The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

It might not seem like it—but we are making important progress in the fight against the overdose crisis. Continued donor support is vital to keeping up the momentum.

Over the past year, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition’s (CDPC) Imagine Safe Supply research project has spent time on the ground listening to the people who use drugs, and the frontline health workers who support them. Their lived experience is essential to the successful roll out of any safe supply policy. 

Now it’s time for their voices to be heard.

At the CDPC, we believe safe supply is the best answer to this crisis. Safe supply means access to drugs that come from a regulated and tested source where we know what is in a drug and what potency it has. Safe supply has a goal of reducing the risks of drug use by creating access to an uncontaminated supply of drugs.

Led by the CDPC, the Imagine Safe Supply research project has two key goals:

• Community-based research to explore real life experiences from people on the front line—which we have now completed!
• To share the knowledge gained from this unique research with policymakers, to ensure any broadening of safe supply is successful for the people who need it the most.

The current unregulated, illegal market for drugs is controlled by high-level, transnational criminal organizations who care little for our safety, security and health. It has led to a contaminated drug supply that puts hundreds of thousands at risk every day. 

Creating a system of legal regulation for drugs—as we currently do for food, alcohol, prescription medicine, driving a car, and other things that carry risks—allows governments and communities to create rules that protect our health and safety. It ensures that we have a safe, monitored and pragmatic system focused on public health, human rights and justice, and one that better protects young people.