Summary Report

Community Partner: Blood Ties Four Directions Centre

Our mission is to eliminate barriers and create opportunities for people to have equal access to health & wellness and to live in our community with dignity. We believe a community is diminished when people who need health and wellness are marginalized. We believe in equitable delivery and availability of health services. We believe that people who use drugs, people who are challenged with stigmatizing health conditions, people who are incarcerated and people who are insecurely housed are especially at risk for not having equal access to health & wellness and a life in our community with dignity. We believe in the power of Yukon’s cultural diversity and the richness of its First Nation, Inuit and Metis tradition and roots.

Support drug policies based on evidence and compassion.

Getting to Tomorrow is a project of Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Sign up for their monthly newsletter to get updates on the project and learn more about drug policy and how you can take action for change.

Resources

Changing how we talk about substance use

Getting to Tomorrow Media Guide

Sample Presentation to City Council

Getting to Tomorrow Discussion Guide

Latest Blog Posts

Watching a snowflake melt

Seeing substance use as a moral failing doesn’t help. It makes you feel stigma and shame, which makes it harder to change.

Harm reduction and drug policy organizations seek solutions to Yukon’s overdose crisis at territory’s first-ever public health dialogue on drug policy-related harms

Bringing diverse communities together to find and enact solutions to the overdose crisis.

You shouldn’t be afraid to phone 911 if you witness an overdose: The benefits and limits of the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act

If you are being detained, you have a right to know why you are being detained and the right to remain silent until you have had a chance to speak with a lawyer.

Looking back and looking forward: A letter to my younger self

We need more support for people with addiction in our communities. Having access to continued trauma counselling to help resolve issues with her upbringing and being abandoned would have helped a lot.

Overcoming stigma

I wish I could say that my story ends here, but it is just the beginning.

There’s no getting away from it, but there is always hope

For anyone who is struggling right now, try to find someone you trust who you can talk openly with.

This is the beginning of a life-changing experience. A moment in my life

My past revealed how structural stigma works and creates serious harm for people in need.

When services that are supposed to help, don’t. My experience with detox.

The psychological and physical pain people who use drugs experience is unbearable. It’s stigma.

Ready to make a change. My life by James

Harm reduction helps connect people with life-saving services that help them turn their lives around. It provides hope, and path forward. I’m living proof of this.

It’s time we rethink how we treat people who use drugs

Denying people harm reduction will increase rates of overdose, HIV, and Hepatitis C, as well as increase costs to the health care system.

Media Coverage

Media Coverage

TV news cameras

Changing the narrative on substance use

News & Updates

News & Updates

Yukon politician at a press conference

Yukon to declare substance use emergency, says health minister (CBC)

Woman at a microphone at a press conference

Blood Ties leads supervised consumption site (Whitehorse Star)

a package of fentanyl

Discussion of overdose crisis in Yukon leaves participants hopeful for future (Yukon News)

Whitehorse, Yukon

Yukon dialogue on opioid crisis wraps up with calls for change (CBC)

Emerald Lake Yukon

Harm reduction and drug policy organizations seek solutions to Yukon’s overdose crisis (CBC)

Emerald Lake Yukon

Yukon officials call for overdose prevention sites, decriminalization (National Post)

Yukon's provincial medical health officer

Time to try safe consumption sites to fight opioid crisis, says Yukon's top doctor (CBC)

Offices of the Yukon Coroner's Service | Getting to Tomorrow Yukon

Coroner confirms the Yukon’s first carfentanil-related overdose death (Yukon News)

Crushed white pills on a table

'We can't continue this way': Yukon reports fifth overdose death this year (CBC)

Yukon health official

Yukon needs new approach to worsening opioid crisis, officials say (CBC)

Harm reduction worker Jesse Whelan testing a sample of drugs

Harm reduction service at Blood Ties, Four Directions began testing drugs for fentanyl in July (CBC)

Videos

Videos

Stigma and substance use

Public health approach to drugs

Saving Lives and Giving Hope: Trey Helten and the Transformative Power of Harm Reduction

Alternative drug policies

Moms Stop the Harm: A Movement of Mothers Fighting for Change

Getting to Tomorrow: Ending the Overdose Crisis

Outcomes of our current drug policies

Safe Supply Means Saving Lives