmus test that I use is the one simple question I have. Does it save lives? And if it doesn't, then
00:39:50
Speaker
let's do something different, let's do something better, let's do something that's proven to save lives. And to be honest, on Decrim, Decrim alone will not save lives. It has to be paired with safer supply because under Decrim, the substance is still illicit, but just possession of smaller amounts for personal use is
00:40:12
Speaker
is not, or I should correct that. Under the system, the substance is still an illegal substance, but the possession of small amounts is no longer a criminal offence. So we need to pair it with safe supply. And that is really something that has been shown in the discussion with people who use
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, decrim is mostly just a dignity thing for people who use drugs, as well as a way to get cops off of the backs of people who use drugs, right? If you decrim drugs, then it's like, okay, well, the cops aren't just gonna snatch the fucking drugs of everyone they come across. They're not gonna take their pipes, their paraphernalia. Yeah, it's not gonna save lives in and of itself on its own, but it does allow people to live with dignity, as opposed to now where they're treated with such stigma.
00:41:04
Speaker
The stigma is huge. What stigmatizes more than a criminal record? A criminal record is life-changing. There are all kinds of jobs, education, travel, places to live. There are so many things, doors shut into people's faces all over with a criminal record. And I think if we take decrim seriously, what we need to do is also expunge past records. That is really a stuff that has to go hand in hand with it.
00:41:33
Speaker
So again, any government, any level, so the municipal government of Edmonton, the municipal government of Calgary, shit, the Council of Acme, Alberta, or Zama City, all the way from Athabasca to Zama, could decriminalize drugs if they wanted to. And there is a handy thing that just came out earlier today, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition released a platform for drug decriminalization in Canada called
00:41:59
Speaker
Decrim done right, a rights based path for drug policy. We'll link to it in the show notes. Again, if you're a city counselor, if you work for a city counselor, if you ever talk to your city counselor, if you have their email or their phone number, decrim is something that they can immediately start moving on, which again, is just going to give people who use drugs the dignity that they need. And the decriminalization is just key to getting these people
00:42:24
Speaker
out of the criminal system and treating addiction and the opioid crisis as a healthcare crisis and not as a criminal crisis. If I can add another tool to that, we have a motion to municipalities. It's sort of a bit of a decrim light approach that any listener could take to their local municipality and pass that motion in part.
00:42:48
Speaker
And basically what it calls, it brings the points forward. People discuss it, they educate themselves, and then a council can pass a motion to call on the federal government to decriminalize. Because we have to remember that Vancouver, Toronto, the province of BC, and everyone else who's looking at Vikram,
00:43:07
Speaker
wouldn't have to do that if our federal government wouldn't be so gutless on this issue. They really are the ones who need to move it. We move it and could make it happen for the entire country. Yes. I mean, ultimately, yeah, they just need, federally, it's a criminal code thing. It just needs to be, I mean, prosecutors aren't prosecuting simple possession. Like that is a directive that went out last year. Like it is just a cop thing, right? Where cops will use the fact that it's illegal.
00:43:34
Speaker
to take drugs, to snatch it from people, to use it to search people and put people in the criminal justice system. And again, that doesn't help people. We know that it doesn't help people. We know that it actively harms people, especially if they have mental illness issues or substance addiction issues.
00:43:50
Speaker
Um, but I feel we're coming to the end of our time here, Petra. And one thing, uh, that we like to close out here with is that steps people can take to, uh, actually help out because again, this is
Practical Steps Against the Opioid Crisis
00:44:04
Speaker
a crisis. It is ongoing. We do need.
00:44:07
Speaker
everyone to help out. We can't just depend on elected officials to solve this problem. It is going to be on us. What do you recommend to folks for action they can take to help ameliorate this crisis?
00:44:22
Speaker
Well, the first thing everybody can do if they haven't already done so, go and get yourself an Aloxone kit. Go to your nearest pharmacy, pick up a kit. We have a video on our website that shows you how to use it. The pharmacist will also give you some basic explanation and carry that kit visibly. So it makes a statement that you are prepared to help and people can reach out to you.
00:44:43
Speaker
Then there are also a lot of local groups you can support financially if you can. You can support our lawsuit financially if you're able. It's not easy taking your government to court and it's not cheap either. On the Nanda Law website there's a link to a blog where you can also support
00:45:06
Speaker
And then, of course, there are a lot of groups locally in Edmonton, Calgary, like Boots on Ground, the Bear Clan, StreetCats in Calgary, and the great people from AWARE who go out every day. You can support these organizations. They are literally on the ground talking to people every day and giving out anything from naloxone
00:45:31
Speaker
to harm reduction supplies, to gloves, hats, and clean socks, hand warmers, and snacks. Yeah. I mean, I would recommend volunteering with one of these street outreach groups. You know, I've done it a bunch. You know, there's Bear Clan, there's harm reduction support, there's boots on the ground, there's water warriors, and those are just the ones in Edmonton. Petra named a couple of the ones that operate in Calgary. You know, it's not hard work.
00:45:56
Speaker
Ultimately, you know dress warm talk to people give them the stuff they need like it's it is a fantastic way to just kind of like oh, yeah, like 1300 people dead that kind of means nothing Until you actually be like, oh you talked to someone and they're like, you know a bunch of their friends have died in the past five years and They're scared that it's gonna happen to them
00:46:18
Speaker
And so yeah, I would recommend doing the street outreach stuff. It's good for the soul to be honest. I'd also recommend talk to your local counselor and MLA and MP about safe supply, decriminalization. Those are two big things legislatively that need to move if we want to actually see
00:46:38
Speaker
a decrease in deaths from opioid poisoning. And I think it's also good, I mean, to close on, like, if you have friends or family who do use drugs, don't make it scary for them. Don't stigmatize them. Talk to them about them, frankly. Everybody uses drugs of one sort or the other. And if people are afraid to use around you, that just means that they are more likely to die.
00:47:04
Speaker
That is that is sadly true and and so important when somebody discloses to you or via the feeling we use substance don't blame and shame. That is the most important thing and.
00:47:14
Speaker
you know, and respond with empathy and with support and thank people for reaching out for support. That is really the beginning. If somebody can turn to you, you know, if I could do it again, Duncan, if I, instead of Danny hiding your substance use from me, if I could be there with Danny with an Aloxone kit in hand, instead of finding him later in his apartment, I would give the world for that.
00:47:44
Speaker
Exactly. Well, I think that is a good place to leave it.
Contact Information and Feedback
00:47:51
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's a, I appreciate you coming on the podcast, Petra. We, uh, we're going to close it out today. I'm not even asked for money today. Although there's an ask for money up off the front. Um, if people want to follow along with what you're doing, Petra, what's the best way, what communication channels do you use as people can follow along with the work that you're doing?
00:48:12
Speaker
Um, we have, um, your mom stopped the harm at mom stopped the harm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Um, and, um, mom stopped the harm.com is our website and we welcome people to join us families who have lost loved ones families who have loved ones who are living with substance use who maybe need support and, um, we encourage a professional and other allies to join us as well. Yeah. Great organization. You know, get on their mailing list, follow their social media. It's fantastic stuff.
00:48:41
Speaker
Uh, that's it for the podcast today, folks. If you have any notes, thoughts, comments, you think I need to hear, I am very easy to find. I am on Twitter at Duncan Kinney and you can reach me by email at Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. Thank you to Jim story for editing the podcast as always. Thank you to cosmic family communist for our theme. Thank you to Petra for being an incredible guest once again. Thank you for listening and goodbye.