SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE NEWSLETTER
Turning to safe consumption in overdose crisis
Today’s news from The Globe and Mail was sobering: opioid-related deaths continue to soar in British Columbia and Alberta, with more than 4,000 fatal overdoses across Canada last year, and the majority caused by the new drug fentanyl. And the news is no better in the US where fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths.
Cities across Cascadia are struggling to respond and save lives. Seattle is considering creating the first safe consumption site in the US, and Vancouver now has nine safe injection and consumption sites throughout the troubled Downtown Eastside.
Cascadia Magazine documents the move toward safe consumption in the Pacific Northwest in a three-part series:
- Kelsey Hamlin’s detailed feature on Seattle’s slow steps toward creating a safe consumption site
- Jackie Dives’ amazing photos from Vancouver’s Overdose Prevention Society, where peer workers (many drug users themselves) helped prevent more than 200 overdoses last year
- An excerpt from Vancouver journalist Travis Lupick’s new book Fighting For Space, about the battle to create North America’s first safe injection site.
If you appreciate great journalism and photography like this, please take a moment to visit our donate page. Cascadia Magazine is a reader-supported, non-profit publication that relies on the generous financial support of readers like you to cover issues that matter.
If you’re already a supporting reader, thank you.
Cascadia Magazine original: racial equity in legal weed industry
Now that Canada has formally legalized recreational marijuana, British Columbia will be creating a system of legal pot and following the lead of Washington and Oregon. One issue of particular importance: racial equity for communities disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs. At Cascadia Magazine, Matt Stangel profiles growers like Raft Hollingsworth, who are drawing attention to minority-owned cannabis businesses across Cascadia.
First Nations will have veto over BC fish farms in 2022
Yesterday, according to The Globe & Mail, the British Columbia government announced it plans to allow First Nations to veto any permits for fish farms after 2022. Since many Indigenous groups are wary of net-pen farms, it means an uncertain future for the 116 Atlantic salmon farms in BC waters. CBC has more reaction from First Nations leaders: “I believe the 4-year time frame is 4 years to late,” said the vice president of the BC Union of Indian Chiefs. Stay tuned to Cascadia Magazine for an upcoming feature on the battle by First Nations to ban fish farms…
Portland protests close ICE immigration facility
As outrage over US immigration policy that’s separating children from detained parents grows, a protest in Portland temporarily closed an ICE facility. And though today Trump signed an order ending family separation, immigration lawyers and the ACLU say detainees at a prison in Sheridan, Oregon were denied access to legal counsel, according to a report in the Portland Mercury.
What next for Seattle homeless policy after head tax repeal?
Erica C. Barnett, writing for Seattle Met, offers a detailed look at the city of Seattle’s options for creating affordable housing and services for the homeless after the city repealed a tax that would have provided $48 million annually. The upshot: big delays for new projects.
Celebrating Seattle’s queer heroes
This week’s issue of The Stranger is dedicated to presenting the stories of the queer heroes that changed lives for people in Seattle. Christopher Frizzelle writes about a roommate who changed his life, Eli Sanders talks about the first gay pop song he heard, and Charles Mudede writes in praise of DJ Riz Rollins.
A Buddhist monastery in White Salmon, WA
OPB tells the story a Buddhist monastery in the Thai Theravada tradition has become part of the community in the town of White Salmon, Washington. The monks must ask for alms to survive: “We live dependent on the support of people offering, out of a sense of goodwill or inspiration, the necessities of daily life.”
“In This America,” poetry by Kathryn Smith
After a week of awful news of kids separated from their families and kept in dystopian cages, Spokane-based poet’s “In This America” at Blood Orange Review seems especially relevant…
“I wake at 3 a.m. in this America,
head split with migraine, pain
like a spear. I swallow
prescriptions, sleep until noon…”
Read the full poem here.
That’s the day’s round-up of news, arts, & culture from across the Cascadia bio-region. See you tomorrow. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credits: photo from Seattle Pride march by D. Coetzee via Flickr