Why big-city solutions to the opioids crisis dont work in rural communities
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Last winter was a brutal one in southwestern Alberta, with snowdrifts taller than trucks and record-breaking cold temperatures. Then, in late February, nature delivered another blow: a howling blizzard, icy roads, and snow that reduced visibility to near zero. At the same time, a particularly lethal shipment of opioids, known on the street as “super beans,” arrived in the area. Officials would later say that they suspected the drugs contained carfentanil, the powerful opioid 5,000 times more potent than heroin. People started overdosing almost immediately.
“It was a perfect storm,” says Esther Tailfeathers, a physician in Stand Off, a small community that’s a forty-minute drive southwest of Lethbridge. Stand Offis the administrative centre of Blood Reserve 148, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada and territory of the Blood Tribe (also known as the Kainai First Nation). About 4,500 members live on-reserve. “The graders and snowplows were working like crazy just to get to the homes where the overdoses had happened,” Tailfeathers says. Paramedics responded to 150 calls that weekend — a substantial feat, considering the community covers an area twice the size of Toronto. In one home, Tailfeathers says, five people overdosed at the same time. Over ten days, thirty people overdosed on the Blood reserve, and nearby Lethbridge reported more than fifty others.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2018 من The Walrus.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2018 من The Walrus.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
![MY GUILTY PLEASURE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/13875/1721021/ZjBpzYG4o1719492279999/MY-GUILTY-PLEASURE.jpg)
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.
![The Upside-Down Book](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/13875/1721021/69rONulnf1719492018954/THE-UPSIDEDOWN-BOOK.jpg)
The Upside-Down Book
In her new novel, Rachel Cusk makes the case for becoming a stranger to yourself
![Pick a Colour](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/13875/1721021/gfjRqDBPR1719491028118/PICK-A-COLOUR.jpg)
Pick a Colour
BACK HERE, I can hear a group of women trickle in. Filling the floor with giggles and voices.
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Quebec's Crushing Immigration Policy
Familial separation can have devastating consequences on mental health and productivity
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The Briefcase
What I learned about being a writer from trying to finish a dead man's book
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In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It
Thousands have died trying to cross into the US from Mexico. Each year, activists follow their harrowing trek
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Blood Language
Menstruation ties us to the land in ways we've all but forgotten
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Dream Machines
The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
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Invisible Lives
Without immigration status, Canada's undocumented youth stay in the shadows
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My Guilty Pleasure
"The late nights are mine alone, and I'll spend them however I damn well please"