As a community of people who use drugs, people in recovery, activists, advocates, and mourners, we present this call to action.
We are in a crisis. Between 2016-2024 at least 52,544 lives have been lost in this country to preventable overdose.
This overdose crisis is the collective result of:
- Criminalization
- Marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs
- Harmful and carceral drug policies
- Social inequality
- Health disparity
- Inadequate resources
Lack of access to safe supply and life saving services and infrastructure
True overdose prevention must address these conditions.
Therefore, we collectively call on all levels of government and the systems in power to step up and do their part to prevent these deaths with the following actions:
- Expand access in Newfoundland and Labrador to nasal naloxone
- Invest in broad spectrum harm reduction services with particular priority on overdose prevention sites and safe supply programs
- Address our increasing housing crisis
- Increase access to all types of healthcare, including primary care and mental health care
- Remove barriers to people participating in work, volunteering, and education, particularly after experiences of marginalization, criminalization, and institutionalization
- Reject involuntary detention and coercive interventions
- Redirect enforcement funding to healthcare, housing, harm reduction, and voluntary treatment
We ask this in memory of all lives unnecessarily lost to this crisis.
