Overdose Prevention Society:Compassion, Action &

Civil Disobedience in the Face of a Crisis in

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

Ann Livingston annlouiselivingston@gmail.com

In September, 2016, three women were so concerned about the growing fentanyl overdose crisis that they set up a tent & table in an alley behind the DTES Market they managed.

In potential violation of the law, they set up a drug injection/ consumption site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to combat the many overdose deaths.

Why do volunteers break the law to provide life saving care to their neighbours & friends using drugs outside?

Sarah Blyth & Ann Livingston

Police Tolerance in Vancouver a Myth?

• Higher police activity & more arrests than ever DTES

• Undercover “buy & busts” cause ~18 court appearances per charge

• VPD get drug users “red zoned” away from OPSs & their support networks even for bylaw tickets

• Pretrial Jail time is common for procedural crimes (fail to appear, going In red zones & bail & release conditions).

• Non-addicted drug dealers are not arrested.

• Bylaw tickets result in warrants

VPD “mine” the DTES for “crime”

DTES Vancouver Bylaw Tickets in red – 90% in DTES

There are citizens who go to jail for 3 - 6 mo at a time & are re-arrested for failing to comply with community conditions “Doing life in 3 mo. bits.”

When discharged from prison, receive NO welfare, NO housing or NO medical coverage. Creates chaotic, reckless drug use & despair.

Over 70% of arrests in the DTES are for warrants for “failure to comply” with court orders

Challenging Police & Prosecutors• Police crackdowns on drug

users are frequent & are called‘sweeps of dealers’.

• VANDU protested 1200 jaywalking, vending & urinating tickets given in 2 months. Because these tickets result in jail time; we escalated a campaign & 800 tickets were dropped. Eventually a DTES street mart was funded to ensure people had a place to vend

We put on markets for over 5 years before getting funding, permits & a space. Persistent Civil Disobedience!

DTES Market at lot at 62 East Hastings

Public drug use increased & increased in the DTES.Market Members disagreed about a safe drug use tent & users being barred. We were reviving ODs in front & behind the market with kits.

The son of our beloved Janet Charlie died of OD in Aug/2016. We bought a tent & set up on the back of our lot. Janet approved & she had opposed OPS

Opened 10 am - 10 pm everyday. Teensy funding from market & Go Fund Me page for volunteer stipends. Scrounged everything including power. Recruited people using the facility. Experts!

From the Vancouver Sun Editorial Oct. 2016: quotes• But VCH says they do not support or condone it, noting

that, “It’s not legal.”• The City of Vancouver has also washed its hands of the

back-alley facility, saying it is not connected to nor sanctioned by the city.

• …police have not moved to shut down this illegal operation. …

• There is a fine line between harm reduction and enabling addiction. InSite represents the former; the pop-up drug tent the latter.

• The illegal drug site should be shut down immediately, • …More harm-reduction sites like VCH’s InSite and

addiction treatment clinics like Providence Health Care’s Crosstown Clinic are desperately needed.

BC Drug OD Deaths & Deaths/100,000 1989 -2015

In this graph we may be seeing the effects of Fentanyl 2015 Note that the 1990s OD epidemic rate is reached in 2015

Opened OPS in Sept. In Nov 2016 ODs spiked. Carfentanyl?

Sarah Blyth “We cannot sit around & have this happen on our watch… & we don’t have to wait for red tape or the government &bureaucracy… We knew that no one could stop us, because we were doing the right thing.”

Nov 2016 - DTES Market Drug Use Tent

80% of dead are men – 20% women.Most deaths between 19 – 59 years old.Death rates are evenly distributed in BC

85% of fatal ODs in Vancouver in “residences” or “other residences”. Most non-fatal ODs are outside! Non-addicted people seeking pain meds are unable to get them from MDs. When they buy fake percocets, they die alone in their rooms. BCCP&S new rules are killing people.

Terry Lake Minister of Health BC visiting illegal site.

On December 8, 2016, B.C.’s Minister of Health announced a policy shift changing how supervised-injection sites are established.

• Sites opening do not have exemptions from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that were previously required to open.

• TERRY LAKE BC Minister of Health: “I’m assured that we’re not contravening the federal law,” “Under the Emergency Health Services Act, I can make this kind of order in the face of a public-health emergency.”

On inspiration for the plan, Lake gave partial credit to an unsanctioned program that’s operated in the Downtown Eastside since mid-September. In two back alleys, former parks commissioner Sarah Blyth and her team established a pair of pop-up injection tents where staff give addicts a safer place to use drugs.“I woke up yesterday at 4 o’clock in the morning and was thinking about the pop-up tent,” Lake recounted. “And the real challenge that we see is the cold weather. People have a combination of overdosing and hypothermia, so I know we had to do more.” “The goal here is to keep people alive,” he added.

Strengths of community models of drug consumption sites;

• Empowers people to come together to act in urgent health crisis or emergency - users, non-users, parents, off duty nurses, MDs paramedics, civil rights lawyer etc

• Sites set up & run with smaller amounts of funding

• No need for exemptions from Controlled Drugs & Substances Act.

• They are a non-medical model so do not need licensing.

• No line ups as we make room by setting up additional tents

• With outside venues, they can encourage safer inhalation of heroin, crack cocaine & crystal methamphetamine.

• Toilets are cheap to rent & set up & are essential

• Keep citizens from despairing while watching their friends die

• Community run drug consumption sites are an important place to attract people using drugs who might otherwise die using alone to socialize, to hang out & use drugs safely, to love themselves

Area 62 Overdose Prevention Site (OPS)

Our project represents an inspiring example of citizen action in a public health emergency.

We are an innovative & collective solution to our issues in community health.

Our peer-based services are beneficial to • the health authority; • to the community; &• to the participants themselves.

Area 62 OPS ensures excluded, vulnerable & marginalized people are welcomed to a safe place where they can use drugs &/or participate as a volunteer. Non-drug user volunteers are welcomed & strengthen our ability to cover busy days when more drugs are consumed & volunteers need a break. We work with Karmik, a west coast Harm Reduction organization which provides pragmatic harm reduction services to festivals & nightlife events across BC.

Our Overdose Prevention Site educates peers in:• civil disobedience & advocacy; • safer drug use & OD prevention• community governance; • innovative strategies; • health determinants ; • facilitators & barriers for scaling up innovations; • improving health outcomes thru empowerment:• opiate replacement therapy• welfare rights• self love• OD first aid

We have much to do. These undercover VPD are arresting people for crack in front of VANDU’s OPS. She was charged with possession of 1 rock –the VPD claims they never do this.

In the alley by the OPS, the VPD are searching people & taking their $ with no charges. This is evidently legal as they can go get their money from the police station but must show ID which they do not have. Who knew?

Super bright lights were put up in the alley behind the OPS. Lights attract people selling drugs & encourage crowds. Bob Rennie, the Condo King owns this building.

The task of injecting naloxone into someone who has overdosed is attractive to some. But it is only effective to befriend people & help them get welfare, housing, healthcare, meaningful work & resolve criminal charges. There is a disagreement about our broader purpose.

It will take a persistent, well organized, social justice movement to change our drug laws.

Drug users’ groups can be organized with relatively small funding to end the criminalization of people who use drugs.

Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) is an international, educational organization comprising former & current police officers, government agents &other law enforcement agents who oppose the current War on Drugs.

Despite 10s of thousands of Take Home Naloxone kits being distributed to 100’s of community agencies & opening ~20 OD Prevention Sites, OD continues to kill 4 people a day in BC.

Funded by Community Donations – Run by unpaid volunteer MDs & RNs for a few months.

FIXERUM in Copenhagen Denmark. Civil Disobedience.

Maia Szalavitz, Scientific American, May 2016 "The final major risk factor for addiction is economic insecurity & poverty, particularly unemployment & the hopelessness, social marginalization & lack of structure that often accompany it.” “...heroin addiction rates among people who make less than $20,000 a year are 3.4 times higher than people who make over $50,000.” “To those who study the effects of inequality on health, it is no coincidence that the collapse of the white middle class has been accompanied by a rise in all types of addictions, but especially addiction to opioids.”

Maia Szalavitz, Scientific American, May 2016 “Many people would prefer it if we could solve addiction problems by busting dealers & cracking down on doctors. The reality, however, is that as long as there is distress & despair, some people are going to seek chemical ways to feel better. Only when we can steer them towards healthier—or at least, less harmful—ways of self-medication, &only when we reach children before they develop this type of desperation, will we be able to reduce addiction and the problems that come with it."

How do we witness the anguish of people who use drugs?By giving a voice to those people who use drugs who are most vulnerable to oppression &:• to harassment from the police, • to neglect from healthcare providers, • to incarceration, • to apprehensions of their children & • to hatred from society.

We bring justice and healing when we:• invite the rejected, • give voice to the silenced , • include the excluded, & • bring unity & peace to those

who are divided

In a world hungry for: • healing & forgiveness, • reconciliation & most of all –• unconditional love –we are called to alleviate that hunger.

"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've

seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act

as speaking out. There's no innocence.

Either way you're accountable."

Arundhati Roy

annlouiselivingston@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4K1PN8NeJA

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Part+Many+addicts+still+shooting+Vancouver+alleys+with+video/9901387/story.html

http://www.terry.ubc.ca/2014/10/15/the-four-pillars-revisited/

http://kcts9.org/reel-nw/fix-story-of-addicted-city

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mCTnMDPWKs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bswoE3QQxI&list=PL18y1vgsGPLZ1r5qjhq7GjCh12y24ykDq&index=11

For more information on Unsanctioned User-Run Initiatives to Save Lives: