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June 2026 Newsletter

Support. Don’t Punish.

RECLAIM Collective invites you to join their upcoming Support. Don’t Punish 2026 webinar:

Building Connection in Harm Reduction & Drug Policy Spaces
Date: Wed. June 24th 4pm EST

As harm reduction and drug policy advocates face increasing challenges, we believe it is more important than ever to strengthen our relationships, build solidarity, and support one another.

This international panel brings together experienced advocates and organizers from Canada, the United States, and Europe working across harm reduction, healthcare, street outreach, Indigenous wellness, mutual aid, drug policy reform, and human rights. Together, we will explore how our movements can engage in good faith, navigate differences, foster accountability, and build stronger coalitions while avoiding harm within our own spaces.

This webinar is designed to be interactive, with plenty of time for participant discussion, questions, and shared learning.

Featured Speakers

• Nathan Smiddy (United States) – Harm reduction activist, mutual aid organizer, and syringe service provider operating in the southern U.S.

• Corey Ranger (Canada) – Clinical Director at AVI Health & Community Services, President of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, Board Director with the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, and North American Representative to the International Drug Policy Consortium Members’ Advisory Council.

• Keshia Cleaver (Canada) – Tla’amin Nation harm reduction leader, educator, researcher, and advocate focused on Indigenous wellness and community-driven approaches.

• Naja Kassir (Canada) – Lebanese writer, educator, and harm reduction advocate working to build cross-sector collaboration and solidarity through knowledge translation, education, and community organizing.

• Tamás Kardos (Hungary) – Drug policy expert with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and advocate for evidence-based drug policy, harm reduction, and human rights.

We hope you'll join us for this important global conversation on strengthening our movements, supporting one another, and advancing meaningful change.

Connect with SUHN Community

Did you hear?

Reclaim Collective facilitates the Thursday Interdisciplinary Drop-in Meeting. They post the topic of the week in the Google Group on Wednesdays.

Weekly - Thursdays - 12-1 pm Eastern

Connect - Share - Learn - Support

Copy the Zoom link into your calendar (same link every week)

Upcoming Events

Stories of Sanctuary and Loss

Third webinar in our series: What happens when care gets taken away?

Date: Thurs. July 9th, 2026 12 pm ET

Supervised consumption services are more than healthcare; to many, they are a sanctuary. In this webinar, panelists from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario share their personal stories of what these sites have meant to them, and the devastating ripple effects left behind when they are dismantled. We'll also learn how mutual aid and community education attempt to mitigate the massive gaps left.

Our first two webinars focused on research findings. In this webinar, hear directly from those most impacted by the loss of care.

Moderated by Zoe Dodd, MAP Urban Health Solutions, Unity Health

Registration

CATIE Webinar: Framing substance use: Challenging assumptions, deepening understanding

Date: Tues. July 7th, 1-2:30 pm ET.

Registration

This webinar explores how perspectives on substance use shape the design and delivery of programs and services for people who use drugs. Tailored for service providers, it includes an overview of the factors that influence people’s motivations for using substances, recognizing that substance use exists along a spectrum and can include a wide range of patterns and experiences. Invited speakers examine how substance use is understood and the benefits and limitations of different framings, including medicalized approaches.

By challenging common assumptions, this session highlights how different ways of framing substance use can shape real-world practice and service delivery. Participants are encouraged to reflect on the impacts of these perspectives and consider approaches that support more compassionate, person-centred care.

This webinar is part of an ongoing capacity building series highlighting fundamentals of harm reduction principles and practices.

Moderator: Kaela Pelland, CATIE

Speakers:

Dr. Sara Davidson, Fredericton Downtown Community Health Centre
Amber Streukens, Rural Empowered Drug Users' Network (REDUN)
Bernie Pauly, University of Victoria

CCSA Webinar: Exploring Community Responses to the Substance Use Crisis

Date: July 23rd, 1-2 pm ET More info and Registration

Resources

National Indigenous History Month: Resources.

Yellowhead Institute. Open Access Online course: Land Back.

Support. Don’t Punish. Global Day of Action - June 26, 2026: Resources.

The Canoe Project (CAAN and DPC). Sâkihitowin Is Our Law - Margaret Kisikaw Piyesis and Indigenous community resilience and culturally safe healthcare

CBRC. 2026. Resources to address stigma, isolation and resilience among Two-Spirit and LGBTQQIA+ Indigenous people in Canada.

ONPUD and CATIE. 2026. Working with people with lived and living experience: A guide for meaningful engagement.

ODPRN. 2026. The Evolving Role of Extended-Release Buprenorphine (Sublocade®): What we heard at the Town Hall on public experiences with extended-release buprenorphine as a treatment option for opioid use disorder. Read the report + listen to the audio clips from 4 of the individuals who shared live during the Town Hall.

HIV Legal Network. 2026. Low barrier, harm reduction models in practice.

CATIE. 2026. Routine Practice. A fictional series with true facts about providing screening for hepatitis B and C to immigrants and newcomers as routine practice.

Fraser Health. 2026. Chief Medical Health Officer’s report - 10 years since declaration of the toxic drug public health emergency.

Beach, L. in collaboration with the Mobile Outreach Street Health. 2026. Lived and Living Experience of Mental Health, Substance Use, and Incarceration in Nova Scotia. Report.

CCSA. 2026. Playbook for Action: Practical Interventions Small Cities Can Use to Tackle Canada’s Substance Use Crisis

Marshall, C.A., et al. 2026. “It was a perfect storm” Experiences and perspectives of service providers, advocates and policymakers following the closure of a shelter and consumption and treatment services site in response to a critical incident in a mid-sized city in Ontario, Canada. Report

Podcasts

Emergency Medicine Cases. Episode 218: Substance Use Disorder in the ED - Stigma, Compassion, and System Change. Dr. Bjug Borgundvaag and Tish Mizon discuss findings from the research study: Transformative Training for trauma informed care: How to better serve the health care needs of People who use Drugs (Strike C, Olding M; Guta A, Borgungvaag B, Jeffs L, Leece P, Kaminski N, Cassandra S, Smoke A, Mizon T.).

Dealing with Drugs. Episode 5.

Tatyana Sleiman from the Skoun Lebanese Addiction Center tells us about living, working and providing harm reduction services in a warzone; we talk Trump, Robert Kennedy Jr., psychedelics, the bombing of supposed ‘narco boats’, consumption rooms and the perfect drug policy with Dr. Kasia Malinowska from the Open Society Foundations; and Andrzej Celinsky from Reclaim Collective on the fight for sensible drug policy in Canada.

Past Webinars

SUHN. What happens when care gets taken away? Webinar 1: MySafe final evaluation: Impact of program closures. Webinar 2: Preliminary findings from SCS closure studies.

CATIE webinar: Harm reduction under threat: Defending public health in a shifting landscape

WHO: Global webinar – From evidence to essential services: embedding harm reduction in national health systems

Moms Stop the Harm Connects. Care on the Prairies: Stories of family care-giving for people who use drugs rurally.

Harm Reduction Nurses Association. Perinatal Substance Use.

Meta:Phi. Medetomidine Management Opioid Treatment Program.

IRETA. Medetomidine: An emerging adulterant reshaping toxicity and withdrawal management.

Conference Alert

International Street Medicine Symposium - Halifax, NS - September 27-30, 2026. More info and registration.

Manitoba Harm Reduction Conference - Winnipeg, MB - September 15-17, 2026. More info and registration

INHSU - Prague, Czech Republic - October 6-9, 2026. More info and registration.

New: The Emergency Overdose Prevention Fund

Organized by Catalyst Philanthropy

The Emergency Overdose Prevention Fund is a set of short-term projects that support community-based organizations across Ontario as they adapt following the closure of many supervised consumption sites. These projects will meet immediate needs and generate evidence and learning to understand how to best deliver lifesaving harm reduction supports over the longer-term. For more information and to donate, please see the website.