July Research Spotlight Webinar - SUHN Meetings - Upcoming Events - Podcasts, Webinars, Reports and More - Share your experience - New Research Publications - In the News

SUHN Research Spotlight Webinar

Through their lens: Using photovoice and cellphilms to understand the experiences of clients of safer supply programs in Toronto

Thursday July 24th - 12-1:30 pm ET (9 am PT / 10 am MT / 11 am CT / 1 pm AT / 1:30 NL)

Speakers include: Katherine Rudzinski, Adrian Guta, and Charlotte Smith

July and August Meetings

SUMMER SCHEDULE

July 9th · 3:30-4:30 pm Eastern

August 13th · 3:30-4:30 Eastern

For:  NPs, MDs, PAs, RNs and Pharmacists

Goal: Connect, share clinical experiences, identify trends, strengthen the continuum of care for people who use drugs - informed by a harm reduction approach

Upcoming Events

BCCSU Project Echo

Brief Intervention for Alcohol Use in Primary Care

July 24th, 12-1 pm PT

More info and registration

CATIE and ODPRN

Understanding brain injury - Strategies for Ontario harm reduction programs. July 17th 2025 at 12 pm ET.

More info and registration.

CCSA Summer Webinar Series

How Data Can Help Municipalities: July 23rd 1-2 pm ET

Collaborating Effectively with Government: August 21st 1-2 pm ET

Community Policing and Health Partnerships: September 17th 1-2 pm ET

More info and registration

Podcasts, Webinars, Reports, and More

Public Health Agency of Canada.  Statement from the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health and the Chief Coroners and Chief Medical Examiners - Latest National Data on Substance-Related Harms - Canada.ca

Thunder Bay District Health Unit. Parents Like Us - an Unofficial Guide to Caring for a Young Person Who Uses Substances. Available to view and download here.

CATIE. Prioritizing Women in the Hepatitis C Response. Recorded Webinar.

ODPRN Report - Konz, et al. June 2025. Hydromorphone Dispensing Across Public Health Units in Ontario, Canada

DULF Legal Aid Fundraiser: Donate here

Crackdown Podcast. The Man in the High Castle. Listen.

Lighthouse Learning Series. Navigating Rough Waters: Essential Skills for Interpersonal Conflict. Recorded webinar.

HIV Legal Network Podcast. How media headlines further the harms of HIV Criminalization. Listen.

Mainline Needle Exchange. Mainline Documentary. Watch video.

Share your experience

2025 SUHN Membership Survey

We’ve exceeded our goal of 200 unique respondents - but decided to keep the survey open until the end of July!

The SUHN Membership survey provides an opportunity to tell us what you like, what you want, and how we can meet your needs. This year, our focus is on research priorities and what formats for presenting research findings would be most useful.

Survey details:

• Time commitment:  Approximately 15 minutes

• Eligibility: Members of SUHN / NSSCoP

• Confidentiality: It’s an anonymous survey

• Participation: Skip questions you don’t want to answer and exit at any time

When you are finished, enter the draw to win one of 3 $150 Visa Gift Cards!

Please don’t share the link with others or post on social media.

Please only complete the survey once.

The survey is designed for SUHN / NSSCoP members.

CALLING ALL PHARMACISTS!

Ontario Part A pharmacists are invited to participate in a brief survey exploring how pharmacists engage with patients who disclose unregulated substance use. Your input will help shape future harm reduction strategies and support for pharmacy practice across the province.

Co-PIs Jaris Swidrovich and Carol Strike,
Co-Investigators Jillian Kohler, Kristy Scarfone
and Collaborator Rob Barnett

Please reach out at Kristy.scarfone@mail.utoronto.ca if you have any questions!

Research

Michaud, et al. 2025. Securitizing carceral health: a realist review of Canada’s prison needle exchange program

Urbanoski, et al. 2025. Responding to the toxic drug crisis: Promising innovations, gaps, and calls to action

Secong, D and Wainwright, A. 2025. Design and development of a regulatory framework for assessing nurse and midwife controlled drug prescribing in British Columbia

Panagiotoglou, et al. 2025. Primary care physician characteristics associated with becoming opioid agonist treatment prescribers in British Columbia: a retrospective case-control study

Rao, et al. 2025. Modeling Health and Economic Outcomes of Providing Stable Housing to Homeless Adults With OUD

Mistler, et al. 2025. An Evaluation a PrEP-Focused HIV Prevention Intervention Tailored for Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder and Cognitive Dysfunction

Dewey, et al. 2025. “It caused me more stress than you know”: experiences managing recovery while navigating medication for opioid use disorder treatment

Plesons, et al. 2025. Psychosocial consequences of xylazine and implications for harm reduction services

Russell, et al. 2025. Examining opioid agonist treatment (OAT) site operations and early signals of change in the first year of British Columbia’s drug decriminalization policy: Insights from a provincial survey

Mulcahy, et al. 2025. Is drug use stigma a violation of human rights law? Insights from Australia

Barsky, et al. 2025. Treatment Initiations and Opioid Overdoses Among Recently Incarcerated People After Adoption of the Take-Home Methadone Policy

Kleinman and Kurdyak. 2025. Duration of Methadone and Buprenorphine-Naloxone Treatment

Tilhou, et al. 2025. Aligning Efforts to Boost Medications for Opioid Use Disorder and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV

Ellis, et al. 2025. Beyond frequency of use: Exploring additional metrics for quantifying cocaine use and their relation to life functioning and treatment outcome

Barbee and Rosen. 2025. A Harm Reduction Response to Bans on Gender-Affirming Care

Ganesh, et al. 2025. Heroin injection to fentanyl smoking: Examining temporal trends in substance type and route of administration among people who inject drugs in Los Angeles, CA and Denver, CO, USA between 2021–2022

Thomas, et al. 2025. Olanzapine/Samidorphan (Lybalvi) and Buprenorphine: Considerations for a Contradictory Combination: A Case Report

Garland and Sullivan. 2025. It is Time to Integrate Chronic Pain and Addiction Services for Patients with Opioid Misuse

Backmund, et al. 2025. Cannabis Use in Opioid Maintenance Therapy: Prevalence, Clinical Correlates and Reasons for Use

Knopf, A. 2025. Buprenorphine for OUD improves maternal and newborn health

McAnulty, et al. 2025. The effect of craving on retention and treatment switching under buprenorphine-naloxone and methadone models of care for non-heroin opioid use disorder: Exploratory analyses from a pragmatic, randomized controlled trial

In the News

International

Global cocaine boom keeps setting new records, UN report says

New Report: U.S. drug overdose deaths rise again after hopeful decline

Why S.F.’s ‘remarkable’ drop in fatal drug overdoses has proved to be short-lived

The real opioid crisis isn’t prescriptions—it’s prohibition

Deadly opioid carfentanil reemerges in Michigan, linked to 11 deaths in 2025

Safety Strips Tech Corp. Launches E-Commerce Store to Expand Access to Harm Reduction Solutions

New studies find wide racial disparities in opioid overdose treatment

How Freiburg gets addicts off the streets, an example for all of Switzerland  

Poor Pain Treatment in ER Raises Risk of Opioid Misuse Later

Speedballing – the deadly mix of stimulants and opioids – requires a new approach to prevention and treatment

National

Overdose deaths in Canada fell in 2024, still higher than pre-pandemic

Deaths from opioid overdoses fell last year, but worsened in some provinces

U.S. report finds fentanyl crossing from Canada ‘not an important part of this story’

How New MP Aaron Gunn Helped Turn Canada Against Harm Reduction

BC

As DULF Prepares for Trial, Eris Nyx Calls for Direct Action Over "Policy Wish-Testing"

Science over stigma: ARYS drives change for youth battling substance use - The Daily Scan

Here’s How Harm Reduction Advocates Can Regain Lost Ground

B.C. experts sound the alarm over rising number of HIV cases

Operator chosen for Indigenous Northwest addiction treatment centre  

Prince George and localities awarded over $113,000 to launch Mobile Overdose Response Unit

New Westminster council approves extension of controversial overdose prevention site With Open Arms: Welcoming supportive conversations around substance use

Alberta

‘This isn’t over yet’: Opioid-related deaths reach new heights in Edmonton

Contracts reveal how Shoppers was embedded in Alberta’s mental health and addiction system

Court case around Red Deer’s closed overdose prevention site awaits new decision

Saskatchewan

Prairie Harm Reduction, Health Ministry issue new illicit drug alert for Saskatoon area

Saskatchewan harm reduction workers want voice in new rehab model

Podcast by 2 Saskatoon police officers tackles trauma, addiction, burnout

Regina’s only supervised consumption site set to reopen this month

Manitoba

Overdose data paints grim picture in Manitoba

Ontario

New figures show stark drop in fatal opioid overdoses in London region

Harm reduction tent set up at Victoria Street encampment in Kitchener

Correctional populations in Ontario have twenty times the rate of substance use-related healthcare visits, study finds

St. Catharines MPP blasts province for delayed HART Hub rollout

Sudbury's illegal drug supply laced with substances naloxone can't reverse, public health officials warn

More Black youth are reaching out for mental health, substance use help in Windsor

Moms' emotional statements open Ontario inquest for 7 Maplehurst inmates after overdose deaths

Quebec

Overdose deaths in Quebec are on the rise, and the problem could get worse

How to fight Quebec's toxic drug problem? A former user says change the conversation

Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon

Letter: Shelters can be a doorway to stable housing

Multi-million dollar housing complex in Watson Lake, Yukon, still vacant months after it was built

Newfoundland and Labrador

What a harm reduction pro says to her own kids about drugs

New Brunswick

N.B. opioid deaths involving fentanyl at all-time high, says Public Health

Study examines rural homelessness in New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula

Prince Edward Island

Final report on homelessness, addiction recommends dispersing services across P.E.I.

Nova Scotia

Cocaine tainted with fentanyl found in Sydney, Nova Scotia Health warns

One path out of Nova Scotia’s homelessness crisis