Drug situation in Vancouver

Awareness is growing of the importance of developing health policy and practice based on the best available scientific evidence. Despite this, a major disconnect between research, public policy and practise persists in many settings. As a result of the failure to incorporate scientific evidence into policy, various marginalized populations, including people who use illicit drugs (PWUD), remain vulnerable to preventable health-related harms.

In an effort to close the research– policy gap, scientists from the Urban Health Research Initiative of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/ AIDS and the University of British Columbia’s Division of AIDS have prepared a second report on the scope and extent of Vancouver’s drug problems.

This report contains 15 years of prospective data on drug use and behavioural trends among some of the city’s most vulnerable PWUD, including HIV-positive and HIV-negative PWUD and street-involved youth. The objective of this report is to make data accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders and to directly inform the City of Vancouver’s Four Pillars Drug Strategy, the Province of British Columbia’s response to illicit drug use, and the Canadian federal government’s National Anti-Drug Strategy.

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