Doug Johnson

Apr 18, 2024 | filtermag.org | Doug Johnson

For people who use drugs, accessing prescription pain medication when needed can be a severe challenge. A new paper digs into this issue by investigating factors that may cause a doctor to prescribe or not prescribe to people who use drugs (PWUD)—and what people do if they’re turned away. “I think the way the health care system is developed is not necessarily with a harm reduction approach,” Evelyne Piret, one of the paper’s authors, told Filter.

Feb 21, 2024 | filtermag.org | Doug Johnson

It’s now been over a year since British Columbia decriminalized adult possession of small quantities of drugs. A three-year pilot project took effect in the Canadian province on January 31, 2023, after receiving approval from the federal agency Health Canada. BC’s overdose crisis has continued, with 2,511 suspected drug-related deaths recorded in 2023. That’s the highest number the province has seen, and up 5 percent on 2022.

Jan 18, 2024 | filtermag.org | Doug Johnson

New research aims to put numbers on how safe consumption sites (also known as overdose prevention sites, or OPS) can reduce overdose deaths in different cities across the United States. Published in Letters in Biomathematics in December, the research deploys a mathematical model called a Markov chain.

Dec 18, 2023 | filtermag.org | Doug Johnson

At face value, a recent study shows that fentanyl was quite common in samples of unregulated stimulant drugs taken from across 25 states. However, the authors of the paper say that’s not the whole story. Due to numerous factors which they could only control for to some extent, the researchers warn that their work mustn’t be read as a definitive measure of stimulant purity in the United States.

Sep 27, 2023 | filtermag.org | Doug Johnson

Across the globe, people who use stimulants have devised creative, sometimes ingenious, smoking tools. Often used to heat up and inhale crack cocaine or methamphetamine, these homemade implements are regularly made of whatever’s available—particularly in jurisdictions where access to new pipes and stems, such as through safer smoking kit programs, is banned. These tools speak to the adaptability of the people making them.