Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users

A practical guide for IDU on how to inject drugs safely, prepared by the Harm Reduction Coalition of New York. It contains information on preparation of materials, including the use of cookers and spoons, tourniquets, and dividing drugs. It gives the basics of safer injection with regard to mainlining, muscle-popping and skin-popping, from choosing an injection site to cleaning it, inserting the needle, and pulling out. It provides information on overdoses and what to do if they occur, and how to find, store, handle and dispose of injection materials. It gives facts and advice on how to address the health issues of bacterial and viral infections, as well as injuries such as bruising, tracking, vein collapse, and abscesses.

"Nashine Ginwenimazawin" means "constant care" in the Ojibway language. This training manual provides suggestions and ideas of how to support Aboriginal people going through the last stages of AIDS and who are in need of palliative care. This manual uses a story-telling method to provide education and awareness to people living with AIDS and caregivers. Story-tellers include Aboriginal people living HIV/AIDS; Aboriginal Elders; Aboriginal support persons; and other support persons. Long narratives and short excerpts from narratives are included in the body of the document, along with commentary by the authors. The topics include the question of when a person needs a care team; how care teams work; physical aspects of going through the last stages of AIDS; spiritual and traditional treatments and management of symptoms; emotional issues for both people with AIDS and caregivers; communication issues with medical personnel; legal questions about suicide and euthanasia; and resources available in terms of AIDS service organizations (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal), housing, health care, and palliative care.

Canadian AIDS Society action plan and strategy for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic among women and girls globally. A key statement throughout is that stopping the epidemic requires adequately funded, sustained, and ongoing responses from all stakeholders, from international human rights bodies to national governments to community-level bodies. These responses must include women and girls in decision-making and solution making. The Blueprint contains a list of demands in the areas of legal, ethical and human rights for women and girls; culturally relevant research on HIV/AIDS, girls and women; efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination; improved access to HIV testing and treatment; prevention and education strategies that respond to women and girls' realities; and health care models that ease women and girls' burden of providing care for others, to the neglect of their own self-care and health.

Presentation by Greg Liang of VANDU about his experience with substance use, the problem of impure cocaine and crack being cut with speed and other chemicals, the problem of lack of access to proper drug use equipment, and the need for services such as a safe Inhalation Room for people who smoke drugs. The supervised injection site in Vancouver is proof that such services work. There is also a need for drug testing to make sure the drugs people are using are safe, and for peer involvement and support systems to ensure that users are able to use drugs safely.