WINNIPEG -- A new report looking at the connection between drug-use, poverty and mental health in Winnipeg’s inner city is highlighting the need for more cohesive drug strategies between the city and province.

The annual State of the Inner City report is a research project that works with community-based organizations to look into issues important to the community. This year’s research examined the factors contributing to drug-use in the Spence, Dufferin and North Point Douglas neighbourhoods, including income equality, unemployment, education and colonialism. 

The report offers seven recommendations to help reduce drug and mental health harms, which range from addressing social inequalities to creating a harm reduction strategy.

A STRONGER STRATEGY

The report highlights the fact that the documents the province relies on for its drug strategy contradict each other. 

The government currently looks to the Progressive Conservative’s Safer Streets Safer Lives Strategy, the Virgo Report and the Illicit Drug Task Force report to guide its actions on drug use. The State of the Inner City Report notes that these three documents contradict each other when it comes to the public health approach and commitment to harm reduction, which will limit efficacy.

“These contradictions also raise questions about which vision is informing action; which recommendations will be prioritized; as well as important questions around accountability and transparency,” the report says.

The report recommends the city and province establish official drug strategies that complement each other and are informed by public health and harm reduction principles.

SPEAKING TO THOSE IMPACTED

Another suggestion focuses on speaking to drug-users and their families to help develop policies and programs, since they are the ones impacted.

The report says the reason people who use drugs are not often consulted has to do with the stigma surrounding drug use.

“To decrease stigma, drug use needs to be understood primarily as a health issue, rather than a moral or criminal issue,” the report says.

It cites the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network and Moons Harm Reduction Initiative as some organizations who use this strategy, and says they need to be properly supported.

“The provincial government and the City should recognize the unique value of organizations of people who use illegal drugs and fund and capacity build initiatives for existing new groups of people who use drugs,” the reports says.

This year’s report is titled ‘Forest for the Trees: Reducing Drug and Mental Health Harms in the Inner City of Winnipeg’ and can be found online.