The HIV Legal Network urges the Ontario government to withdraw the Safer Municipalities Act, which will do nothing to address the crisis of homelessness and drug toxicity deaths in the province, and only further harm people who use drugs, particularly those who are unhoused.
Submitted Wednesday, November 20, 2024 to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
The right to healthcare is not consistently extended to people who do not have Canadian citizenship or permanent residence. In other words, access to healthcare is often restricted for individuals in the country who have only temporary immigration status or no immigration status. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health has called … Read more
Across Canada, African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) people face state-sanctioned violence that is deeply rooted in the legacy of slavery and the enduring presence of anti-Black racism, which manifests in Canada’s drug laws. Black people are racially profiled and disproportionately criminalized and targeted by drug laws, which are themselves rooted in colonialism and the oppression … Read more
Drug policy in Canada is rooted in racism and colonialism, and Indigenous communities have experienced long histories of drug policy harms. Among Indigenous people living with HIV, transmissions are attributable to injection drug use at a much higher rate than for non-Indigenous populations, while Indigenous peoples have also suffered a disproportionate proportion of fatal overdoses … Read more
Drug policy affects the health of queer people and communities. The health of queer people who use drugs must not be overlooked in our fight for sensible drug policy. And 2SLGBTQ+ rights organizations must not ignore the rights and health of queer people who use drugs. Our new resources aim to raise awareness and build … Read more
This paper examines the legal and policy measures needed to scale up safe supply at supervised consumption services in Canada.
Rapid Q&A prepared by the HIV Legal Network on May 7, 2024.
Joint submission by the HIV Legal Network and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition Secretariat of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding increasing calls in Canada for involuntary care and detention of people who use drugs.