The KOOTENAY INSURRECTION for SAFE SUPPLY (KISS) was formed in the summer of 2022 in response to the on-going unregulated drug poisoning crisis that is killing an average of six people in British Columbia every day. Our goal is to establish a non-medicalized, PWLLE-led safe supply program serving the West Kootenay region and in so doing help to save the lives of our friends, family members, and neighbours by offering an accessible, non-stigmatizing, low-barrier alternative to the ever more toxic unregulated drug supply.   

​

KISS centers the ideas, voices & lived experiences of current and former drug users in all that we do. We celebrate drug users as the intelligent, capable, loving, creative, and messily human people they are, and we see the work we do as part of the broader struggle for the liberation of drug users from social and economic marginalization, from criminalization, and from stigma bred by ignorance and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes.

​

KISS is not for or against drug use. We recognize that people use drugs for many reasons and respect individual agency and autonomy with regard to decisions concerning personal drug use. As such, we seek to empower people to make informed decisions that are right for them by ensuring they have the necessary information and access to appropriate supports and services to allow them to do so.

KISS respectfully acknowledges that we live, learn, rest, and play as uninvited settlers on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territories of the Ktunaxa, Syilx, Sinixt and Secwépemc peoples, in what is colonially recognized as the Kootenay region of British Columbia.