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In #FordNation's backlash dystopia, #OpioidSymposium2018 kicks off. @CAPUD2016 @momsstoptheharm, me & many others present tomorrow. Will ON minister of health @celliottability decide we "have merit" and drop by? Watch the livestream tomorrow to find out: meetview.com/opioidsympo201… 
Rally for Overdose Prevention Sites. Let's tell those Ford Nation deniers that OPSs "have merit." Help or get out of the way. Tomorrow. 12:30. Toronto. Outside of #OpioidSymposium2018 @TorontoOPS facebook.com/events/2127825…
#OpioidSymposium2018 live streaming now in TO. Drug users sitting at the front. Represent! meetview.com/opioidsympo201…
"A dark cloud hangs over our land" - Kahontakwas, Diane Longboat, Elder, Traditional Healer, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. #OpioidSymposium2018
"We need to reset the conversation," says federal minister of health opening #OpioidSymposium2018 But please, start by declaring a national health emergency, @GPTaylorMRD
And now a half hour of grim - if familiar - stats. Big shout out to BC. We’re number one! #OpioidSymposium2018
At work, if drug users come forward, they don’t usually get support. They get piss tested and shitcanned. This looks like a job for the labour movement. Check out my #OpioidSymposium2018 session at 1:30 ET / 10:30PT meetview.com/opioidsympo201…
“We need a serious conversation about how criminalization does more harm than good” @AttarLeila YES! #OpioidSymposium2018
#OpioidSymposium2018 pounded by @AttarLeila's truth bombs. She ends with a call to @GPTaylorMRD to take a stand in caucus to end the drug war. Standing ovation. Dean Wilson yells "That was skookum!"
“We focus on abstainance and it doesn’t resonate with youth. We need social justice based interventions” -@RebeccaSaah #OpioidSymposium2018
Guy, from DTES Connections Clinic asks panel "there are many substitution options for heroin. What about fentanyl? How about more radical approaches, like using [clean pharma] fentanyl to substitute for [illicit, dodgy] fentanyl?" #OpioidSymposium2018
People who use drugs are not asking for the things we think are so innovative, like safe injection sties. They are asking not to be roughed up, put in jail by the cops, says @DrMtyndall at #opioidsymposium2018
Question from the floor about when are we going to get away from profiteering methadone clinics. Answer from dais: unfair to call all clinics profiteering. But every private clinic I've known is an assembly line, in it for the dosh. #OpioidSymposium2018
I is great to be at #OpioidSymposium2018 with Dean Wilson. He knows everybody, he'll introduce you and he shares his smokes like a comrade.
"I don't hate cops...I just feel better when they're not around." #OpioidSymposium2018
"My biggest file at work used to be food bank referrals. Now my biggest file is memorial cards...grief lives in my flesh... we haven't seen the plateau yet... who's gonna be left?"-@shanell_twan of @CAPUD & Alberta Addicts Who Educate And Advocate Responsibly #OpioidSymposium2018
"They tell us to use clean rigs, clean spoons, clean water. But then we have to use dirty drugs - with human feces in it. Capitalism is so bad. The government doesn't give a shit. We've gotta do it ourselves."-Olympia, @CAPUD2016 #OpioidSymposium2018
Delisting Oxy in 2016 “Experts made decisions, changed policy on my behalf, not caring if I lived or died.” @JordanWestfall @CAPUD2016 #OpioidSymposium2018
"I don't even know who's in the room - what politicians, which decision makers. It's time for you to do your frickin' jobs" - @ZoeDodd #OpioidSymposium2018
Incredible! Conservative health critic @MPMarilynGladu just lectured #OpioidSymposium2018 about the Portugal model of decriminalization. Said a Scheer gov would do better on OD criss than JT. But under Harper, all they did was fundraise off drug panic and try to shut @InsiteVan
"We can't arrest our way out of this" says Chief Bryan Larkin, Waterloo Regional Police Service. Then why are police still arresting people for drug possession? Since cops have discretion as he admits: "possession of cannabis have never been big on our radar" #OpioidSymposium2018
Abstinence makes the heart go under. 💔#OpioidSymposium2018
Woop! Woop! #OpioidSymposium2018
“I’ve lost two of my kids to the drug war” Lorna Bird of @VANDUpeople on colonization & the opioid crisis. #OpioidSymposium2018
Definition of courage: Giving a talk to 200 ppl in the room (inc cops, docs & cabinet ministers) at #OpioidSymposium2018 and 1600 on webcast - all while dope sick! Total respect to Lorna!! @VANDUpeople
"Prior to colonization, there was no Mi'kmaq word for pain," says @KarenPictou1 of @nsnwa at #OpioidSymposium2018
"I hate to even say this out loud. If you want to kill a Mi'kmaq person, all you have to do is inject them. There'll be no investigation." says @KarenPictou1 of @nsnwa at #OpioidSymposium2018 #MMIW
"Sometimes, it's just easier to go next door and get a fix than to hitchhike 100km down the road to get a drink [of methadone]" says @KarenPictou1 of @nsnwa on the challenges of getting OAT in remote Indigenous communities #OpioidSymposium2018
"We flooded abstaiance treatment centres with our people. They came out, ODed and died. We were training {Blood Tribe] community members with Naloxone before it was allowed..figured we'd just explain later,“-Dr. Ester Tailfeathers. Plus shout out to @hakique #OpioidSymposium2018
My bad. ⬆️Spelling above should be 'Esther' @EstherEtail01
"Policy creation without the affected grassroots people / communities is very reckless," says @GabrielleFayant at #OpioidSymposium #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs.
Guess who's missing from panel of fed, prov. municipal politicians? It's @celliottability Also, why is the minister of 'border security' at #OpioidSymposium2018?
"A lot of people have asked me about #decriminalization over the last days... sometimes we won't alway agree on all the policy decisions," says @GPTaylorMRD at #OpioidSymposium2018
"One of my responsibilities is the interdiction of the illegal drug supply. It remains an important pillar," says Bill Blair, Minister of Border Security. But this is not a supply problem. #OpioidSymposium2018
"If anybody needs, in BC, we have the evidence that overdose prevention sites work." says @DarcyJudy, BC minister for mental health & addictions. Looking at you @celliottability & Ford Nation with your "pause" on life-saving services. #OpioidSymposium2018
We have to submit written questions only to the politicians panel at #OpioidSymposium2018. Here’s mine.
At #OpioidSymposium2018, @MayorGregor speaks about the "near unanimous support" for harm reduction in Vancouver, including among police. But the @VancouverPD still slapping on the cuffs for drug possession. Police have discretion about how they enforce the law.
Has one drug user - ever - asked for a government anti-stigma campaign? I'm not against them. But they are the low hanging fruit, literally the smallest possible increment of action and totally negated by the continuing stigma of criminalization. #OpioidSymposium2018
"Why is decrim off the table?" 15 ppl ask same question I did. But @CDNMinHealth says "Canada is different than Portugal," echoing yesterday's comments by Tory shadow minister of health. "Decriminalization is not the sliver bullet here." Min Taylor says. #OpioidSymposium2018
Harper / Scheer Conservatives & Trudeau Liberals have exact same position on decriminalization: NO. #OpioidSymposium2018
"Don't get too hung up on decriminalization," says @MayorGregor. "We can't expect them [Trudeau Liberals] to go for decriminalization when there's an election coming up." #OpioidSymposium2018
"If we look at Portugal, yes they decriminalized but there were a lot of other things they did as well. They had treatment on demand." says @DarcyJudy BC minister of mental health and addictions, again similar to Conservative talking points from yesterday. #OpioidSymposium2018
Saying "we won't arrest our way out of this" while continuing arrests - that's just gas-lighting drug users. This panel of federal, provincial & municipal politicians is almost uniformly dissuading us from considering decriminalization. It is off the table. #OpioidSymposium2018
After national, provincial and local leaders all rejected decriminalization, veteran drug user advocate Dean Wilson just whispered to me "this whole thing has just gone from hope, to no hope." "At least they're being honest," I replied. #OpioidSymposium2018
Audience question to all 3 levels of government: "Who's in charge?" (Laughter) #OpioidSymposium2018
This is so dispiriting right now, I can actually feel my ghost bleeding out my eye holes 👻#OpioidSymposium2018
"I know it's a hard sell, but we should offer hydromorphone (Dillies) as a first line treatment [not wait for people to fail off methadone]" @DrMtyndall #OpioidSymposium2018
Contaminated drugs is an actual bullet #OpioidSymposium2018
6 Up! Law enforcement panel - (props to firefighters tho). #OpioidSymposium2018
Did he just say they are drug testing sewage to figure out where drug users are concentrated? Am I getting this? #opiodsymposium2018
Law enforcement panel disrupted! #OpioidSymposium2018
Silent protest of just about every drug user / activist + allies at #OpioidSymposium2018
Dean Wilson to law enforcement panel: "you say you can't arrest your way out of this, but stats show that you're still arresting more and more of my friends." #OpioidSymposium2018
Two solitudes. Health minister @GPTaylorMRD closing out #opiodsymposium2018 with Olympia crashing the stage with the banner: #Theytalkwedie
"22 people died since this symposium started." Sign carried aloft by Olympia. Seized by security. Liberated back by me. Goodbye #OpioidSymposium2018. Safe travels home everybody. Be safe. Goodnight.
At #OpioidSymposium208 Canadian politicians weaponized the phrase: "decriminalization is not a silver bullet." Portugal means: decrim alone is not enough-complimentary measures required. Yes. But Canada means: we're just gonna keep locking up drug users. vancouversun.com/opinion/column…
🇨🇦 politicians say "but Portugal had all those supports in place first" They're snitching on themselves, admitting that those supports don't really exist in Canada. They didn't say "we're building those supports now-moving toward decrim." They just said no. #OpioidSymposium2018
You can't just cherry pick. Government can't just make a half-hearted investments (of $ and political will) in treatment and then not decriminalize drugs and expect the results that Portugal has seen. #OpioidSymposium2018
Portugal DG of drug policy João Goulão visited Vancouver's DTES in 2017. I recall him reflecting on our patchwork of services and initiatives. With all the gaps & missing pieces. His silver bullet comment should be heard as a rebuke, as a call to fix that. #OpioidSymposium2018
Had a beer with an old TO comrade. Didn't have to score on the street, pound it in an alley. Didn't wonder what was in it or if we'd die. It was regulated, safe. PWUD #OpiodSymposium2018 delegates had to score, shoot mystery dope. Ultimalty 🇨🇦 needs legalization not just decrim
[should we expect upcoming shift to federal politics / senate for YVR mayor?]
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