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The Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (BlackCAP) is a Toronto-based AIDS Service Organization serving Black communities and that also houses a Harm Reduction program. According to BlackCAP: Substance use is a widespread issue in Toronto’s African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) communities. Adults and youth in our community are engaged in high-risk activities that also place […]
Read more about BlackCAP on Black Harm Reduction
Black people are over represented in prison populations in Canada in part due to drug prohibition laws that are disproportionately applied to Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. Incarceration can greatly increase the risk of contracting HIV and Hep C. From the Ontario HIV Treatment Network’s Inside & Out study: HIV is both a sexually […]
Read more about The increased risk of HIV for people experiencing incarceration
The outcome of drug prohibition and criminalization has disproportionately impacted Black communities in Canada. A recent Ontario Human Right’s Commission report found that although Black people make up only 8.8% of the population in Toronto, they represented almost 32% of people charged. This is true also in the case of drug-related charges, from the report: […]
Read more about Ontario Human Rights Commission: Black people bear a disproportionate burden of law enforcement
From Vice: In the US, African-Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white people – with over half sentenced for drug crimes. This is not a bug of the War on Drugs, it’s a feature. Since their earliest beginnings, drug laws have been explicitly built around targeting ethnic minorities. We trace this horrifying […]
Read more about Watch: The War on Drugs is Racist to the Core (Vice)
Much of the information available online about the War on Drugs and it’s disproportionate impact on Black communities is in regards to the United States, however Canada too has a troubling history of it’s own War on Drugs with origins rooted in racism. Harm Reduction TO outlines the Canadian history of racist drug policy on […]
Read more about Racism and Canadian Drug Policy (Harm Reduction TO)
Writing for the Drug Policy Alliance’s blog in 2016, policy associate Kristen May writes on the legacy of Black-latino Harm Reduction and HIV support trailblazer Paula Santiago. In 1987, Paula formed New York City’s first HIV-positive support group for homeless youth as an organizer with Streetworks, a drop-in center for homeless youth on the Lower […]
Read more about Paula Santiago: A Harm Reduction Trailblazer (Drug Policy Alliance)
In 2014, the New York Times ran an article titled Addicted on Staten Island which stated, among other things, that “across the country, one of the most significant social shifts of the 21st century has been the migration of drug use from centers of urban poverty to places that are suburban, white and middle- or […]
Read more about Racially Coded Language Hurts Everyone who Struggles with Addiction (Drug Policy Alliance)
In 2016, Dan Baum who wrote 1996’s “Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure,” wrote for Harpers Magazine giving some more insight into one particularly relevant interview he had conducted while researching his book. Baum spoke with John Ehrlichman, an aide in Nixon’s White House who was convicted in the […]
Read more about “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did”
Drug use for medicinal, recreational and spiritual purposes has been happening around the world for all of recorded history, and has been present in North America’s settler culture since colonization began. The prohibition of certain substances and the criminalization of possession and use are relatively recent developments in global history, and the impact of these […]
Read more about The Racist Origins of Drug Prohibition
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, a day to raise awareness and commit to action to do our part to prevent suicide in our communities. Members of The AIDS Network Staff have been trained in safeTALK suicide intervention and prevention skills, and we are committed to doing our part to prevent suicide. If you are […]
Read more about World Suicide Prevention Day
