The pandemic is giving rise to broader local initiatives. Opinion: We have the ‘solution’ for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside By DTES Response Volunteers, March 30th, 2021 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/opinion/opinion-we-have-the-solution-for-vancouvers-downtown-eastside-3587834 One year ago we launched DTES Response: We created this initiative to coordinate efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and help ensure this unprecedented threat did not disproportionately […]
Fentanyl Funerals
Overdose deaths are surging in Canada, and clergy close to the crisis are doing the hard work of saying goodbye. We are all treasures and valuable. Drug users are like the lepers of our time. You can’t talk about them. They are not viewed as people. We need to relearn that we are people together. […]
B.C. Sees Worst Year on Record for Overdose Drug Deaths and from Chaos Comes Creation
New data from BC Coroners Service shows 1,716 died of an overdose in 2020. When Albert Einstein explained the 6th dimension and associated growth patterns, he said, “From chaos comes creation. . . “ Because so many have died from overdose (the chaos of extreme drug addiction) there is forward movement (the creation) in BC […]
Addiction to Street Fentanyl and Calling on St. Germaine
Street Fentanyl Surges In Western U.S., Leading To Thousands Of Deaths By Brian Mann, NPR, November 17, 2020 https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/934154859/street-fentanyl-surges-in-western-u-s-leading-to-thousands-of-deaths Seven months ago, when Jake got out of jail in Phoenix, he expected to go back to using his drug of choice: heroin. But the street market for illegal opioids had changed. “I just started smoking […]
Grace with Universal Mother Mary: From Bliss to Abundance and Service
www.voiceoffreedom.ca Universal Mother Mary: Go to the missions, go to the homeless shelters, go to the places of addictions, go to the hospitals where the crack babies cry and need. There are plenty of places for you to begin. Go to the abused children, the women who suffer in silence. And simply offer your Love […]
Canada’s Provincial Governments Have Filed Opioid-related Claims Totalling $67.4 Billion in US Court
By Karen Howlett, The Globe and Mail, November 12th, 2020 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-morning-update-canadas-provinces-have-filed-opioid-related-claims/ Canada’s provincial governments have filed opioid-related claims totaling US$67.4-billion in a U.S. court, revealing for the first time how much they have spent fighting an epidemic that has killed thousands of people and devastated communities across the country. The provinces are attempting to recover […]
OxyContin Maker to Plead Guilty to Federal Criminal Charges, Pay $8 Billion, and Will Close the Company
By Chris Isidore, CNN Business, October 21, 2020 https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/business/purdue-pharma-guilty-plea/index.html New York (CNN Business) — Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to three federal criminal charges for its role in creating the nation’s opioid crisis and will pay more than $8 billion and close down the company. The money will go […]
Balancing Health Issues
San Francisco Is Giving Pregnant Black & Pacific Islander Women $1,000 A Month Rates of premature births & infant mortality are significantly higher for women of color compared to white women, and the new supplement is designed to narrow racial & financial disparities among expectant mothers. By Ashleigh Carter, Now This, Sept. 16, 2020 https://nowthisnews.com/news/san-francisco-gives-black-pacific-islander-moms-1000-a-month […]
CBC News: Pandemic Worsens Canada’s Deadly Opioid Overdose Epidemic
Ontario’s coroner reported a 25% rise in fatal overdoses as advocates warn of increasingly toxic street drugs By Susan M. Knight, CBC, June 10, 2020 https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/drug-overdoses-covid19-1.5605563 An epidemic of fatal drug overdoses across Canada is on the rise amid COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that harm-reduction workers and doctors say exacerbates the toxic supply. Overdose prevention sites […]
Mexico Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs and Negotiate With the U.S. to Do the Same
Mexico Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs and Negotiate With the U.S. to Do the Same Jason Lemon, Newsweek, 5/9/19 (https://www.newsweek. com/mexico-decriminalize- drugs-negotiate-us-1421395) Mexico’s president released a new plan last week that called for radical reform to the nation’s drug laws and negotiating with the United States to take similar steps. The plan put forward by […]
Overdose Prevention Ottawa ~ Listen to Drug Users and Advocates: The CERB is Harm Reduction
Listen to Drug Users and Advocates, the CERB is Harm Reduction Overdose Prevention Ottawa, June 7, 2020 https://overdosepreventionottawa.wordpress.com/ Reckless. This is how Raina Gagnon, an addictions counselor in Ottawa representing Centretown Pharmacy, described the distribution of emergency funds to people who use drugs in an opinion piece last week. Gagnon argues that by accessing the […]
“Operation Wheelchair” in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
The historic heart of Vancouver is our Downtown Eastside (DTES). One of our oldest neighbourhoods, it is home to many low-income residents. Here people volunteer, contributing countless hours to help improve the community, working for social justice. The residents of the Downtown Eastside struggle with complex challenges including the overdose crisis, escalating crime connected to […]
The Power of Visualization and Meditation for the “Very Dark” Opioid Situation
www.voiceoffreedom.ca On the Government of Canada website under the title, Opioid-related Harms, more than 13,900 apparent opioid-related deaths occurred between January 2016 and June 2019 — that’s one every 2 hours. In this BuzzFeed News post called, This Was the Decade Drug Overdoses Killed Nearly Half a Million Americans, author Dan Vergano, December 6, 2019, […]
We are Each Wanted and Needed
October 17, 2019, voiceoffreedom.ca https://tinyurl.com/y6hjmf8e Within this post, ‘Our people are dying. . .’ is a candid look at Canada’s Vancouver Downtown Eastside, considered “the epicentre of the country’s opioid crisis. . . the deadly toll of fentanyl. . . laced into street drugs.” “British Columbia has seen the highest drug-related deaths in the country.” […]
Opioid Maker Purdue Pharma in Talks to Settle Thousands of Suits That Claim it Fed a Deadly National Drug Epidemic
By Melanie Schuman, Jean Casarez and Taylor Romine, CNN, August 28, 2019, httpss://www.cnn.com/2019/08/27/us/purdue-settlement-ohio/ In the nationwide case, more than 2,000 states, counties, municipalities and Native American governments are suing Purdue Pharma and other opioid companies. Their cases were rolled into one that’s being handled in the federal court district in northern Ohio. The trial date […]