Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

11/12/2025

In times of uncertainty, politicians scapegoat marginalized communities—blaming groups like migrants and people who use drugs for complex societal challenges. From the creation of a "fentanyl czar" to Bills C-2 and C-12, and Canada’s complicity with the United States’ extra-judicial killings of civilians in international waters, fear-mongering rhetoric around both drug policy and migration is driving deadly and wasteful decisions in government.

Join us for a webinar exploring how drug policy and migration intersect, the human rights and civil liberties at stake, and what it will take to build policies that truly protect people.

🎙️ Speakers: Nick Boyce (CDPC), Joey Calugay (Iwc-Cti), Viviana Medina (International Migrants Alliance - IMA)

🎤 Moderator: Jaime Arredondo Sanchez Lira (Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research)

📅 Nov. 26, 2025 at 1:30pm EST / 10:30am PST

🔗 Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2417617579388/WN_o1ySUhzjTNe2li7IpHZSAw #/registration

11/10/2025

Trump said, ‘Jump.’ Canada said, ‘How high?’

Budget 2025 pours public money into militarization and policing while cutting the services that actually keep people healthy and safe.

📖 Read our full blog post: https://drugpolicy.ca/budget-2025-withdraws-public-money-from-canadians-health-and-well-being-deposits-it-in-the-pockets-of-military-and-policing/

11/07/2025

BREAKING: BC Supreme Court Decision

DULF co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx have been found guilty of drug trafficking. No sentencing yet.

This matter is still before the courts. DULF intends to launch a constitutional challenge of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act later this month. Sentencing will take place after the court has heard the constitutional challenge.

DULF acted with courage, transparency, and integrity in an effort to save precious lives amid unrelenting loss and government inaction.

Read this detailed article by An Pyatt and Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ here:

Convictions are on hold as the compassion club founders prepare for a Charter challenge to begin on November 24.

11/05/2025

Is Canada complicit in extrajudicial murder?

Our policy director, Nick Boyce, breaks down how Canada is helping enable Trump’s illegal airstrikes on civilian boats in international waters — through shared intelligence, surveillance, and Canadian-made tech.

Canada’s role in Operation CARIBBE and our arms export loopholes means we’re part of an international campaign of extrajudicial killings — even if we never pull the trigger ourselves.

Are Canadians okay with that?

We need action:
1️⃣ Close the arms export loophole — support Bill C-233.
2️⃣ Suspend Canada’s role in Operation CARIBBE pending a full legal review
3️⃣ Redirect funding from criminalization to care — housing, treatment, and harm reduction.

Watch the full breakdown. Then contact your MP and demand accountability.

Read our detailed blog post to learn more: https://drugpolicy.ca/canadas-complicity-in-illegal-us-military-strikes/

10/30/2025

The U.S. military is illegally killing civilians in international waters — and Canada is involved.

Without names, charges, or a trial, at least 57 people have been summarily executed on Trump's orders since September 2nd. Under both international and Canadian law, when someone is accused of breaking the law, they are entitled to be treated according to principles of fundamental justice, sometimes called due process. This means being presumed innocent, facing evidence in a fair trial, and having the chance to appeal.

Instead, military force and the whims of an American president are deciding life and death — and Canadian surveillance, intelligence, and technology are part of it.

In Canada, we can demand accountability of our government. Take action: urge your MP to close the arms export loophole, support Bill C-233, and suspend Canada’s role in Operation CARIBBE.

Read our detailed blog post to learn more: https://drugpolicy.ca/canadas-complicity-in-illegal-us-military-strikes/

10/28/2025

For every drug poisoning death, there is an estimated 15 non-fatal overdoses—many leaving survivors with lasting brain injuries.

We partnered with Kix Citton, Executive Director of the Nanaimo Brain Injury Society, to share why prevention, support, and a national strategy are urgently needed.

You can help:
- Stay informed: Learn more about brain injury prevention and support National Strategy on Brain Injury Act
- Speak up: Ask your MP to make a National Brain Injury Strategy a priority.
- Join : Share your story or support survivors and families.

Prevent harm, support survivors, and push for a national strategy that protects lives.

Check out the resources: https://linktr.ee/candrugpolicy

10/28/2025

10/27/2025

🚨 COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE ! Une décision historique pour sauver des vies.

La Cour suprême du Canada vient de confirmer que la Loi du bon samaritain doit être appliquée selon son objectif premier : protéger celles et ceux qui appellent le 9-1-1 lors d’une surdose, sans crainte d’arrestation pour possession simple.

Une victoire majeure pour la santé publique, la réduction des méfaits et les approches fondées sur les données probantes 💜

📣 Lisez et partagez notre communiqué: https://urls.fr/Zy1quF
Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

10/24/2025

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a landmark ruling affirming that the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act must be interpreted to fulfill its life-saving purpose.

The Court confirmed that people who call 9‑1‑1 during an overdose will not face arrest for simple drug possession — a critical clarification during Canada’s ongoing toxic drug crisis.

At issue in R v. Wilson: In 2020, Paul Wilson and others stayed on scene, performed CPR, and called 9‑1‑1 to save a woman’s life. Despite their actions, police arrested those present for drug possession and used it to justify further charges.

CDPC, alongside the Harm Reduction Nurses Association and AIDQ, intervened to ensure the law prevents harm, is clear, and is applied free from bias.

This ruling provides desperately needed clarity at a time when over 50,000 lives have been lost to the toxic drug crisis since 2016. It reinforces evidence-based public health approaches and will save lives, reduce trauma, and prevent injuries.

This decision is an important step forward that will save lives, though the underlying and unresolved issue of the unregulated drug supply remains the driving force of harm.

Read the full press release: https://drugpolicy.ca/supreme-court-affirms-good-samaritan-law/

10/23/2025

Is drug policy a labour issue? Absolutely.

Earlier this month we were at the CUPE National Convention in Toronto, connecting with hundreds of delegates about issues for workers: from safe consumption sites being defunded and shut down, to the urgent need for non-profit evidence-based treatment as part of universal health care, to how punitive drug policy shows up in our workplaces every day.

A big thank you to Ambalika Roy with the National Right to Housing Network for tabling with us!

CUPE SCFP

10/15/2025

Drug laws and enforcement in Canada have long been used as tools of social control and containment — disproportionately targeting Indigenous people, poor neighbourhoods, workers, and criminalized immigrant communities. These policies stigmatize and criminalize people who use drugs, force Indigenous people out of their communities, separate families, and fill prisons. They push workers into the shadows, cut people off from life-saving supports, and promise opportunity to immigrant youth while exposing them to violence and exclusion.

Punitive drug laws have created a toxic, unregulated drug supply that has claimed over 50,000 lives since 2016 — neighbours, friends, co-workers, siblings, parents, children, aunties and uncles.

Join the BC Coalition of Organizations By/For People Who Use Drugs and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition for a discussion on how we can broaden and deepen resistance to punitive drug policies and work together for justice and liberation.

When?
Saturday, October 25
6:30pm - 8:30pm (doors open at 6pm)

Where?
1803 E. 1st Avenue, Vancouver

Event info: https://www.facebook.com/events/814186480975869?active_tab=about

10/15/2025

We have sent an open letter – along with more than 200 other organizations – to Prime Minister Mark Carney and other key government decision-makers calling on the Government of Canada to demonstrate its continued leadership in global health and human rights with a pledge of CAD$457 million per year (CAD$1.37 billion over three years) to the Global Fund’s Eighth Replenishment.

Read the letter here:
https://www.hivlegalnetwork.ca/site/canada-must-show-leadership-for-global-funds-8th-replenishment-organizational-sign-on-letter/?lang=en

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria (the Global Fund) has saved 70 million lives since 2002 and reduced death rates from these diseases by 63%. However, with several donor governments significantly reducing their international assistance budgets, the progress we have made together is at significant risk.

With full funding, the Global Fund could save 23 million additional lives and cut death rates from AIDS, TB, and malaria by another 64%.

Organizations in Canada and around the world to still invited to sign onto this letter here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7M7NWX5