Imagine safe supply

Safe supply means drugs that are legally regulated with a known potency and composition. In this research, we considered safe supply to center the choices of drug users, including options that don’t necessarily focus on reduction or abstinence of drug use.

The people leading this research include people who use drugs and frontline workers, as well as graduate students and staff of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser University. As a team, we co-designed and led every stage of the project, including research design, interviews, data analysis, and knowledge sharing. We carried out this work with the understanding that people who use drugs are closest to the problem of the toxic drug supply. We can’t move forward to find solutions without their vision and leadership.

We used the word ‘imagine’ in the title of this research because we asked people what safe supply would look like on their own terms, without barriers and stigma. Imagination can be a powerful framework for research as it has a transformative potential to see beyond existing conditions. This research built on the visionary agency of people who use drugs and frontline workers to chart new horizons of possibility in drug policy.

Our intention in sharing this research is to contribute to awareness and dialogue on safe supply in a way that is destigmatizing; to network people using drugs, frontline organizations, prescribers, and policy makers around value-based understandings of safe supply; and to encourage people with decision-making power to listen and actively respond to the needs and perspectives of people using drugs.