Aaron Bailey
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aaronrbailey.bsky.social
Aaron Bailey
@aaronrbailey.bsky.social
Researcher, organizer, medic | Surrey Union of Drug Users | Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, UVic | Former: EIDGE, VANDU OPS
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
A beautiful article by @bychrischeung.bsky.social about the Gur Sikh Temple in Abbotsford, which is the oldest existing gurdwara in the Western Hemisphere. And a good reminder of the need to be willing to understand and learn how history excludes people/ important events.
thetyee.ca/Culture/2025...
The Case of the Gurdwara, the Lumber Barons and the KKK | The Tyee
In Abbotsford, the first Sikh place of worship holds a complicated history.
thetyee.ca
March 6, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Liam Michaud, Emily van der Meulen, and HIV Legal Network Co-Executive Directors Janet Butler-McPhee and Sandra Ka Hon Chu analyze the legal ambiguity and moral injury created by Canada’s Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
March 4, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Wow, it’s wild that allowing a handful of people to take their hydromorphone home caused this…
March 4, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
We got this
It's official! Sean Orr's on the ballot April 5th.

“I can’t wait to be at City Council to be a thorn in Ken Sim’s side every day – fighting for the housing we need, demanding real climate action like better public transit, & working to restore integrity to City Hall.” @seanorr.bsky.social #vanpoli
March 3, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
You can listen to the full episode here:

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a...
Addiction Practice Pod
Medicine Podcast · 4 Seasons
podcasts.apple.com
March 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
In this episode, Robin recounts her experiences of being pushed away from care as a South Asian woman who uses drugs. Anmol adds historical context, connecting Robin's experiences, drug war colonialism, and recent crackdowns on traditional medicines which harmed South Asian elders in Surrey.
March 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
South Asian people who used drugs are systematically underserved and oppressed by drug war violence in Surrey and throughout so-called Canada.

In Newton, where 60% of the population self identifies as South Asian, there are no OPS’ and a single Take Home Naloxone site.
March 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
SUDU South Asian Committee member and leader Robin and SUDUs Executive Director Anmol Swaich were interviewed on the BC Centre on Substance Use’s Addiction Practice Pod.
Addiction Practice Pod
Medicine Podcast · 4 Seasons
podcasts.apple.com
March 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
As Canada installs a fentanyl czar, it is also:
-closing safe drug consumption sites
-gutting drug decriminalization
-forcing drug users into treatment
-restricting safe supply
With Trudeau leaving, I wrote about the end of progressive drug policy: hatchetmedia.substack.com/p/manisha-kr...
Manisha Krishnan: A Fentanyl Czar and the End of Progressive Drug Policy
Like previous crackdowns, this will likely make the crisis worse
hatchetmedia.substack.com
February 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
this is a fascist policy to enable the mass removal of a dehumanized population into privately run behaviour modification facilities

in Alberta

some people some drugs
Interesting (to me) that the province's description of "compassionate intervention" references "addiction or substance use." So it's forced treatment explicitly, in part, for people who don't have a disorder.
February 25, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
I can't imagine Vancouver without the Downtown Eastside. But Mayor Ken Sim, the cop union, developers & dark yoga oligarchs can. They have plans to clear the hood. I ❤️DTES, despite its scars, bruises & bad rep. www.straight.com/city-culture...
Mayor Kim's plan might change the DTES, but it won't improve residents' lives
"Community flourishes here, in spite of every crisis."
www.straight.com
February 24, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
“Ok well I better get prepared … my daughter is out there and takes 3 doses daily and the pharmacy is nowhere near where she stays. I'm scared she'll get discouraged and go back to street drugs. ” - Mother of BC safe supply recent
On @bydrugdatadecoded.ca
#BCpoli
drugdatadecoded.ca/bc-governmen...
BC government caves to safe-supply disinformation campaign
Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Petra Schulz responds to the news that BC's miniscule safe supply pilot programs will end take-home prescriptions, throwing the lives of thousands into disarray and immin...
drugdatadecoded.ca
February 24, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
‼️ New ‼️

Evaluating the risk for nurses of fentanyl exposure and the harms of perpetuating exposure misinformation.

From Serena Eagland, @pattywilson.bsky.social and me!

www.canadian-nurse.com/blogs/cn-con...
Evaluating the risks for nurses of fentanyl exposure and the harms of perpetuating exposure misinformation
www.canadian-nurse.com
February 25, 2025 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Instead of legislating kidnapping, confinement and torture for adults, Alberta should be repealing the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs (PChAD) Act.

Why won't Alberta, famous for moral panics around kids, protect the many hundreds treated this way each year?
drugdatadecoded.ca/survival-of-...
Survival of Alberta children forced into drug withdrawal is not monitored
The Alberta government has yet to release its proposed Compassionate Intervention Act but indicated in 2023 that the Act would extend existing legislation for forced abstinence of children to adults. ...
drugdatadecoded.ca
February 24, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
abruptly cutting off access to regulated and predictable opioids has a fatal history
February 23, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Blood on the BCNDPs hands.
Minister Osborne, this decision will exponentially increase our members risk of drug toxicity death.

Your government knows that witnessed ingestion for methadone, suboxone, and hydromorphone reduces accessibility.

Why does Elenore Sturko’s career matter more than our lives?
We are committed to saving lives and providing treatment for those suffering from addiction. That is why we are requiring that the use of prescribed alternatives must be witnessed by a health professional.
February 23, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
The BCNDPs reckless scapegoating of drug users, most recently by ending carries for prescribed safe supply recipients in response to police-dictated moral panic, will kill even more of us.

www.surreynowleader.com/local-news/m...
'Moral panic': Surrey drug advocate says B.C. safe supply shift will cost lives
Surrey Union of Drug Users says B.C. Ministry of Health decision is going the wrong direction
www.surreynowleader.com
February 21, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Mona Woodward (Sparkling Fast Rising River Woman) of SUDUs Board of Directors spoke to CBC News about a new report which confirms what we already knew - That people who use drugs were killed by the toxic drug supply in greater numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
COVID led causes of lower life expectancy in B.C. women during pandemic. For men, it was toxic drugs: report | CBC News
A new report from Statistics Canada, co-authored by several members of B.C.'s Office of the Provincial Health Officer, shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy at birth decreased — a d...
www.cbc.ca
February 21, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Love this
February 19, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Vancouver:
February 19, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Vancouver Island's @docs4saferdrugs.bsky.social will be back outside Royal Jubilee Hospital today and tomorrow with pop-up overdose prevention sites.

They will be joined by former BC Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe, and have support letters from multiple groups eg BC Family Doctors and BC Nurses Union.
February 18, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
Update: Ken Sim's chief of staff, ex-cop Trevor Ford, has now deleted this tweet attacking COPE candidate @seanorr.bsky.social (way to reveal that you fear Sean, ABC!).

BTW, who pays for Trevor's blue Twitter check mark let alone his sponsored tweets?

ABC Vancouver is a slimy outfit.
#vanpoli
February 17, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
🧵 In November, @zoedodd.bsky.social and I prepared a rebuttal to a Globe Opinion piece calling for forced abstinence of people who use drugs. It conveniently omitted author Rob Tanguay's ownership of Newly Institute, which does psychedelic addiction treatment. 1/
February 15, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Aaron Bailey
SUDU members are standing with the Surrey organizers of the Women’s Memorial March.

Ongoing violence against Indigenous women, girls, two spirit, queer and trans people is part and parcel to the colonial project that we have a responsibility to resist. We hold our hands up to the families.
February 14, 2025 at 8:58 PM