New research shows that the contents of drugs from the unregulated supply remain unpredictable. In fact, there’s often a difference between what drugs people think they are taking and what they are actually consuming. This increases the risk of harm for people who use drugs.
To better understand substance use trends and how expected substance use contents compares with actual substance use contents across Canada, data was collected from 2,634 participants at harm reduction sites in seven regions between January 2021 and April 2023. The reporting sites are in British Columbia, Edmonton, Regina, Ottawa, Peel, Quebec and Nova Scotia. The data has been compiled into Community Urinalysis and Self-Report Project (CUSP) Cross-Canada Report 2021–2023 series. Reports will be released between February and April 2024 and made available on this page.
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Reports
The CUSP project was led by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) in collaboration with BC Centre for Disease Control, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, and sites who partnered directly with CCSA to collect data locally.
CUSP is a monitoring system that compares the drugs people think they are using (via self-report) with the actual drug contents (via urinalysis). The goal is to collect standardized information about drugs from the unregulated supply, including discrepancies between expected and actual use. The project also examines which substances people used together (intentionally or not), and how people administer their drugs.
