Compassionate Intervention Act
Alberta government hiding additional drug jail plans
Newly obtained documents reveal a hidden plan to build a drug jail in Grande Prairie, raising questions about how many additional facilities are in the works.
addiction treatment
Alberta model
'What's Wrong With Rehab?' wins gold at Alberta Magazine Awards
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.
forced abstinence
Alberta government reveals drug jail locations in procurement document
The Alberta government has issued a request for interested parties to participate in the procurement process for two forced abstinence detention facilities, to be located in northwest Calgary and northeast Edmonton – right beside existing carceral institutions.
Alberta model
Survival of Alberta children forced into drug withdrawal is not monitored
The Alberta government has yet to release its proposed Compassionate Intervention Act but indicated in 2023 that the Act would extend existing legislation for forced abstinence of children to adults. Documents show that survival and other data are not tracked after children exit the system.
Media Criticism
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.
Alberta model
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.
Alberta model
Think like a recovery capitalist: Business basics
If exploitation is the driving force of drug prohibition, privatized 'treatment' is the paved road it rolls on: a look at the business challenges faced by these organizations.
Media Criticism
Are news media finally fed up with UCP drug war propaganda?
The Alberta government is scrambling to glue together its narrative that overdose deaths can be solved through a limited scope of privatized rehab. But a live interview on CBC Calgary pulled the curtain on the strategy's naked truth.
Alberta model
City of Recovery
Red Deer city council has made history as the first in Canada voting to close an overdose prevention site. Ignoring decades of research, Mayor Ken Johnston asserted this will set the groundwork for the city to become "free from addiction." People across the country should pay attention.
Alberta model
Sober living homes take “sobriety deposits.” Do clients get them back?
Pairing unjustified deposits with mass evictions of residents, transitional recovery facilities appear to be placing profit before people.
Media Criticism
Is Alberta UCP reinventing residential schools as addiction treatment?
Eleven 'therapeutic communities' are planned, many situated in First Nations, but possibilities of forced abstinence and forced labour evoke a horrific history.
Alberta model
The Alberta Drug Model is a Christian institution: Part 1
At least half of long-term addiction care beds are Christian and almost all are 12-Step abstinence-based. Part 1 of a series on Alberta addiction services.