You can't understand Canada's overdose crisis without knowing the truth about this country -  and that’s the story of colonization: a centuries-long effort to steal land and erase Indigenous peoples.

In April 2019, Garth and Thunder Bay podcast creator Ryan McMahon were chatting on the phone. Ryan said that some Indigenous communities are reticent about harm reduction and that Crackdown should look at that.

We've been talking about making this episode since our first editorial board meeting in 2018, when Chereece Keewatin, Shelda Kastor and Jeff Louden talked about how the overdose crisis affects them as Indigenous people. Since then Chereece died - and we blame racist drug war policies for that.

Shelda guided the work on this episode, mapping the connections between abstinence programs, the Red Road and Indigenous approaches harm reduction.

A full transcript of this episode will be available in a few days.