A couple of years ago, Ben Gribben nearly killed himself with crack cocaine. "Technically, I was dead for about two minutes," says the 19-year-old. Gribben smoked it through a pipe he got from the outreach van. The cargo van makes the harm-reduction rounds through Whitehorse six nights a week, its workers handing out food and drink, medical care, blankets, counselling, and harm-reduction devices like condoms, needles, spoons and crack pipes. "They consciously set us up for failure," says Gribben. [continues 1270 words]
While federal Tories threaten to force downtown Vancouver drug addicts out of a safe injection site and back onto the streets, three Whitehorse-based organizations are collaborating to launch a harm reduction network for Yukon. The new network, comprised of Blood Ties Four Directions, Many Rivers Counselling and Support Services and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon, was formed to "promote the health and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by substance abuse," said a release from the groups. "We do have a population of people in Whitehorse who use drugs, and they tend to be an underrepresented, misunderstood, often maligned, stigmatized community," said Blood Ties executive director and network chair Patricia Bacon at a news conference on Thursday. [continues 716 words]
