POT TV – Footage from the National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis in Vancouver BC.
On April 16th, 2019 demonstrations were held across Canada to protest the continued drug war and its resulting overdose crisis.
In Vancouver, BC protestors and speakers gathered at Insite, a safe injection site, and marched through the streets to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where performers and speakers expressed their sorrow and solutions to the problem.
Five demands to immediately correct Canadian drug policy were issued:
1. Declare a national public health emergency.
2. Make safe supply the fifth pillar of Canadian drug policy.
3. Get heroin a drug identification number so it can be produced within Canada.
4. Decriminalize drug possession.
5. Emergency federal funding for overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites.
Speakers included:
Oona Krieg – Brave Technology Corp
Shelda Castor – Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society
Don Macpherson – Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
Dr. Mark Tyndall – Former executive director of the BC Center for Disease Control
Dana Larsen – Drug policy reform activist
Eris Nyx – Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War
Gerald “Spike” Peachey – Association of Registered Nurses, BC
Sarah Blythe – Overdose Prevention Site
Jordan Westfall – Drug Policy and Human Rights Activist
