Community organizers open all-night overdose prevention site

On the night of July 9, Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War (CPDDW) board members set up a tent and a tarp in Pigeon Park. Six people visited to consume drugs, and the workers handed out a couple dozen safe consumption kits. The same thing has happened every night since. 

It’s the only all-night overdose prevention site (OPS) operating in Vancouver—and it’s being run by community members who, sick of endless death, are trying to do something about it.

“It’s a desperate need for the community,” Kali Sedgemore, CPDDW president and a harm reduction worker who focuses on youth, told the Straight in a phone call. “We’re just dealing with a lot more deaths; we’re dealing with a lot more people [consuming] toxic drugs.”

According to the BC Coroners Service, 184 people died from unregulated poisoned drugs in June, with 42 deaths in Vancouver alone. Although province-wide most deaths happen in private residences (47 per cent), in the Vancouver Coastal Health authority the leading location is “other residence” (44 per cent): a category which includes shelters, hotels, social housing, and single-room occupancy units.  

Even though nearly 70 per cent of victims who died in June smoked their drugs, safe inhalation spaces remain rarer than safe injection sites. 

The need for an all-night OPS isn’t new. Although the provincial government and Vancouver Coastal Health repeatedly advise people not to use drugs alone and to access supervised consumption sites, none of the brick-and-mortar sites are open late except on welfare cheque days (which tend to correspond with higher rates of unregulated drug use and fatalities).

“Drug use does not have opening and closing hours,” Sedgemore said. “Some people are just starting it after an OPS has closed.”

Last year, a CPDDW member gathered almost 800 in-person signatures on a petition calling for an all-night OPS, with another 1,500 online. This led the organization to partner with Pivot Legal and write a letter to Vancouver Coastal Health, asking for an overnight safe consumption site. There was no response. 

So CPDDW, with a small amount of funding, set up the site on its own. The organization’s 10 board members, who all have experience working at an OPS, take turns running the tent, and use the funds to pay workers for their time and expertise. 

The overnight site gives drug users “an opportunity to have somewhere safe to go in, somewhere where they know they can be witnesses and their [potential] overdose be responded to,” Sedgemore explained.

The current tent set-up allows for both intravenous and inhaled drug use. The team are onsite to deal with overdoses, as well as hand out safe consumption kits and test drugs with strips that can detect fentanyl and benzodiazepines. 

Sedgemore estimated around 70 people have come to the site so far, and word is starting to spread in the community. So far, the vibe has been “really nice.” 

“A lot of people come over and say, ‘Thank you for being there,’ or are thankful that we’re around,” they said. “The community really sees the need for it, and the community asked for it, so they’re really happy to see us out there now and have somewhere they can go and be safe to be able to use drugs without having to worry.”   

Some clients have never been to an overdose prevention site before because they exclusively use drugs at night, when existing OPSs aren’t open. 

“There’s a lot of people that start drug use who don’t start until like midnight… like warehouse workers, sex workers, shift workers,” they said. “It’s a very different population.”

While Sedgemore hopes a more permanent solution can be found, they are concerned about attempts to relocate or shut down the Yaletown OPS. This is just one part of the rising anti-safe supply rhetoric that’s been circulating recently, as right-wing attacks on existing harm reduction makes pushing for necessary measures even more difficult.

So far, the site has operated without being hassled by the cops. There’s contingency plans in place for if the police try to shut down the operation—but Sedgemore hopes the peace will remain. 

There are also warming supplies ready if the temporary site continues operating into the colder months: blankets, hand warmers, and non-propane heaters so as not to be a fire risk. Sedgemore doesn’t know how long the CPDDW will be able to keep running the OPS tent, but they hope to continue for as long as possible. It’s Vancouver’s first and only all-night OPS site: if it shuts, then there will be none.

“A lot of us, we’re dealing with so much death, we’re dealing with so much grief,” they said. “But it’s also: no one else is coming for us, so we’ve got to step in ourselves.”