Chapter event: "Know Your Rights" at the University of Western Ontario

by CSSDP

Our University of Western Ontario chapter held a great event on February 29th - and in the pre-conference excitement, we forgot to tell everyone about it!

Kudos to Geoff and the rest of the UWO chapter for pulling it off with style. Here's the update Geoff sent in:

"Just wanted to share that we had a "Know Your Rights With the Police" event today, where we screened a copy of BUSTED: A Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters from the FlexYourRights Foundation, then had a local criminal defense lawyer come in as a guest speaker. Attendance could have been better, but we had a solid group of 20 students who were very interested and engaging during the Q&A session with our guest speaker lawyer afterwards. Attached is a picture of our CSSDP club executive with our guest speaker. We plan on making this an annual event, hopefully attracting a larger audience next year!

I'm sure your probably already aware of FlexYourRights, but if not check them out. Their DVDs make a great club event that is relevant to members but outside the box of just talking about drug policy reform.

Geoff"

If you want to get in touch with Geoff or learn more about the UWO chapter, please you can email him at gruddoc@uwo.ca.

Take part in our Naloxone interview - with Scots!

by David Hewson

Interview naloxone professionals from Scotland! UPDATE: the details for this interview have now been finalized!!

Let us know your thoughts! 

Ok CSSDPers, we've got an interesting opportunity here!

As most of you already know, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs passed a resolution last week to promote naloxone, an antidote for opiate overdoses. This is good news.

Amid the tweeting around this, I connected with two people from Scotland who work with naloxone: Kirsten, a registered nurse working in addictions, and Stephen, the national coordinator and lead trainer for Scotland's Naloxone Programme. I asked if they'd like to be interviewed for a post on our blog...and got a great response!!

@StephenCMalloy @kristenlh23 to keep this #Naloxone ball rolling, would either/both of you be interested in an interview for our blog?
— CSSDP (@CSSDP) March 21, 2012

@CSSDP @kristenlh23 vey kind offer! Sure we both could offer something from national and local perspectives. Thanks! :)
— Stephen Malloy (@StephenCMalloy) March 21, 2012

@StephenCMalloy @injectingadvice @cssdp ditto
— Kirsten H(@kirstenlh23) March 21, 2012

If that wasn't enough, a British harm reduction group called Injecting Advice saw what we were tweeting about, and now they want to reprint the interview on their website! Not bad.

@stephencmalloy @CSSDP @kristenlh23 would we be able to re-print the interview on the naloxone site when we launch? #itallhelps
— Injecting Advice.com (@injectingadvice) March 21, 2012

So the stage is set...and this is where you guys come in.

We want your help with this - and here's why:

1. We need to ask some good questions! For those of you with no background in harm reduction (like myself) - what do you want to know about naloxone? For those of you with more experience - what do you want to ask the pros now that we've got their attention?

2. If Injecting Advice is interested in our interview, then lots of other people must be too. Who else should we be telling about this? Some of our friends from the conference come to mind, like CAANS in Red Deer and Streetworks in Edmonton. Who else can you think of who might want to submit questions, post the interview on their blog, or otherwise get involved?

3. Last, but not certainly not least...just because. That's why you should get involved. Interviewing interesting people, building connections and promoting events for a worthy cause are all activism skills we want you to learn - so seize this opportunity to do so!

So here's what happens next.

In the comments below, tell us:

- what questions should we ask our interviewees? what do you really want to know about harm reduction, naloxone, or what's happening with drug policy in the land of haggis? ;)

- who should we tell about this? where and how can we promote this cool opportunity?

- how do you want to be involved? do you want to take part in the interview directly (you're welcome to!!)? should we try to livestream the event? do you want to live-tweet your thoughts/reactions for our followers while the interview is happening?

Let us know what you think, and we can all go on from there. Looking forward to hearing from all of you!