Here's a collection of our coverage of addiction-related issues, including Vancouver and B.C.'s opioid and overdose crisis, mental-health issues, various forms of addiction (including smoking, alcohol, sex, and gambling), harm reduction, treatment and therapies, and more.

For further coverage about mental-health issues, visit this webpage.

Straight Talk

Report outlines need for rapid expansion of prescription opioids in response to the fentanyl crisis

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control and Provincial Health Services Authority have published a radical policy document that outlines a path forward in the fentanyl crisis.

Arts Features

Illicit performance to share the realities of life as a drug user surviving the fentanyl crisis

To help people understand what is happening in the Downtown Eastside, a group of frontline responders is bringing an arts and theatre production to the Roundhouse Community Centre.

Commentary

Karen Ward: Tracey's Gone, this crysis has taken a fighter

It’s been less than three weeks since we lost Tracey Morrison.

Cannabis

Cannabis edibles offer alternative to hard drugs in the Downtown Eastside

A Downtown Eastside activist and a local entrepreneur are providing access to cannabis and other natural alternatives.

Straight Talk

Vancouver activists remember Tracey Morrison as a woman who refused to accept the status quo

The Downtown Eastside is in mourning after housing and drug-policy activist Tracey Morrison passed away on July 15.

News Features

Government partners integrate injection-drug rooms into supportive-housing sites around Vancouver

In response to the worst overdose epidemic in Vancouver’s history, the city’s social-housing providers have essentially decriminalized drugs.

News Features

B.C. guidelines for injectable-opioid treatment put hydromorphone ahead of prescription heroin

Prescription heroin is an idea that's received a lot of media attention in Vancouver but for now the province is placing the idea on the backburner and instead expanding access to a similar drug called hydromorphone.

Homeless in Vancouver

Homeless in Vancouver: Bloody needles and the bloody idiots who leave them lying around!

It's worth paying attention to what's on the floor when you enter a parkade.

Straight Talk

B.C. and Alberta authorities detecting fentanyl's more dangerous cousin carfentanil with increasing frequency

There’s increasing evidence that western Canada is entering a more dangerous phase of its overdose epidemic.

Cannabis

Dana Larsen: Cannabis guidelines driving us to drink

According to one of the country's most vocal marijuana-legalization activist, there appears to be a double standard.

Straight Talk

Mayor Gregor Robertson takes B.C. government to task for not committing to halting fentanyl crisis

There's an ominous sign: Lifelabs is reporting a far higher percentage of positive tests for carfentanil in urine samples containing fentanyl.

Health Notes

One-quarter of organs donated in B.C. in early 2017 came from people who died of a fentanyl overdose

One in four organs donated in B.C. during the first six weeks of 2017 came from people who died of a fentanyl overdose.