Saw a person swaddled in blankets walking down 82nd Avenue, behind him a big billboard of two squirrels roasting marshmallows with a tag line “Portland is what we make it.”

Self-esteem matters for fighting for one's health. The Overdose Prevention Society works with the regional health authority, paying drug users to save lives by running canopies near high-overdose areas, equipped with naloxone and oxygen tanks.

Kaia Sand | People who use drugs can also save lives

Drug users in Vancouver, British Columbia reverse overdoses through jobs paid by the regional health authority

Without supervised use, including communities ready to reverse overdoses, people die. There are more overdose prevention sites now that British Columbia has legalized them, and I wrote about Overdose Prevention Society. www.streetroots.org/news/2023/11...

Kaia Sand | Canadian overdose prevention sites ‘keep people alive’

Kaia Sand launches ‘Better not Backward’ column series exploring next steps two years into Measure 110 with a visit to the Overdose Prevention Society

The business group that agitated for this task force’s formation not only claims 1/3 of all city lobbying activity over the past ten years, they’ve also made their aims clear by opposing every progressive tax measure in recent memory. If anyone is responsible for the state of downtown, it’s the PBA

It's very frustrating to see his urgency to roll back bold evidenced based interventions so soon after they get started, when the baseline assumption for anything market oriented is: "just be patient, the invisible hand will take care of it, just wait longer. When did you lose your faith?"

The downtown task force must not promote image over the sanctity of life. We need the entire system to be stronger -- and I'm focused on writing about this as much as I can -- but that must include keeping people alive in the first place.

This Governor @TinaKotek 's task force must not promote image over the sanctity of life. We need the entire system to be stronger -- and I'm focused on writing about this as much as I can -- but that must include keeping people alive in the first place.

Self-esteem matters for fighting for one's health. The Overdose Prevention Society works with the regional health authority, paying drug users to save lives by running canopies near high-overdose areas, equipped with naloxone and oxygen tanks.

Kaia Sand | People who use drugs can also save lives

Drug users in Vancouver, British Columbia reverse overdoses through jobs paid by the regional health authority

Without supervised use, including communities ready to reverse overdoses, people die. There are more overdose prevention sites now that British Columbia has legalized them, and I wrote about Overdose Prevention Society. www.streetroots.org/news/2023/11...

Kaia Sand | Canadian overdose prevention sites ‘keep people alive’

Kaia Sand launches ‘Better not Backward’ column series exploring next steps two years into Measure 110 with a visit to the Overdose Prevention Society

The Governor's task force calls for criminalizing public drug use -- but does not include overdose prevention sites. Back in 2016, British Columbia legalized these, recognizing that people are dying rapidly from the unregulated, highly variable and toxic drug supply. www.opb.org/article/2023...