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Liz Evans (nurse)
Liz Evans (born August 30, 1965) is a Canadian nurse and harm reduction pioneer. She is the founder of the nonprofit Portland Hotel Society and a cofounder of North America's first sanctioned supervised-injection facility, Insite. Evans established the Portland Hotel Society in August 1993 in Vancouver, Canada, to provide shelter to people living in the city's Downtown Eastside who were addicted to drugs or who struggled with disruptive mental-health issues. Usually, these individuals had been evicted from several supportive-housing projects before Evans found them and gave them a room at the organization's first housing project, the Portland Hotel. The hotel was notable for Evans's refusal to evict "hard-to-house" tenants, many of whom openly used injection drugs or otherwise exhibited difficult behaviors as a result of an untreated mental illness. To accommodate these individuals, Evans crafted creative solutions that allowed them to remain residents. Later, this practice would co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harm Reduction
Harm reduction, or harm minimization, refers to a range of public health policies designed to lessen the negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal. Harm reduction is used to decrease negative consequences of recreational drug use and sexual activity without requiring abstinence, recognizing that those unable or unwilling to stop can still make positive change to protect themselves and others. Harm reduction is most commonly applied to approaches that reduce adverse consequences from drug use, and harm reduction programs now operate across a range of services and in different regions of the world. As of 2020, some 86 countries had one or more programs using a harm reduction approach to substance use, primarily aimed at reducing blood-borne infections resulting from use of contaminated injecting equipment. Needle-exchange programmes reduce the likelihood of people who use heroin and other substances sharing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland Hotel Society
Portland Hotel Society (PHS) is a Canadian non-profit society created in 1993 to provide advocacy, housing, services, and opportunities, for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Its 451 staff support 1,153 rooms, North America's first legal supervised-injection site, known as Insite, a Downtown Eastside credit union branch (Pigeon Park Savings), a food service that feeds people in Single-Room Occupancy residences (Downtown Eastside Central Kitchen) and a pest control service (Bugs Be Gone). In 1991, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA) converted a local hotel to housing for homeless people and named it after the American city of Portland, Oregon due to its reputation for aiding homeless people. A co-founder of the society was former Vancouver city councilor Jim Green. Housing As of 2019, PHS operates over 24 supportive housing facilities across Vancouver and Victoria for community members who have experience with mental illnesses, challenges with substance use, a history ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insite
Insite is the first legal supervised drug injection site in North America, located at 139 East Hastings Street, in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. The DTES had 4700 chronic drug users in 2000 and has been considered to be the centre of an "injection drug epidemic". The site provides a supervised and health-focused location for injection drug use, primarily heroin.Vancouver site report for the Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (CCENDU), 2005 The clinic does not supply any drugs. CBC, 2011-09- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Downtown Eastside
The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work. It is also known for its strong community resilience, history of social activism, and artistic contributions. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the DTES was the political, cultural and retail centre of Vancouver. Over several decades, the city centre gradually shifted westwards and the DTES became a poor, although relatively stable, neighbourhood. In the 1980s, the area began a rapid decline due to several factors including an influx of hard drugs, policies that pushed sex work and drug-related activity out of nearby areas, and the cessation of federal funding for social housing. By 1997, an epidemic of HIV infection and drug overdoses in the DTES led to the declaration of a publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Housing First
Housing First is a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward. It was first discussed in the 1990s, and in the following decades became government policy in certain locations within the Western world. There is a substantial base of evidence showing that Housing First is both an effective solution to homelessness and a form of cost savings, as it also reduces the use of public services like hospitals, jails, and emergency shelters. Cities like Helsinki and Vienna in Europe have seen dramatic reductions in homelessness due to the adaptation of Housing First policies, as have the North American cities Columbus, Ohio, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Medicine Hat, Alberta. Housing First is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions. Rather than moving homeless individuals through different "levels" of housing, whereby each level moves them closer to "independent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vancouver Coastal Health
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) is a regional health authority that provides health services including primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary care, home and community care, mental health services, population and preventive health and addictions services in part of Greater Vancouver and the Coast Garibaldi area. VCH is one of five publicly funded regional healthcare authorities within the Canadian province of British Columbia. The government of British Columbia, through the British Columbia Ministry of Health, sets province-wide goals, standards and performance agreements for health service delivery by the seven health authorities. Service area Vancouver Coastal Health Authority serves the 1.25million of British Columbia's population of five million (approximately one in four) who live in a geographic area of that includes 12 municipalities, four regional districts and 14 Aboriginal communities. VCH is geographically divided into three health service delivery areas (HSDA), w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vancouver Area Network Of Drug Users
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users or VANDU is a not-for-profit organization and advocacy group based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The group believes that all drug users should have their own rights and freedoms. The group's members have been actively involved in lobbying for support of Insite, North America's first safe injection site, located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Its board of directors consists entirely of current and former drug addicts. It was co-founded by Ann Livingston and Bud Osborn. Livingston had previously established a short-lived injection site called "Back Alley" on Powell Street in 1995. The group received a grant in 2022 from the city to perform street cleaning, but the contract was rescinded for not performing the work and instead, using the grant funds for other purposes. Background VANDU was created in September 1997, to advocate for the delivery of health care services to drug users living in Vancouver who had been ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Controlled Drugs And Substances Act
The ''Controlled Drugs and Substances Act'' (french: Loi réglementant certaines drogues et autres substances) (the ''Act'') is Canada's federal drug control statute. Passed in 1996 under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's government, it repeals the ''Narcotic Control Act'' and Parts III and IV of the ''Food and Drugs Act'', and establishes eight Schedules of controlled substances and two Classes of precursors. It provides that "The Governor in Council may, by order, amend any of Schedules I to VIII by adding to them or deleting from them any item or portion of an item, where the Governor in Council deems the amendment to be necessary in the public interest." The ''Act'' serves as the implementing legislation for the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Amendments to the act In November 2007, the Justice Minister Rob Nicholson intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Party Of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada (french: Parti conservateur du Canada), colloquially known as the Tories, is a federal political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main right-leaning parties, the Progressive Conservative Party (PC Party) and the Canadian Alliance, the latter being the successor of the Western Canadian-based Reform Party. The party sits at the centre-right to the right of the Canadian political spectrum, with their federal rival, the Liberal Party of Canada, positioned to their left. The Conservatives are defined as a "big tent" party, practising "brokerage politics" and welcoming a broad variety of members, including "Red Tories" and " Blue Tories". From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until 1942, the original Conservative Party of Canada participated in numerous governments and had multiple names. However, by 1942, the main right-wing Canadian force became known as the Progressive Conservative Party. In the 1993 federal el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Arvay
Joseph James Arvay, (March 18, 1949December 7, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer who argued numerous landmark cases involving civil liberties and constitutional rights. Early life and education He was born in Welland, Ontario in 1949. As a law student in 1969, he was involved in a skiing accident which left him a paraplegic. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Bachelor of Laws in 1974. He then attained a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School. Career Arvay initially pursued an academic career, teaching law at the University of Windsor. In 1981 he moved to British Columbia where he practiced in the Ministry of Attorney General. He was appointed Queen's Counsel after only ten years at the bar, shocking many with his youth. In 1989 he started the boutique law firm Arvay Finlay with John Finlay, Q.C. and Murray Rankin. After Finlay's death and Rankin's entry into politics, Arvay joined the firm of Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP in January 2014. In Octobe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supreme Court Of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal Appeal, appellate courts. The Supreme Court is bijural, hearing cases from two major legal traditions (common law and Civil law (legal system), civil law) and bilingual, hearing cases in both Official bilingualism in Canada, official languages of Canada (English language, English and French language, French). The effects of any judicial decision on the common law, on the interpretation of statutes, or on any other application of law, can, in effect, be nullified by legislation, unless the particular decision of the court in question involves applicatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opioid Maintenance Therapy
Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid use disorder, reversing opioid overdose, and suppressing cough. Extremely potent opioids such as carfentanil are approved only for veterinary use. Opioids are also frequently used non-medically for their euphoric effects or to prevent withdrawal. Opioids can cause death and have been used for executions in the United States. Side effects of opioids may include itchiness, sedation, nausea, respiratory depression, constipation, and euphoria. Long-term use can cause tolerance, meaning that increased doses are required to achieve the same effect, and physical dependence, meaning that abruptly discontinuing the drug leads to unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. The euphoria attracts recreational use, and frequent, escalating recreational use of opioi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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