iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

In this episode, Robin recounts her experiences of being pushed away from care as a South Asian woman who uses drugs. Anmol adds historical context, connecting Robin's experiences, drug war colonialism, and recent crackdowns on traditional medicines which harmed South Asian elders in Surrey.

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

South Asian people who used drugs are systematically underserved and oppressed by drug war violence in Surrey and throughout so-called Canada. In Newton, where 60% of the population self identifies as South Asian, there are no OPS’ and a single Take Home Naloxone site.

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

SUDU South Asian Committee member and leader Robin and SUDUs Executive Director Anmol Swaich were interviewed on the BC Centre on Substance Use’s Addiction Practice Pod.

podcasts.apple.com

Addiction Practice Pod

Medicine Podcast · 4 Seasons

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Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · 23/02/2025

There remains little meaningfully separating Danielle Smith's UCP from David Eby's NDP on drug policy & policing. The Alberta Model of Marshall Smith, at the centre of privatization scandal allegations, has overrun western Canada. @msthpetra.bsky.social: drugdatadecoded.ca/bc-governmen...

drugdatadecoded.ca

BC government caves to right-wing demands on safe supply

Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Petra Schulz responds to the news that BC's miniscule safe supply pilot programs will end take-home prescriptions, throwing the lives of thousands into disarray and immin...

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Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · 23/02/2025

The BC government's tepid leadership on safe supply collapsed this week in the face of a coordinated disinformation by right-wing politicians, police and private addiction service providers. @msthpetra.bsky.social, co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm, responds: drugdatadecoded.ca/bc-governmen...

drugdatadecoded.ca

BC government caves to right-wing demands on safe supply

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Minister Osborne, this decision will exponentially increase our members risk of drug toxicity death. Your government knows that witnessed ingestion for methadone, suboxone, and hydromorphone reduces accessibility. Why does Elenore Sturko’s career matter more than our lives?

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

The BCNDP is not interested in seeing us live, thrive, or access the basic necessities of life. Our members lives are thrown around as political capital to appease Elenore Sturko.

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Corey Ranger @nurseranger.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

“It feels like moral panic,” Streukens said. “There’s this stigmatizing focus on people who use drugs as if they’re inherently untrustworthy. Stigma fuels isolation and harm, and I worry when we build stigma into policy, it will not reduce harm.” thetyee.ca/News/2025/02...

thetyee.ca

BC Restricts Safer Supply, Promises Pharmacy Crackdown | The Tyee

The move appears to come in response to a leaked government document about the diversion of prescribed opioids.

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Claire Zagorski, PhD, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

New Drug User Union swag baybeeee

A black tshirt with a yellow lotería card. It has a gay pride flag with the trans flag and a black + brown stripe added. The title is “La liberación”, meaning “the liberation”.

The back of the black tshirt. It reads “the Texas drug user health union proudly stands in community with all people oppressed by fascism. Your liberation is bound up in mine - Lilla Watson” TDUHU.ORG

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

The BCNDPs reckless scapegoating of drug users, most recently by ending carries for prescribed safe supply recipients in response to police-dictated moral panic, will kill even more of us. www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/m...

surreynowleader.com

'Moral panic': Surrey drug advocate says B.C. safe supply shift will cost lives

Surrey Union of Drug Users says B.C. Ministry of Health decision is going the wrong direction

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Mona Woodward (Sparkling Fast Rising River Woman) of SUDUs Board of Directors spoke to CBC News about a new report which confirms what we already knew - That people who use drugs were killed by the toxic drug supply in greater numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

cbc.ca

COVID led causes of lower life expectancy in B.C. women during pandemic. For men, it was toxic drugs: report | CBC News

A new report from Statistics Canada, co-authored by several members of B.C.'s Office of the Provincial Health Officer, shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy at birth decreased — a d...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

SUDU members are standing with the Surrey organizers of the Women’s Memorial March. Ongoing violence against Indigenous women, girls, two spirit, queer and trans people is part and parcel to the colonial project that we have a responsibility to resist. We hold our hands up to the families.

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

SUDU meetings are cancelled for the week of February 17th - 21st! Our committees and general membership are building momentum, but we all need a break to maintain it. We will see you again at our February 24th general meeting 💉💊✊❤️

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HIV Legal Network @hivlegalnetwork.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

The Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance is hosting a virtual town hall to discuss the effects of CTS/SCS closures in Toronto communities on Wednesday, February 26 from 7pm to 9pm. Send an email to THRalliance(at)gmail.com to get the Zoom information.

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Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · 27/10/2023

Statement from VANDU on the criminalization of the Drug User Liberation Front, the organization running Vancouver's heroin / cocaine / methamphetamine compassion club, by Vancouver Police following the sudden cut of their provincial funding.

October 26 2023 – The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) affirms its
solidarity with the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) following the October 25th arrest
of co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum.
The repressive actions of the Vancouver Police Department are part and parcel with a
coordinated campaign to discredit and dismantle harm reduction in British Columbia
and Canada at large.1 This is a dangerous political strategy that stokes and preys upon
stigma against drug users and the poor. 2023 alone has seen overdose prevention
sites closed or prevented from opening across the province2
, the de-prescribing of
medical safer supply3
, and Bill 34: proposed legislation that will criminalize people who
use drugs in public spaces.4
We condemn this brutal escalation of the war on our community and stand with DULF
at this critical juncture in drug policy history. DULF saves lives.
VANDU has long advocated for access to a regulated, safer alternative to the
increas

In one year of operation, DULF’s Compassion Club has proven to have vastly
benefitted the health and safety of people who use drugs in our community. A rigorous
evaluation of DULF’s Compassion Club found that enrolment (n=43) was associated
with a 35% reduction in overdoses, while overdoses requiring Naloxone were reduced
by 32%. There have been no deaths related to substances procured through DULF.
Club members had fewer hospitalizations (-50%), experiences of violence (-39%), and
police interactions after joining (-48%). Compassion Club enrollment also improved
overall health, reduced reliance on the unregulated drug supply, and supported many
to reduce their drug use.9 DULF’s findings are consistent with an extensive body of
research and community testimony supporting the scaling of non-medicalized safe
supply to reduce drug-related harm and death.10
By any reasonable scientific or moral standard, DULF’s life-saving work should be
praised for its success and recognized as...

Laws are made and remade through social action. The Downtown Eastside’s activist
history and the continued struggle of drug user movements worldwide prove that drug
laws can and must be challenged to save the lives of those abandoned by society.
Public health professionals have always relied on drug user knowledge to create policy.
Across North America, life-saving harm reduction measures originated from the
courageous actions of drug users fighting against the routine persecution and
abandonment of their peers. DULF continues in this tradition of civil disobedience
against a barbaric regime of drug prohibition. Like generations of freedom fighters
before them, DULF strives to fulfill humanity’s moral responsibility to disobey unjust
laws, especially those which cause provable harm. We will continue to defend the
survival of our peers and honor those taken too soon by the drug war. With thousands
of lives on the line, the drug user liberation movement will not be intimidated...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

We were joined by Aman and Fraser from @fraserhealth.bsky.social tonight to discuss withdrawal management services in Surrey. Our members want to work with FHA to make withdrawal management more accessible, including by allowing clients to smoke cigarettes outside while at detox, like in Vancouver.

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Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · 09/02/2025

Alberta is a crime scene.

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Euan Thomson @drugdatadecoded.ca · 08/02/2025

People aren't dying from safe supply, they're dying from unregulated drugs — that's what Bonnie Henry was "downplaying" and she's correct. This moral panic needs to stop.

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Vancouver Island University's Harm Reduction Alliance @viuhra.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Earlier this week we sent a letter to Island Health in response to their treatment of Dr. Wilder following her harm reduction advocacy work. If our health authority is more willing to take action based on politics than academic research then we are all in trouble. Our community deserves better. 🧵

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karen ward @kwardvancouver.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

the rift is between "save them" and "let them die" approaches to drug policy and doctors are (finally) resigning over the government's policy choice *reminder that the legislature returns Feb 18 #bravery @docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social

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thediscourse.ca @thediscourse.ca · 07/02/2025

Two Vancouver Island addictions medicine doctors have resigned in protest following Nanaimo doctor Jess Wilder being put on administrative leave by Island Health after organizing an unsanctioned overdose prevention site with @docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social. Island Health denies that it was punitive.

thediscourse.ca

Harm reduction doctor behind Nanaimo overdose site resigns in protest – The Discourse.

Dr. Jessica Wilder steps down from harm reduction leadership roles at Island Health and at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital after being put on administrative leave following participation in an unsan...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

"We've seen countless examples of allied physicians doing work just like Dr. Wilder and have always been vindicated by history and health evidence," Bailey said. "So that's the lens through which we see Dr Wilder's work in Surrey. " www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/s...

surreynowleader.com

'Chilling message': Surrey drug advocacy group backs B.C. addictions doctor

Dr. Jess Wilder was part of a group involved in pop-up sites in Nanaimo and Victoria

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

"In response to the ongoing unregulated toxic drug crisis that has gripped communities across B.C., the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) is leading a research initiative to address the challenges faced by people who use drugs in Surrey. " runnermag.ca/2025/02/kpu-...

runnermag.ca

KPU instructors participate in research initiative to address Surrey drug crisis

In response to the ongoing unregulated toxic drug crisis that has gripped communities across B.C., the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) is leading a research initiative to address the challenges face...

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Petra Schulz @msthpetra.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

"While the allegations around Alberta Health Services implicate hundreds of millions of dollars in procurement spending, Mental Health and Addiction expenditures should be similarly examined in light of the new allegations." Analysis by @drugdatadecoded.ca #ABpoli drugdatadecoded.ca/marshall-smi...

drugdatadecoded.ca

Marshall Smith allegations should expand procurement investigation

The Globe & Mail is reporting top-level allegations that Marshall Smith, former chief of staff to the Alberta premier, interfered in AHS procurement. If a forensic investigation proceeds, it must exte...

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Zoë Dodd @zoedodd.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

40 mg is 0.04grams. Fentanyl on the streets is sold as a point. 0.1 of a gram. 10 points equals 1 gram. 1000 mg equals 1 gram. 40mg is a minuscule amount. Basically every single person using fentanyl would be locked away for life.

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tyson singh kelsall @tsk.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

a reminder that this type of intervention has shaped the toxic drug crisis – which is about prohibitionist drug war policies and resource allocation, not any specific analogue of fentanyl or other drug – and made it worse www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... bsky.app/profile/luke...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

A room full of SUDU members braved the cold and snow tonight to make it to our weekly meeting. We talked about how the newly announced “fentanyl czar” will make the drug supply more volatile and pitched ideas for how clinicians can better work PWUD at Surrey’s forthcoming service hubs.

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

SUDU board members Pete Woodrow and Stephen Meier were guest lecturers for Dr. Tara Lyons' CRIM2370 course this morning. Pete and Stephen spoke to the role of systemic racism in creating service gaps for PWUD in Surrey and fielded great questions. Thank you, Dr. Lyons and @kwantlenu.bsky.social!

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tyson singh kelsall @tsk.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

the toxic drug crisis is not about fentanyl — it is about an unpredictable, unregulated and shifting drug supply under prohibitionist frameworks — and obviously this trade conflict is not about fentanyl either

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Follow along for updates on our progress! We will be sharing our community-led recommendations for research in solidarity with people who use drugs in Surrey as soon as possible. (3/3)

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

... to create guidelines for ethical research with people who use drugs in Surrey. SUDUs Research & Policy committee will be reviewing Research 101: A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the DTES and creating our own community guidelines. (2/3) harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com

Research 101: A process for developing local guidelines for ethical research in heavily researched communities - Harm Reduction Journal

Background Marginalized communities often attract more than their share of research. Too often, this research benefits researchers disproportionately and leaves such communities feeling exploited, mis...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

SUDUs growth has meant that we're involved in more research projects than ever, with more requests coming in every month. Research is an important part of our movement, but it can also be exploitative. That's why we're building off of the work of drug users and allies from the DTES... (1/3)

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karen ward @kwardvancouver.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

never believe a word that governments say. its a facade of empty catchphrases hey beyond that: governments reveal their priorities in their budgets right here ↓ these are policy choices and better choices were possible. this. ↓ right here. ★ ★ ★ also follow @sudubc.bsky.social !

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

There's money for two police forces, and no money for hot meals. There's money for disproven and harmful involuntary care, but no money for showers. There's money for redeveloping lots currently occupied by shelters in Whalley, but no money for laundry. www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/n...

surreynowleader.com

No more meals at Whalley community kitchen that serves 200 daily

March 31 closure at Surrey Urban Mission's Welcome Hub, where only guests staying in 16-bed shelter will be served food

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

When the shelters and supervised consumption site our members in Whalley rely on are forced to close or move to accommodate this development, where are we supposed to go?

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tyson singh kelsall @tsk.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

follow Surrey Union of Drug Users #drugsky bsky.app/profile/sudu...

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Theres a lot of work to do in 2025. The drug supply is more toxic than ever, violent involuntary care is coming soon, Surrey’s few shelters are threatened by redevelopment, and a single standalone OPS serves the entire city. SUDU members are ready to speak out. themainlander.com/2024/07/09/s...

themainlander.com

Surrey Union of Drug Users Opens Pop-Up Inhalation Tent in Whalley

Surrey Union of Drug Users is requesting that the province ensure supervised inhalation services match injection service hours at minimum. Inhalation is the route of consumption behind roughly two …

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Since 2023, SUDU has grown from hosting a couple of friends at our weekly meetings to an organization of over 400 active members. We convene meetings of our general membership, a research and policy committee, and a semi-autonomous South Asian committee each week.

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Surrey Union of Drug Users @sudubc.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

SUDU is on Bluesky! Surrey has experienced the second highest number of drug toxicity-related deaths in BC. Despite this, people who use drugs in Surrey are still struggling to access basic services. Politicians and service providers are not coming to save us - we organize together to stay safe.

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