By David P. Ball
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While the world battled the COVID-19 pandemic with urgency and expenditures not seen since World War II, the Downtown Eastside continued being the frontline of a much deadlier war.
In the past 12 months to the start of December, illicit drug overdoses claimed a historic record of 1,614 lives. That's nearly 4.5 people killed every day — and during the pandemic it worsened to more than six deaths a day.
And harm reduction advocates and members of Vancouver's drug user community say it's not addiction or substance use that took their loved ones lives — but government laws and policies they knew would be widely fatal.
The onset of the pandemic saw record-high overdose fatalities, never before seen in Vancouver's long history of drug war deaths, as drug imports dried up, prices rose, and violence and desperation escalated on the streets. After pressure from health providers and activists, the provincial government realized a worsening catastrophe was at hand and moved to offer a safe supply of prescription drugs for some users.
But the move was too late to stave off the mounting deaths. This year saw organizers lose key activists and board members and community leaders. But it also saw them launch a class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company behind Methadone and Methadose, and hold a memorial march to honour the fallen.
On this year-in-review episode of The Pulse on CFRO, we compile three previous interviews from across different frontlines of the war on drugs, and throughout the pandemic as its impacts progressed.
One is with regular guest Laura Shaver — with the B.C. Association of People on Opioid Maintenance and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users — talks about why she's suing Big Pharma and the province for what she alleges are decisions that killed her best friend and hundreds of others. (Her interview originally aired June 10, 2020)
Another interview is with Sarah Blyth — founder of the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Site and a former elected park board commissioner — on the essential frontlines of harm reduction ahead of the holidays. (Her interview originally aired Dec. 1, 2020)
And we also checked in monthly with a medical expert serving the DTES community's needs, Dr. Brian Conway — with the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre — about the ground-breaking safe-supply guidelines, and how to balance COVID-19 rules to keep two metres distance from others and not socialize, with the urgent life-saving need to never use drugs alone.
Dr. Conway repeatedly reminded listeners that staying alive is the key priority, and that health guidelines should be adapted to the harm reduction needs of substance users. And he reminded the community that safe consumption sites, Insite, and overdose prevention facilities remain the safest place to use. (His interview aired in our International Overdose Prevention Day episode on Sept. 1, 2020)