Alberta model
Launched to government fanfare on sole-source contracts, the Digital Overdose Response System app is barely used most days and has registered just 51 ambulance dispatches over four years –– around 0.14 percent of the ministry's under-reported dispatches for opioid toxicity in that period.
Drug Data Decoded had a breakthrough year in 2025, topping 2,000 subscribers and winning an Alberta Magazine Award for drug policy coverage.
Medical carceralism
A new policy in federal prisons removes methadone and Suboxone opioid treatments, leaving only a patented once-per-month gel injection available to prisoners. A large group of experts is raising serious concerns about harms to prisoners –– and the corporate motivations behind the move.
Calgary Police
New documents reveal Calgary Police Service suppressed evidence of brutality by officers at the University of Calgary on May 9, 2024. Among this was camera footage from senior officers that should have been examined during an internal investigation.
Safe supply
The Fifth Estate is reporting that two federally commissioned expert reviews provided unanimous support for rapidly scaling up safe supply, including compassion clubs, but the government silenced the findings. Drug Data Decoded has spent eleven months investigating: who killed the expert reviews?
Marshall Smith
On October 1, Guy Felicella published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald responding to a piece written by Marshall Smith that favoured expansion of police power to address public drug use. On October 6, a defamation notice from Smith to Felicella prompted the Herald to quietly remove the story.
Safe supply
Justice Catherine Murray closed the trial with remarks that showed sympathy for the accused and noted the confusing behaviour of Health Canada, the Vancouver police and all other political entities during and since the 2023 arrests of Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum.
Calgary Police
Drug Data Decoded has obtained a trove of new documents on the Calgary police chief and deputy resignations. Despite heavy redactions, they reveal a power struggle within the service fuelled by commission messaging.
Alberta model
ROSC Solutions Group, a top recipient of AB recovery contracts, was funded for two reports on operations of Saskatchewan recovery centres. Their outcomes are creating a new beachhead for the privatized, abstinence-focused 'recovery-oriented system of care.'
Alberta model
This story was written the first summer after Drug Data Decoded launched, appearing on the cover of the March 2024 Alberta Views. Since then, its conclusions and predictions have borne out. A look at some of the follow-up work on the Alberta Recovery Model.
Surveillance
The Alberta government confirmed it is ending My Recovery Plan, the app that ostensibly tracked recovery progress & facility wait lists. However, the app is hosted by Amazon, placing users' personal health data at the mercy of the American Cloud Act.
DULF
The question is not whether allowing access to regulated drugs is the right thing to do –– that is now confirmed. The question is whether enough collective will can be mustered to overcome the carceral bureaucracy keeping regulated drugs out of reach. DULF can do that –– with your help.