The Community-based Responses to the Opioid Crisis: Lessons Learned from Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

Overdose deaths and non-fatal overdoses have increased in recent years across North America, due to the increased potency of fentanyl and its analogues, and the addition of other substances, such as benzodiazepines. Facing with the challenges of the opioid crisis, many North American cities have responded differently. These responses mainly focus on one field, such as medical care, law enforcement, judicature, and social security. Among those cities in North America, the community-based crisis response model in Vancouver is worthy of reference by other cities. According to the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Vancouver Downtown Eastside in 2019, this paper argues that Vancouver has gradually formed a community-based response model since the establishment of Insite, which is the first supervised injection site in North America. The specific performance is as follows: Crosstown Clinic providing hydromorphone for drug addicts, OPS rescuing the overdose people, and Safe Supply strategy. In addition, according to relevant literature review, we found that responding to the challenges of the COVID-19, Vancouver also made some rewarding attempts to deal with the opioid crisis, such as compassion clubs and capsule fentanyl, all of which are the actions to drive the Safe Supply. And the decriminalization of possession certain amount hard drugs from January 31, 2023 in B.C.is another exemption approved by Canadian Government. In brief, Vancouver's community-based crisis response model promotes Vancouver to collaborate in the fields of activist, medical care, law enforcement, judicature, and social security to jointly participate in the governance of the opioid crisis. This paper argues that the lessons learned from Vancouver are the living representation of community empowerment which is confident, resilient, independent and energetic, which has the capacity to identify problems and design solutions at the local level, and which is inclusive and voluntary.