Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users

This newsletter gives a report of volunteer, field placement, program and training workshop activities occurring at Rittenhouse in the fall of 1999. Several articles focus specifically on the events of Prisoners' Justice Day on August 10, 1999. Other articles concentrate on the case of Joe Faulder, a Canadian imprisoned in Texas and executed in June, 1999 despite protests by Canadian Officials, the U.S. Secretary of State, and prisoners' rights groups. The execution defied International Law and Treaty Agreements, and the case placed renewed focus on legal and humanitarian injustices in the Texas justice system.

Presentation given by Mark Haden of Addiction Services, Vancouver Coastal Health, about the need for a harm reduction and public health approach to illegal drugs and addiction in Canada. He reviews evidence of the many negative social, political, individual

Record of speech by Libby Davies in 1999 at the House of Commons in Ottawa in her motion to implement a prescription heroin trial in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Davies argues that research gathered through a trial is needed in order implement more

Select statistics on overdose deaths as a result of illicit drug use in British Columbia, between 1988 and 1997. Statistics are given for total number of illicit drug deaths as well as drug deaths by age and gender. Total number of drug deaths by each town.