Travis Lupick

Travis is a journalist based in Vancouver and the author of “Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction” (Arsenal Pulp Press, June 2018).

“Undoing Drugs”—Maia Szalavitz’s Profound History of Harm Reduction

In 1986, HIV/AIDS was burning through New York. The city’s gay population was devastated, and, though it was talked about…

July 27, 2021

“This Is Ohio”—Economic Pain and Harm Reduction in the Rust Belt

Jack Shuler watched the overdose crisis take a heavy toll on his hometown of Newark, Ohio. It was terrible and…

September 1, 2020

Cages Don’t Always Have Bars: How “Reforms” Swelled the Carceral State

Place Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law together on a street corner in an impoverished neighborhood and they’ll see examples of…

August 25, 2020

California’s Huge Overdose Increase Didn’t Have to Happen

The overdose crisis has finally reached California, following a relative delay in the arrival of fentanyl there which I described…

July 28, 2020

Harm Reduction Works: An Exciting New Alternative to Narcotics Anonymous

The pandemic is taking a toll on people’s mental health, and there’s likely no group more affected than people who…

May 19, 2020

Tightrope: A Powerful But Problematic Deaths-of-Despair Narrative

Through the 1970s, Nicholas Kristof rode the Number 6 bus to school with Donna King, the Knapp’s five children, and…

March 4, 2020

Why Overdose Deaths Have Fallen Here—Despite More Overdoses

Roughly 66 times every single day in British Columbia, someone calls 911 for a suspected drug overdose. And 66 times…

January 14, 2020

Heroin Pipes: How the “Hammer” Was Built for Harm Reduction

A common misconception about people who use heroin is that they all want to get as high as possible, that…

November 25, 2019

Fentanyl, Inc: How Corporate Sales Floors Dominate the New Drugs Market

On the edge of Shanghai, men wearing balaclavas meet journalist Ben Westhoff at sunset. He’s blindfolded, pushed into a pickup…

September 3, 2019

Heroin Buyers Clubs Proposed by Researchers to Reduce Overdose

The crisis of opioid-related deaths extends throughout North America. Similar to cities across the United States, Vancouver, Canada, is flooded…

February 21, 2019