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Health, Harm Reduction and the Law: The InSite Case and the Future of Canadian Drug Policy in Vancouver
Join us for Health, Harm Reduction and the Law
written by darcie| Thu, 05/05/2011 – 10:41
Next week, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the Federal Government’s final appeal of the decision to allow the Insite Supervised injection facility to continue to provide lifesaving medical services and support to people who use injection drugs. We are inviting everyone who is interested in learning more about the struggle to open Canada’s first supervised injection site, the ongoing legal battle to keep it open, and the potential impact of a final ruling in this case to join us May 17th for Health, Harm Reduction and the Law: The InSite Case and the Future of Canadian Drug Policy.
Pivot board member and author of Vancouver’s groundbreaking Four Pillars Drug Strategy, Donald MacPherson will moderate an evening of discussion with legal professionals, medical experts, community activists and safe injection site users. The evening will focus on demystifying the case, celebrating the successes and challenges of the movement for evidence-based drug policy, and turning our attention to the future of drug policy in this country.
We’ll see footage straight from the courtroom in Ottawa. We will hear from the Portland Hotel Society, which operates Insite, and their lawyer, Monique Pongracic-Speier. Dr. Thomas Kerr of the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Maxine Davis, Executive Director of the Dr. Peters Aids Foundation will talk about the potential health implications of the decision in this case. Plaintiff Dean Wilson will reflect on his journey through the court process as a person who has used Insite. Downtown Eastside activist Bud Osborn will share reflections on the grassroots movement for a supervised injection facility. Dave Murray will talk about the unique perspective and legal arguments that the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users has brought to this case.
We’re looking forward to a lively evening of discussion, debate and reflection on the implications of this case for people who use drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and beyond.
Making up Methadone: International perspectives on inequality, social justice and methadone maintenance therapy
This event was part of a workshop which brings an international group of researchers to Vancouver to discuss the social and cultural dimensions of methadone maintenance therapy for opioid dependency.
An evening of presentations and dialogue focused on key dilemmas connected to this longstanding but often still controversial treatment. Lived experience, inequality and social justice are themes considered from the vantage point of different global contexts.
Second Annual ROCKER FOR STREET SOCCER in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
Vancouver’s street soccer teams are practicing hard and excitedly gearing up to compete in this year’s Homeless World Cup in Paris, France and we need your help to get them there!!!
Come meet the first and only homeless women’s team in Canada or chat with last years Team Canada players about their trip to the Homeless World Cup in Brazil
Mayhem and fun will include:
LifeSkills Centre folks from Vancouver Downtown Eastside at UBC Farm
Busloads of happy LifeSkills Centre folks from the Vancouver Downtown Eastside went to the beautiful UBC Farm to enjoy a day of friendship and feasting!
From the UBC Farm website:
“The UBC Farm is a 24 hectare learning and research farm located on the University of British Columbia’s Campus in Vancouver, Canada. The farm is student-driven and integrated with the wider community. As the only working farmland within the city of Vancouver, the UBC Farm is an urban agrarian gem, featuring a landscape of unique beauty.”
Read more here
April Smith of AHA MEDIA is very honored to be a Keynote Speaker at Northern Voice conference 11 at UBC
April Smith and AHA MEDIA will be presenting a Keynote Speech at Northern Voice Conference on Friday May 13, 2011
April Smith, Hendrik Beune and Peter Davies make the letters AHA with their fingers while at Woodwards Housing in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
April is a citizen journalist and co-founder of AHA MEDIA.
“I’m a citizen journalist and co-founder of AHA MEDIA. I have also been involved with W2’s Fearless City Mobile Project – which has presented here at Northern Voice in previous years – and I facilitate social media literacy classes at LifeSkills Centre and Oppenheimer Park. In my teaching work, I encourage and promote peer training to support education in technology.
I believe, if my neighbors in the Downtown Eastside are able to access communication and technology – as people do in other neighborhoods – I feel it will help create positive change. I know this because it’s helped me create a better life for myself.
I work with W2, which is active in this area of breaking the digital divide and believes access to technology and communication is a human right. For those who have been following, W2 is finally opening a 10,000 square foot community media centre at the Woodward’s Atrium. From this fabulous new space, W2 will help people with their digital storytelling, with a crossmedia lab that broadcasts on CJSF and Coop Radieo, and Novus and Shaw Cable, and the internet.
Programs like Fearless City Mobile and this new media centre put technology in the hands of people and will help more people overcome marginalization by connecting people with society and supporting their self-representation. I know this work is important for transforming people’s lives because it’s where I began. This is my story.
I am cheerleader for positive community building and outreach. Through art, music, and community promotion, I am a self-taught advocate for social justice and positive neighborhood unity. This is really important given that the voices of our marginalized groups are usually mediated by others, rarely do we represent ourselves. Out of W2’s Fearless project was born our social enterprise ” AHA MEDIA.”
AHA MEDIA is a small business that supports social justice by creating spaces for people to represent themselves.
My interests are documentation of daily life in the Downtown Eastside, highlighting the positive, while bringing to light the injustices that occur in the neighborhood.
I have filmed observations, both subversive and situational, over the last 3 years.
Using social media, new media, mobile technology, photos, videos and blogs, I concentrate on sharing the stories and voices of the otherwise-silenced inner city community. Through our website AHAMedia.ca we reach our neighbors, reach Vancouverites from other neighborhoods, plus a global audience
April Smith, Hendrik Beune and Richard Czaban make the letters AHA with their fingers while at Woodwards Housing in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
I hope to inspire everyone at Northern Voice!
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