Coalition For Harm Reduction

AHS disbands mental health and addiction prevention team. This team offered workshops to frontline staff and community groups to increase understanding, decrease stigma, develop preventative strategies, and build capacity when working with the population. https://www.cbc.ca//alberta-mental-health-addictions-1.586

"What we are struggling to understand is why is this government choosing to harm Albertans?" CBC article states that health-care professionals and community activists fear more deaths as a result of the UCP's "foolish, flawed and coercive" approach to treating people with addictions. https://www.cbc.ca//lethbridge-supervised-consumption-lett

A big thank you to the physicians, lawyers, and community leaders who stepped up to support the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society. These folks recognize importance of HR in the spectrum of addictions services, the complexity of accessing treatment, and the nature of changing substance use patterns. These doctors, despite facing their own attacks from the UCP government they are still finding the time to stand up for the people they serve. https://globalnews.ca//doctors-lawyers-lethbridge-harm-re/

Harm reduction has been hitting the papers a lot recently in terrifying, heartbreaking, inspiring, distressing ways. A few weeks after the province released the number of deaths related to opioid use, the newly formed Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society (LOPS) created a SCS pop-up in an attempt to meet the demand. The original high capacity SCS in Lethbridge provided necessary services to a marginalized population in a city where overdose deaths are at record highs, before... the UCP recently pulled funding despite it being the busiest SCS in the country. Sadly, protests followed the brave LOPS citizen initiative and, to maintain safety of volunteers and guests, they were forced to start referring to a sanctioned mobile site despite its having 10% the capacity of the original site. Now we are seeing SCS nurses who are passionate about their career move out of province to BC, where harm reduction is valued by government and part of a continuum of healthcare services. The Alberta government says that they care about Albertans. What they do shows that they only care about the Albertans that can serve their interests. Read more about these stories below: https://www.cbc.ca//lethbridge-supervised-injection-site-u https://www.cbc.ca//lethbridge-injection-drugs-opioid-unsa

Our government isn't doing enough...and they know it. The Minister of Addiction and Mental Health Jason Luan refuses to be interviewed by the press after the latest horrifying numbers of opioid related deaths in the province are released. Sorry Luan, ignoring it will not make it go away. Albertans deserve better. Harm reduction exists on the recovery spectrum. More people are dying. Do something. https://www.cbc.ca//alberta-q2-2020-opioid-deaths-1.5735931