Since the death of his son, Harlan, in 2023 to an accidental drug poisoning, Joseph Fourre has been raising awareness about the harms of drugs with a campaign to youth called, No Thanks I’m Good. On Face to Face, below, Fourre discusses his son, the campaign and his past overcoming addictions. Looking to their […]
3 Videos, Deeper Understanding: Thousands of Deaths from Recreational Drugs Spiked with Fentanyl & the Divine Mother
Understanding the Fentanyl Crisis John Leake, Courageous Discourse, January 4, 2024 https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/understanding-the-fentanyl-crisis Austin Police Department veteran gives excellent overview Over the last year I’ve heard multiple stories of young people taking what they thought were recreational drugs—or pharmaceutical drugs for recreational purposes—that turned out to be spiked with fatal quantifies of fentanyl. Fentanyl is making […]
How Frighteningly Strong Meth Has Supercharged Homelessness
By Benjamin Hart, Intelligencer, December 6th, 2022 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.html Sam Quinones has covered gangs, crime, and the border for 35 years, including a ten-year stint at the L.A. Times. He established himself as a leading voice on the opioid epidemic with the 2015 book Dreamland, which told the story of how prescription-drug companies and a sophisticated […]
How a Chinese American Gangster Transformed Money Laundering for Drug Cartels
This is part one of an investigation into a revolutionary money laundering system involving Chinese organized crime, Latin American drug cartels and Chinese officials. Some critics of Beijing say that analysis applies to another threat: fentanyl. China is the top producer of the lethal drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans. . . […]
Strategy for Safety in Vancouver
Opinion: Vancouver’s DTES funding approach is a “band-aid on a broken leg” By Matthew Norris (guest writer), Daily Hive, Aug 31 2022 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/opinion-vancouver-downtown-eastside-funding Every Vancouverite deserves to feel safe and be safe in our city. But throwing more money at our failed approach isn’t the answer. Here’s why. Our city is stuck in a tragic […]
Reinventing How We View Substance Abuse
By Heather Wishart-Smith, Forbes, July 12, 2022 https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherwishartsmith/2022/07/12/reinventing-how-we-view-substance-abuse/?sh=4acf800a66cb In September 2016, there was a video that went viral. It was viewed and shared so many times that the Washington Post and New York Times covered it, in addition to countless local and national news outlets. It wasn’t Adele’s Carpool Karaoke with James Corden or the […]
The Other Epidemic – Overdose – More Deaths than Covid
2021 now deadliest year for illicit-drug overdoses in B.C., after record 201 deaths in October, coroner says CBC News, December 9th, 2021 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-toxic-drugs-oct-2021-1.6279018 As the number of people dying from illicit drug overdoses in British Columbia continues to climb to grim heights, the province’s coroner is calling for an urgent and immediate response from all […]
The Passionate Eye: The Oxy Kingpins and the Way of Compassion
By Kathleen Mary, Voice of Freedom, January 5, 2022 https://voiceoffreedom.ca/the-passionate-eye-the-oxy-kingpins-and-the-way-of-compassion/ Below is a link to a documentary called, The Oxy Kingpins, detailing how a network of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and retailers orchestrated and perpetuated the opioid crisis that has killed over half a million people in America. To view this video, click on the photo […]
Jail Not the Answer!
Jail not the answer for people caught dealing fentanyl to support their own drug addictions, B.C. judge says The dealer in the case was introduced to crack cocaine in Grade 8, struggled with addiction most of her life By Jason Proctor, CBC News, Dec 07, 2021 A Vancouver Island judge says courts need to reconsider […]
Maria Shriver on Creative Aging and the Grave Topic of Addiction
“This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.” —Alice Waters Maria Shriver I’ve Been Thinking… I just had one of those weeks, but I don’t mean what you think. Usually when someone says “I had a week,” they mean that […]
Opioid Deaths in B.C. Far Outpaced Those from COVID-19
Archangel Gabrielle: “I speak about the courage because when one of them loses their joy or missteps there is the acknowledgement that not only does it affect the individual, but the collective of the tribe is also immediately affected. So, the tribe, the community comes together to heal that individual and to help restore that […]
US Reaches Record High of Overdose Deaths
US reaches record high of more than 96,000 drug overdose deaths in a 12-month period, CDC data show Virginia Langmaid, CNN News, October 13, 2021 Via Apple News Reported drug overdose deaths in the United States hit a new high of more than 96,000 in the 12-month period ending March 2021, according to data released […]
Hulu’s ‘Dopesick’: Michael Keaton’s Opioid Epidemic Show
Hulu’s ‘Dopesick,’ Michael Keaton’s Opioid Epidemic Show, Will Make You Sick With Rage By Joe Berkowitz, Fast Company, October 14, 2021 https://www.fastcompany.com/90686041/hulus-dopesick-michael-keatons-opioid-epidemic-show-will-make-you-sick-with-rage About six weeks ago, Purdue Pharma was dissolved in a bankruptcy settlement that cost its owners, the Sackler family, $4.5 billion. It was exactly the outcome that the company tried to avoid 25 […]
B.C. Will Be the First Province in Canada to Introduce a Safe Drug Supply
British Columbia, Canada, into its 5th year of opioid health emergency, will be the first province to introduce a safe drug supply in an effort to reduce the staggering number of overdose deaths. In the past 25 years, more than 12,632 British Columbians have died of illicit drug overdoses. B.C.’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe […]
Transitioning with a Death Doula
Amanda Page Brown completed her training to become an end-of-life doula and now is trying to secure funding to work full time as a death doula in the area of Vancouver hit hardest by Canada’s overdose crisis Death doula says opioid epidemic means more end-of-life services needed in the Downtown Eastside by Travis Lupick, The […]