Insite Co-Founder Takes Fight For Royal Commission On Overdose Deaths To Canada's Governor General

One Vancouver man continues with a lone mission to see the Canadian government investigate the root causes of the country's overdose epidemic.

"I believe that there is a legitimate cause for action in the form of a Royal Commission," Dan Small writes in a letter mailed to Canada's governor general dated July 24, 2018.

"The fact that the failure to scale up supervised injection services across Canada would have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives across the nation is as subtle as an open grave," it continues.

"The barriers that have prevented harm reduction service innovations are not scientific, medical or epidemiological. The barriers are, in my view, implicit and explicit values, the bedrock of our culture and institutions, regarding addiction and drug use.

"As such, in the public interest, I ask that you establish a Royal Commission to examine the cultural ideas and overarching institutional variables that have accounted for the dramatic overdose tragedy."

At least 6,965 people in Canada died of an opioid overdose between January 2016 and December 2017, according to the federal government.

Small is a co-founder of the continent's first sanctioned injection facility, Insite, and a medical anthropologist and adjunct professor at UBC. Last May, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requesting the appointment of a royal commission "to examine the variables that have accounted for the dramatic overdose tragedy".

bit.ly/2Nj0sI9 via @georgiastraight

Man Arrested After Allegedly Stabbing Dog In Vancouver’s Kitsilano Neighbourhood – BC

An man was arrested in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood Sunday morning after he allegedly stabbed a dog in the middle of a street.

Police say they found a man in his twenties covered in blood with a stab wound to his chest in the area of Yew Street and West 4th Avenue just after 7:15 a.m., who had approached a woman and stabbed the dog she was walking moments before officers arrived.

After a physical struggle that saw two officers get hurt, the man was brought under control with a beanbag gun.

bit.ly/2ENP9VN via @globalnews

2 B.C. Police Officers Facing Possible Charges In Alleged Sexual Assault In Cuba

A pair of B.C. police officers who have been detained in Cuba since March in relation to an alleged sexual assault are now facing possible criminal charges.

Sources tell Global News an officer from the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is facing a potential charge of rape, and prosecutors are seeking a sentence of seven years in prison.

WATCH: New details on arrests of two Vancouver area police officers in Cuba

bit.ly/2VhD3KG via @globalnews

Victim Of East Vancouver Shooting Identified As Gangster Matthew Navas-Rivas

Matthew Navas-Rivas is the brother of Jinagh Navas-Rivas, who was Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s foster son for two years a number of years ago.

This was Vancouver’s 12th homicide of the year.

bit.ly/2EOaMWX via @globalnews

Addiction Starts With A Choice, And That's Why It Isn't A Disease

Addiction is a very hot topic in any setting these days. There is not one day without opioid addiction being in the news. There is always another life taken too soon. They left family that loved them so much behind, family that wishes they could have saved that person.

I personally have seen the effects addiction has on a family. It can completely destroy it without intention. And though that person may recover, they always have to put their sobriety first and everything else on the back burner.

bit.ly/2DvFXEL via @TheOdyssey

Assisted-Injection Trial Means Vancouver's Most-Marginalized Drug Users Could Soon Access Insite

At the Overdose Prevention Society's overdose-prevention site on the unit block of East Hastings Street, Sarah Blyth and Ronnie Grigg have worked to remove barriers that marginalized people face accessing harm-reduction services.

bit.ly/2Q2ihL9 via @georgiastraight