Calgary city council just says no

Calgary city council took a defiant stance against the Alberta government's attempt to have council do its dirty work. For once, the trash took itself out in Alberta.

Advocates rally against closure of supervised consumption service in Calgary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Local advocates say supervised consumption services must be expanded and improved with drug inhalation capacity. A rally will be held on Tuesday, October 29.

DULF's legal update

Drug User Liberation Front co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum held a press conference with their lawyers on October 15, 2024 to correct disinformation about the compassion club and provide a legal update.

13 Student-led Groups Call for Compassion Clubs Now & DULF Charges To Be Dropped

Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy Vancouver, Migrant Students United UBC, Climate Justice UBC, UBC Social Justice Centre, CUPE 2278 Executive Committee and eight more student-led groups speak out.

Alberta's fiefdom of information

The Premier's office was in contact with the University of Calgary President's office during the peaceful May 9 Palestine solidarity demonstration. But after months of work, the events surrounding the violent deployment of riot police remain shrouded in secrecy.

Private recovery app targeting shelters, prisons & consumption sites may distort outcome data

An app that privatizes health information of recovery patients is aimed at Alberta shelters, correctional facilities and supervised consumption sites. In one case, data from the app that showed a negative outcome was suppressed, but the government still publicly reported it.

Private org has control of Alberta recovery patients' health info

My Recovery Plan was implemented to evaluate and manage substance use treatment waitlists across Alberta. Documents reveal how it denies patients informed consent and control of their personal health information.

“Appreciate the assist”: Oilers pass the puck as City and Police purge unhoused from homes

Documents reveal Edmonton Oilers executives pressure the City and Police to clear unhoused people from near Oilers property, weaponizing decampments and water station relocation to address safety concerns.

Prohibition fuels drug war violence: Regulation can undercut it if done right

Intervention and regulation of the drug supply is indeed the only way out of British Columbia’s forever toxic drug emergency. But last week, the BC NDP rejected another high-level recommendation to create frameworks for non-medicalized access to opioids and other drugs.

Why is Vincent Lam distorting drug deaths?

The author and addiction physician continues disguising reactionary talking points as medical fact through Globe and Mail op-eds. In his latest, he misrepresents death rates in Timmins, belittles harm reduction and appears to cozy up to Poilievre's abstinence-focused drug strategy. In his latest of many Globe and Mail

BCAPOM: You call them "kickbacks," we call them our fair share

The BC Association of People on Opiate Maintenance, Surrey Union of Drug Users, Care Not Cops, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy Vancouver Chapter & Crackdown respond to recent coverage on pharmacy kickbacks, and the repercussions for them and the people they work with.

The agonizing proximity of safer supply in Alberta

Clinicians, parents and people who use drugs recall a recent past before the control-obsessed Alberta government vilified, scapegoated and denied regulated opioid access for those at highest risk. A short film by CATIE. Watch this. Background reading from Drug Data Decoded: * Ophelia Black v. the UCP * What's wrong

Inaugural ticket issued at violent University of Calgary crackdown disappears

Court dates for University of Calgary encampment began this week. With the first issued ticket failing to reach the prosecutor, police dodged evidence disclosure. This should raise questions around police accountability. Update, June 18, 2024: The arresting officer showed up at Euan Thomson's home on June 17 and

Calgary Police violated my Charter rights, brutalized me, and lied about it

Three complaints submitted to Calgary Police Commission and the CPS Professional Standards Section. Warning: this piece contains graphic video of police brutality. Proceed accordingly. Since May 9, Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld has worked hard to concoct a narrative that serves his interests and those of the officers and decision

News

Vancouver Island physicians, healthcare staff sign open letter on political weaponization of workplace safety

The BC NDP are dangerously misrepresenting our workplaces in healthcare settings as an electoral strategy.

drug user liberation

DRUG USER LIBERATION FRONT TO PURSUE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE, ANNOUNCES FUNDRAISER

The founders of DULF, Jeremy and Eris, were arrested in October 2023 after their compassion club showed extremely promising results. Crown has decided to pursue charges.

Alberta police chiefs organized support for UCP election campaign

Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police built a "Coalition of the Willing" to conduct a public advocacy campaign supporting United Conservative Party drug policy with an explicit timeframe "before the May election" in 2023. The Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police (AACP), an organization comprising Alberta&

Hard Knox Talks & Toronto visit

I had a recent appearance on Hard Knox Talks, where we got into how policy manifests at street level, how government propaganda drives what we are told to call 'polarization,' and why people across the political and drug policy spectrum should unify around reallocating excessive wealth at the

BC NDP are weaponizing drug law to cover their healthcare and housing failures: Nurses & healthcare staff

Eleven staff in BC’s healthcare system outline the realities of frontline care work, the toxic drug crisis and their concerns.

Weaponizing safety in the new Alberta

I was arrested at the University of Calgary anti-genocide protest on May 9 after standing with the students assaulted by Calgary Police. The move reflected an old but expanding reality in Alberta, where threats to the safety of the state dictate police violence. One week ago, I was sitting in

Alberta's system for involuntary addiction treatment just hired its manager

A revealing LinkedIn announcement by the newly hired Manager of Compassionate Intervention Implementation confirms the government's intention to force people who use drugs into addiction treatment. Robert Murdoch, former Senior Policy Analyst in Alberta's Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction, announced via LinkedIn on May 6

'A unique export': Is Alberta recreating the abusive Troubled Teen Industry?

American journalists, researchers and survivors of abuse in youth residential addiction treatment centres describe blood-curdling stories of widespread sexual and physical abuse that hint at a potential outcome of the treatment infrastructure under construction in Alberta.

Newsletter

Police helicopters are overused and dangerous: cases in point

A man is dead after being chased by the Edmonton Police Air-1 helicopter onto dangerous ice of the North Saskatchewan River. In July 2022, a similarly over-the-top deployment was caught on film in Calgary's Sunalta neighbourhood. Just two weeks after being directed to investigate, the Alberta Serious Incident

Think like a recovery capitalist: involuntary abstinence in the Emerald City

How a group of fundamentalists is constructing a great wooden horse standing tall on carcerality, profiteering and propaganda to deliver Compassion unto the people. The Emerald City is, on the surface, a beautiful place built from bounties buried deep in the Earth's crust, where most everyone believes in