PubMed · 16265952
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Amy McCutcheon. 2005. A framework for professional practice.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16265952/
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BACKGROUND: In January 2023, British Columbia (BC) became the first Canadian province to implement a legally sanctioned drug decriminalization policy, removing criminal penalties for adults possessing 2.5 g or less of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA. Introduced as a three-year pilot, it aimed to reframe substance use as a public health issue, reduce stigma, and improve health and social service engagement. Criminal penalties were reintroduced for drug possession in most public spaces in May 2024, and the pilot ended in January 2026. Its termination has been interpreted as policy failure; this review aimed to examine how the pilot was implemented in practice and to identify factors that shaped its operationalization and early implementation-relevant outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review with narrative synthesis of peer-reviewed literature examining implementation-relevant aspects of BC's decriminalization pilot. Six databases were searched (January-February 2026) for studies published May 31, 2022-February 1, 2026. The protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD420251271694). RESULTS: Twenty-seven studies were included. Four cross-cutting implementation barriers were identified: pilot design features, public and cross-sector communication gaps, limited frontline training, and insufficient funding and infrastructure. Design features included the 2.5 g possession threshold, misalignment with real-world drug use patterns; the three-year timeframe, which constrained system-level effects; and the May 2024 amendment, which introduced additional instability. The pilot was implemented without commensurate investment in harm reduction, treatment, or housing infrastructure, within already constrained systems. CONCLUSION: BC's decriminalization pilot suggests the effects of legal reform are shaped by implementation context. Early outcomes may reflect design features, institutional readiness, and system capacity rather than legal change alone; longer-term impacts remain uncertain. Future reforms should align legal change with coordinated implementation, operational guidance, public communication, and adequate service infrastructure.
Climate changes profoundly impact species distributions and can drastically alter dynamics between formerly isolated taxa. The evolution of mammoths within North America was characterized by repeated cycles of dispersal and putative gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths. However, as genome-wide studies on mammoths have predominantly focused on Siberia, the consequences of these North American range shifts remain unclear. Here, we generated genome-wide and morphological data for two Late Pleistocene mammoth molars from British Columbia, Canada (BC), and jointly analysed these with previously published data. Our genome-wide analysis (n = 16) revealed gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths that would have gone undiscovered based on morphological (n = 48) and mitochondrial analysis (n = 124) alone. Consistent with their hybrid nature, our analyses suggest that these two BC mammoths had elevated genomic diversity. Our results highlight the importance of combining data types to reconstruct past evolutionary events. These findings demonstrate how the geographical range expansion of woolly mammoths resulted in long-term hybridization with local Columbian mammoths and enhance our understanding of the genomic and morphological consequences of climate-mediated dispersal.
BACKGROUND: The use of plants for healing by any cultural group is integrally related to local concepts of the nature of disease, the nature of plants, and the world view of the culture. The physical and chemical properties of the plants themselves also bear on their selection by people for medicines, as does the array of plants available for people to choose from. I examine use of medicinal plants from a "biobehavioral" perspective to illuminate cultural selection of plants used for medicine by the Gitksan of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. METHODS: Consultant consensus, "intercultural consensus", independent use of the same plants by other cultural groups, and phytochemistry and bioassay results from the literature, were employed in analysis of probable empirical efficacy of plant uses. RESULTS: 70% of 37 Gitksan medicinal plants were used similarly by other cultures where direct diffusion is not known to have occurred; eleven plants, including the eight most frequently mentioned medicinal plants, also show active phytochemicals or bioassays indicating probable physiologically based therapeutic effects. CONCLUSION: Analysis of intercultural consensus revealed that the majority of cultures in the British Columbia region within the plant ranges use the same plants, or closely related species, in similar ways. The rigor of this analysis is effected by the lack of consistent data on all taxa of interest for all cultures within the region.