Drug decriminalization movement gaining momentum in Canada as overdose deaths surge
CBC
As overdose deaths keep surging in Canada, the movement to decriminalize illicit drugs is gaining steam, with one of the country's largest mental health facilities joining national advocates and several major cities in putting pressure on the federal government to act.
Earlier this summer, mayors from across B.C. signed a letter in support of Vancouver city officials who are seeking Health Canada's approval to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs.
Toronto is gearing up to submit a similar request, a move which follows the city recently hitting its highest one-day opioid overdose count in late July.
Now, the country's largest mental health teaching hospital, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, is for the first time formally pushing for countrywide drug decriminalization as well, CBC News has learned.
In a new policy statement being released publicly on Wednesday, the hospital is calling on the federal government to decriminalize all drugs while working with the provinces to ramp up treatment and harm-reduction services and replace the "unregulated, toxic drug supply."
"The driving factor behind the shift has been the harms we're seeing," said Dr. Leslie Buckley, chief of the addictions division at CAMH, during an interview.
Buckley says the legal framework around substance use hasn't been successful at curbing drug use, and instead causes social harms which disproportionately affect racialized communities.
In a small auditorium at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, about a half-dozen cancer patients sit, getting tips on how to deal with hair loss during chemotherapy. It's not an unusual workshop for cancer patients — except that every patient in the room is under 40.
Charles Racette was arranging his father's funeral when he learned his father was not considered a member of Little Black Bear First Nation.
Measles is a respiratory disease caused by a highly contagious virus that's more infectious than influenza, chickenpox or COVID-19.
The chief of the only First Nation to fully own a mining company in Manitoba says he wants the provincial and federal governments to recognize his community's role in boosting critical mineral exploration as a global race to secure those materials heats up.
WARNING: This story mentions suicide.
The chief of the only First Nation to fully own a mining company in Manitoba says he wants the provincial and federal governments to recognize his community's role in boosting critical mineral exploration as a global race to secure those materials heats up.
A new documentary available free on YouTube celebrates a Great Lakes industry that the filmmaker says often flies under the radar, even among those who live on the lakes.
New observations of a small asteroid discovered in December have led astronomers to conclude that the chances of it striking Earth are almost zero, after earlier data had indicated a higher risk of a collision with this space rock about 40 to 90 metres wide.
Palliative care has an image problem.