MacPherson will officially step aside when a new executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition is hired in the fall
Donald MacPherson, a longtime advocate for drug-policy reform who is credited with helping change the way the public talks about illicit substances and the people who use them, is stepping down as executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.
Mr. MacPherson said he intended to leave the role years earlier, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed preparations for his successor. Mr. MacPherson’s career in drug policy began more than 30 years ago, when he says he became an “accidental tourist” to Vancouver’s drug scene. Mr. MacPherson began talking to some of the neighbourhood’s most outspoken characters, among them Bud Osborn, a poet, community organizer and activist; drug-user activist Dean Wilson; and housing advocates Mark Townsend and Liz Evans. He went on to become director of the Carnegie – sometimes called “the living room of the Downtown Eastside” – before turning his sights on city hall, accepting a newly created social-planning role in 1997.
“He’s been a thought leader and public voice with a national presence, pulling various constituents from across Canada together – the voices of people with lived experience, advocates, researchers, lawyers, policy wonks, politicians,” Dr. Kendall said in an interview.
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