Harm reduction throughout the opioid crisis: A community responds

Mr Ronnie Grigg has been a long-time harm reduction worker in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside and is currently general manager of the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society. Located at 58 East Hastings St. in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society is a not-for-profit organization that oversees hundreds of consumptions daily. The society began as a tent designated for safe consumption and overdose prevention, and was one of the initial community-led responses to the opioid crisis in British Columbia. In 2017, its peer workers-all individuals from the Downtown Eastside community-oversaw more than 100000 visits to the site, responded to 417 overdoses, and recorded zero deaths. In mid-September 2018, I interviewed Mr Grigg about his experiences in harm reduction and innovations such as the society that arose in response to the opioid crisis. In this interview Mr Grigg describes his experiences as a front-line harm reduction worker during the crisis, his perspectives on the role of overdose prevention sites as an integral component of the health care system, and the need for increased support of the peer workers who staff these sites.