Op-Ed: Canada’s drug policy is in with the wrong crowd

The world’s nations have begun talks ahead of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in 2016. This is a time of increasing high-level calls for drug policy reform and a sense that policies long dominated by prohibition and law enforcement in many parts of the world have failed miserably. Countries may be better served with a public health policy approach instead.

Canada has long been a world leader in implementing harm reduction policy when it comes to drug use at home.

So it was almost shocking to see it aligning itself to countries such as Russia and China in vocally opposing the inclusion of “harm reduction” in a new a new set of UN principles that will guide talks at the special session in 2016.

It is a disturbing decision, given the international acknowledgment of Canada’s progressive harm-reduction approach to HIV prevention that has successfully saved thousands of lives.

Many of these approaches, such as clean needle and syringe programs and the provision of opioid substitution therapy, are now recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and have become the gold standard for other countries to replicate.

Michael Kazatchkine
Ottowa Citizen
Read More

Scroll to Top

During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office. (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. We recommend requesting medication at least 2 weeks in advance in case of delivery delays, particularly to rural/remote parts of BC. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below

Laboratory Order Forms

Start typing and press enter to search