Excerpt of Susan Boyd's Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada
Susan Boyd
For over a century, criminalized drugs have been demonized, as were the people who used and sold them. Criminalized drugs have long been linked to marginalized and racialized groups, who have been depicted as outsiders to the nation threatening moral Canadians. Politicians, law enforcement, media and vocal spokespeople fuelled drug scares and circulated fabrications and […] More »
In 2014–15, Aaron Goodman documented three drug users participating in a study to assess longer-term opioid medication effectiveness—the first heroin-assisted treatment research of its kind in North America. The collected photos and reflections formed the Outcasts Project, which aims to humanize addiction. Goodman, a PhD candidate in communication studies at Concordia University, sought to amplify […] More »
Despite government harm-reduction efforts, Vancouver remains the epicentre of Canada’s overdose crisis. Now, activists say the only solution is legalizing opioids
Except for a long line at the barbecue, where hungry older folk wait for a free meal, most people have left Oppenheimer Park for the day. But not Jim McLeod, who’s clutching a hot dog wrinkled with the cold, so engrossed in telling me his story that he’s forgotten about his dinner. It’s late February […] More »
Vancouver’s Insite facility. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Coastal Health. Ottawa: The feds “I’ve made it very clear to my department that there should be no unnecessary barriers for communities who want to open supervised consumption sites.”—Jane Philpott, federal health minister Progress report Bill C-37 was tabled in December 2016 to simplify the process of opening […] More »
Photo by The Canadian Press Images/Lars Hagberg After decades of court battles that won chronically ill patients the right to use cannabis as medicine, many wonder whether the impending legalization of recreational pot will trample over the progress they’ve made. A government group tasked with creating a framework for legalizing and regulating cannabis published its […] More »
In The Dirt Chronicles, Kristyn Dunnion cooks up a dozen sad, pretty, lonely stories and shoots them into whatever unused vein she can find on her audience. It’s a surprising read from an LGBT underclass perspective that starts with coming-of-age stories, wades into the most convoluted of gender politics, and builds into a crescendo of […] More »
“We do not use statistics as an excuse not to get tough on criminals.” That was federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s astonishing response to Statistics Canada’s finding in July that crime rates in Canada now stand at the same level they did in 1973. Don’t bother us with the facts, was Nicholson’s meaning, our minds […] More »
In March, Canada came improbably close to establishing a system to deliver drugs cheaply and quickly to poorer countries. In a vote of 172 to 111, the House of Commons passed Bill C-393, which would have streamlined Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime, a program to provide low-cost generic drugs to the global south. It wasn’t […] More »
On March 18, 2000, Terence Young was at home catching up on the weekend paper when his 15-year-old daughter, Vanessa, came to ask his permission to go out with some friends that evening. Exhausted and not relishing the idea of another conversation about Vanessa’s curfew time, Young asked her to wait until after dinner. There […] More »
The birth control pill has been a major game changer in the arena of women’s reproductive rights, opening up new doors in society and the workplace. But, in the wake of the birth control pill’s 50th anniversary on the market in the United States and its 40th in Canada, a major question remains: will there […] More »
[This Magazine contributor Jenn Hardy is pregnant and due in a few weeks. In this Due Date series, we’re running some of her thoughts on pregnancy, health, and her experience trying to de-medicalize her childbirth.] I’m not afraid of labour. I’m not afraid of the intense pressure of my uterus contracting, tightening, pushing… My cervix slowly dilating… Once open […] More »