I teach bystander intervention for a living and have taught de-escalation to law enforcement. Trust me when I say that bottle girls, gas station clerks, strippers, front desk employees at hotels and airports, baristas, etc. have better de-escalation skills than any cop I've ever seen.

We Refuse: Health Workers Against Involuntary Care is now public. @hrna.bsky.social and DSDP are circulating a joint statement opposing BC’s plan to expand involuntary drug treatment. This approach is ineffective, increases overdose risk, violates autonomy, and harms marginalized communities.

Got my Freedom-Of-Information request back from Ontario Ministry of Health about supervised consumption site closures from 15 months ago and it is all redacted under 'cabinet confidence' and 'advice to government' 🤡🤡🤡 #FOI #freedomofinformation #onpoli

Canadian products being used to commit war crimes in Gaza, Sudan, and the Caribbean, but stopping this apparently wrong because it would hurt the arms industry and relations with the fascists south of the border. We are governed by ghouls. www.readthemaple.com/liberals-fea...

Under the Compassionate Intervention Act, people with substance use disorder can be forced to take any prescription medication without consent. It doesn't matter if they have decisional capacity. While doctors are involved, ultimately a lawyer gets to decide what the treatment order will be. #ableg

Belatedly sharing this study on the rapid rise of manslaughter charges in Canada against people alleged to have shared or sold drugs that led to an accidental overdose death. Police agencies are quietly changing investigative procedures to recast medical emergencies as homicide scenes. #drugsky

Involuntarily imprisoning someone because they are under the influence of a drug aggravates risk of OD & death. Some jurisdictions have been moving away from short term incarceration for this very reason. The Bill lays out no standards for the "care" received in these cages #cdnpoli #drugsky #mbpoli

Congrats to everyone who worked to make this victory possible! Overdoses should never be opportunities for arrests and expanded repression.

"The goal, DULF maintained, was to save lives." Drug User Liberation Front "produced a peer-reviewed study that showed after about one year none of its compassion club members had died." "Their trial is scheduled for the next two weeks." #BritishColumbia #Canada #Policing #Drugs

So, the takeaway is that habitual offender laws did not emerge from the tough on crime era in the late 1900s, but instead from the eugenics movement in the early 1900s. The Howard Law Journal published my research on this last month.

VPD has zero credibility in reporting violent crime statistics. By selective & sensational use of stats, they helped their friends get elected to city council. Now Task Force Barrage is out of gas & VPD wants more money. dailyhive.com/vancouver/va...

A new research paper shows that an inability to access health and social services, as well non-fatal overdose, was a positively tied to street sweeps. Read the report : www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The last time the Liberals proposed bail reform their justice minister admitted they had no evidence to back it. Curious what's changed. - www.reuters.com/world/americ...

@avierkant.bsky.social and I also did an amazing symposium on Marta Russell with @kmtani.bsky.social for @lpeblog.bsky.social in 2022, featuring contributions from @nhold.bsky.social, Ruth Colker, Jules, @deanspade.bsky.social & Liat Ben-Moshe

two scandals here: VPD fuelled panic over stranger attacks even as they fell dramatically in 2022, and then refused to release records about them for 14 months, which is against the law

Ontario misled the public on crime data to justify closing supervised consumption sites. Evidence shows these services save lives & improve community safety. #HarmReduction tinyurl.com/ybuhw3hf

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is a top Canadian think tank—here’s how it got involved in opposing trans rights.

Alberta will "award $180 million for the construction of 'Compassionate Intervention Centres.'" "The drug jails will each detain up to 150 people [..] under Alberta's new forced abstinence legislation, which eliminates the right to due process." #Alberta #Canada #Drugs #Healthcare #Incarceration

Exclusive: Alberta Recovery Model A private company with its hands in most stages of Alberta's abstinence-oriented drug strategy has evaded public scrutiny. Here, I show how its 'recovery coaches' are becoming mandatory to access publicly funded recovery centres. drugdatadecoded.ca/substance-us...

canada’s prison needle exchange program is a helpful case study in how crucial reforms can be undermined through bad implementation, punitive barriers, conditioning entitlement, or policy sabotage. it provides helpful lessons for other areas of drug policy & law reform-open access in Health&Justice

"Members of the research team heard about frequent unannounced police visits to local [Ontario] harm reduction programs." "[P]olice would enter the premises, search clients' belongings, interrogate staff, and at times arrest service users." #Ontario #Canada #Drugs #Healthcare #Policing

Police interference w/ harm reduction services is a growing crisis. Surveilling services, arresting clients & other abuses cause service avoidance, violate peoples right to healthcare & highlights urgent need for binding non-interference policies. @filtermag.bsky.social @hivlegalnetwork.bsky.social

As public officials post about Juneteenth... Remember that @baltimorebeat.bsky.social published articles just this week detailing how the War on Drugs almost exclusively impacts Black residents, and how the BPD just killed a beloved arabber. baltimorebeat.com/in-baltimore...

per usual—as the political class creates spectacle from the toxic drug crisis, @crackdownpod.bsky.social shows us the intimate realities. important new episode: www.crackdownpod.com/episodes/epi... ft. @momsstoptheharm.bsky.social @4bharmredux.bsky.social

BREAKING: Canada exported $18.9 million of military goods to Israel in 2024, despite the Liberal government's "pause" on new export permits. international.gc.ca/transparency...

Canada’s sovereignty is facing an existential threat over disproven allegations that illicit fentanyl, originating from Canada, is significantly contributing the American drug poisoning emergency. This Bill is a dangerous and unfounded admission of guilt 🧵 #cdnpoli www.canada.ca/en/public-sa...

This is bad: the Ford government's Bill 25 gives the Minister of Children, Community & Social Services new powers to issue directives to ministry-funded entities. Bill 25 can be used to force government ideology into community services under threat of defunding. www.ola.org/en/legislati...

Compassionate approaches quickly shifted to more punishment in Oregon, as treatment funds were used to fund the wages of more prosecutors and acquiring police gadgets and vehicles. There's limited funding for treatment and harm reduction, but for police..! www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I missed this: BC is holding involuntarily hospitalized people - by definition among the most vulnerable - in solitary confinenent. This runs counter to Mandela Rules and, going by prior court rulings, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. www.mapleridgenews.com/home2/bcs-fi...

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Criminalizing Dissent? Toronto: join me, @policingblack.bsky.social, @judreb.bsky.social & others for this community teach-in about the city's proposed bubble zone bylaw. Tuesday, May 20, 5:30pm at TMU. Info & RSVP: communityteachin.rsvpify.com

On this #HarmReduction Day we repost this reflection document about how harm reduction has, & its core, a rejection of carceral systems & an indirect approach that does not focus on exit, rehabilitation, or stopping to use drugs. Lire en français et en anglais ici : chezstella.org/fr/travail-d...

Today, I released a letter, signed by 67 organizations working across Ontario, asking the Ford government to rescind Bill 6. We can't adopt Trumpian policies to punish encampments; people need proven solutions — especially housing. Read our letter: tinyurl.com/EJC-Bill6

Police departments wielding a de facto veto over all municipal governance is one of those things that's strangling every city. And it's doubly infuriating when you try to explain that to people, and they practically jam their fingers in their ears.

BC legislation intended to protect vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect lacks transparency, oversight and safeguards, allowing some health agencies to detain ppl without legal authority or due regard to procedural rights, says BC Human Rights Commissioner www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

‘It’s classist. It’s racist’: Ontario’s overdose death capital braces for more loss. In #ThunderBay, the Ford government's plan to close harm reduction programs is hitting the community. The latest from @jonthompson.bsky.social: ricochet.media/justice/heal... #onpoli #safesupply

Care is Not Forced (from Sept 2024): www.policeoversight.ca/p/16-organiz...

The court has granted an injunction! Safe Consumption Sites in Ontario will not be forced by law to close on Monday!

No words to express the gratitude to all for the labour and sweat and tears that have gone into this fight. Reprieve for now. www.thestar.com/news/gta/jud...

Rally in support of people who use drugs as legal proceedings begin in the constitutional challenge to Ontario’s misguided efforts to close Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) sites in the province. March 24 @ 12pm Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Toronto 330 University Avenue

More evidence showing a geospatial association between police drug seizures and opioid poisoning mortality. This time from San Francisco. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

BC NDP know their witnessed safe supply policy will be fatal, but pursue it anyway: www.policeoversight.ca/p/bc-ndp-kil... #drugsky @power1312.bsky.social @docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social

Hitting 2% GDP of military spending on an accelerated timeline would inevitably require a massive transfer of wealth from the Canadian public to *American* arms dealers. This metric was always ridiculous but it’s farcical now.

Liam Michaud, Emily van der Meulen, and HIV Legal Network Co-Executive Directors Janet Butler-McPhee and Sandra Ka Hon Chu analyze the legal ambiguity and moral injury created by Canada’s Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

so even though everyone gets that it's not about fentanyl, we're keeping the fentanyl czar and doing drug war theatre and never having a serious discussion about drug policy, right? and we're going to blame drug users for economic impacts of tariffs, right? yeah www.canada.ca/en/health-ca...

We are happy to launch Workshops4sudan to raise funds for mutual aid groups in Sudan. Our debut series features the writer and abolitionist @williamcson.bsky.social and the organizer, artist and social justice educator @raniawrites.bsky.social. To sign up go to: sudansolidarity.com/workshops4su...

As Canada installs a fentanyl czar, it is also: -closing safe drug consumption sites -gutting drug decriminalization -forcing drug users into treatment -restricting safe supply With Trudeau leaving, I wrote about the end of progressive drug policy: hatchetmedia.substack.com/p/manisha-kr...