Fighting For Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction

Description

Communities around the world are in the grips of a drug epidemic, made all the more dire by the introduction of fentanyl. What will it take to turn the page on addiction? Fighting for Space explains the concept of harm reduction and safe injection sites as a crucial component of a city's response to the drug crisis. It tells the story of a grassroots group of addicts in Vancouver, Canada who waged a political street fight for two decades to transform how the city treats its most marginalized citizens. They demanded that addicts be treated with compassion and not threatened with imprisonment, and against all odds, they eventually won. At a time when opioid deaths around the world have reached an all-time high, there is much that advocates for reform can learn from Vancouver's experience. Fighting for Space tells that story-including case studies in Ohio, Florida, New York, California, Massachusetts, and Washington state-with the same passionate fervor as the activists whose tireless work gives dignity to addicts and saves countless lives.

Travis Lupick is an award-winning journalist based in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He has more than a decade's experience working as a staff reporter for the Georgia Straight newspaper and has also written about drug addiction, harm reduction, and mental health for the Toronto Star, The Walrus, and Al Jazeera English, among other outlets. For his reporting on Canada's opioid crisis, Lupick received the Canadian Association of Journalists' Don McGillivray Award for best overall investigative report of 2016. He has also worked as a journalist in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Malawi, Nepal, Bhutan, Peru, and Honduras

Travis Lupick brings the reality of the perennial war on drugs into vivid focus and introduces an impressive group of activists confronting this 'ongoing struggle' with steely determination and compassion. An intense, riveting report on a public health crisis and a network of heroes on the front lines. --Kirkus Reviews (STARRED) The story of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is one of the most inspiring, moving, and enraging stories of our time. This beautiful and haunting book finally does it justice. This is essential history--and it isn't over. --Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War On Drugs Part social history and part community organizing manual, Fighting for Space details the decade-long fight to establish North America's first medically managed site for injection drug users. It's an amazing, inspiring, and sometimes harrowing read. --Los Angeles Review of Books