{"id":40929,"date":"2021-02-22T23:51:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T04:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=40929"},"modified":"2021-02-23T13:13:27","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T18:13:27","slug":"urgent-need-for-difficult-anti-stigma-conversations-drug-policy-advisor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/urgent-need-for-difficult-anti-stigma-conversations-drug-policy-advisor\/","title":{"rendered":"Urgent need for difficult anti-stigma conversations: drug policy advisor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By David P. Ball<\/em><br \/>\n---<br \/>\nKaren Ward, a Downtown Eastside resident and drug policy advisor to the City of Vancouver, says that harm reduction activists shouldn\u2019t shy away from difficult public conversations \u2014 despite how frustrating they may be. <\/p>\n<p>She told The Pulse on CFRO that governments\u2019 slow movement on drug law reform is partly rooted in a continuing lack of acceptance or support among the public. <\/p>\n<p>Most recently, the federal government announced a set of pilot projects in BC for producing a safer supply of drugs \u2014 while the feds also unveiled a crime bill last week that would end mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offences. <\/p>\n<p>Ward and others have blasted the latter as woefully insufficient to decriminalizing drugs altogether \u2014 but without broader public demands for change to improve the safety of substance users, Ward warned the dial will continue to move too slowly. It takes ongoing engagement with the public, she said. <\/p>\n<p>But those conversation are often not easy, since some users of social media sites do not see substance users as \u201cfully human\u201d or deserving of rights or protection. <\/p>\n<p>Ward shares her strategies for when to engage \u2014 and when to block. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David P. Ball &#8212; Karen Ward, a Downtown Eastside resident and drug policy advisor to the City of Vancouver, says that harm reduction activists shouldn\u2019t shy away from difficult public conversations \u2014 despite how frustrating they may be. She told The Pulse on CFRO that governments\u2019 slow movement on drug law reform is partly&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":40931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[223,3265,225],"tags":[680],"radio":[237],"origine":[280,262,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40929"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=40929"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=40929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}