New York Times podcast examines Vancouver overdose crisis, safe supply approach

Moms Stop the Harm advocates and supporters gather at Centennial Square on the sixth anniversary to mark the public health emergency of the declaration due to the significant increase in opioid-related overdose across the province during the Cut The Red Tape theme in Victoria, Thursday, April 14, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

The use of harm-reduction strategies to mitigate the deadly overdose crisis in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is the focus of the latest episode of "The Daily," a New York Times podcast with millions of listeners around the world.

In the episode, Stephanie Nolen, global health reporter for the newspaper, takes listeners through a crash course on the neighbourhood's decades-long struggle with opioid addiction, and the government's evolving approach to saving lives.

Nolen focuses in particular on one dispensary legally handing out fentanyl to drug users – part of the safe supply strategy that's been given greater consideration in recent years amid increasing toxicity in street drugs that has led to record-breaking numbers of overdose deaths.

• Listen to the full episode, "Vancouver's Unconventional Approach to Its Fentanyl Crisis," on The New York Times website.  

The latest report from the B.C. Coroners Service shows 1,095 people died from toxic drugs in the province over the first six months of 2022, more than ever previously recorded during that period. 

The reporter addresses the fact that deaths have continued to increase, noting that "harm-reduction is still a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall spending – the bulk of the money that goes into responding to substance use in Vancouver goes into residential treatment programs and interventions that are focused on total sobriety."

"Safer supply, it's a very small part of the intervention, and right now, they're only aiming to reach a small number of long-term users," says Nolen, who also published a feature on harm reduction in the Downtown Eastside earlier this summer.

The New York Times reporting does not cover the emerging problem of benzodiazepines, which are being found in an increasing proportion of street drugs and can make overdose intervention more difficult and complex. Benzos are non-opioid sedatives that don’t respond to naloxone.

Nolen also discusses how radically different the approach taken in Vancouver is to that of the U.S., where harm reduction is still much more controversial, despite some expressed support from President Joe Biden.

"A few days ago in California, Governor (Gavin) Newsom vetoed a bill that would have potentially brought supervised injection sites to the state – and I just think if you can't embrace that idea in California, I really have trouble seeing it happening anywhere else in the U.S.," Nolen says.

Surveys have found a majority of Canadians support a variety of harm reduction strategies, including supervised consumption sites and drug testing. In British Columbia, which has been at the forefront of the approach for decades, a Research Co. poll conducted last year found 63 per cent of residents support safe supply programs.

Even the Vancouver Police Department publicly supports some harm-reduction strategies, including the use of supervised consumption sites.