From 6th to 8th June 2023, the UNODC Programme Office for Ukraine (POUKR) and the UNODC Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Section (PTRS), jointly with Ukrainian NGOs, “Club Eney” and “Conviktus”, organized an in-person “Stop Overdose Safely (S-O-S)” training in Khmelnitskyi, Ukraine. The training is a follow-up to the UNODC-WHO S-O-S initiative that was introduced in Ukraine in 2018, with the aim to prevent, identify and manage opioid overdose, including the provision of take-home naloxone.  

The S-O-S Initiative is in line with the WHO guidelines on community management of opioid...

Background

Novel public health interventions are needed to address the toxic drug supply and meet the needs of people who use drugs amidst the overdose crisis. Safer supply – low-barrier distribution of pharmaceutical grade substances – has been implemented in some jurisdictions to provide safer alternatives to the unregulated drug supply, yet no studies to date have explored professional stakeholder perspectives on this approach.

Methods

Purposive sampling was used to recruit professional stakeholders (n = 17) from four locations in British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, including...