People First Radio – March 26, 2026People First Radio – March 26, 2026
People First Radio
People First Radio connects drug user advocacy in Nanaimo with research on chronic pain and sexuality, featuring organiser Anne Livingston and nurse-researcher Janice Finlay. The conversations focus on toxic drug policy, stigma, safer supply, and how chronic pain shapes identity and intimacy.
0:00•26 Mar 2026
Drug Users, Toxic Supply and Sex with Chronic Pain on People First Radio
Episode Overview
- Drug user groups like NANDU aim to improve the lives of people who still use drugs through peer advocacy, education and support.
- Anne Livingston highlights how a poisoned drug supply and disbelief of drug users create conditions for preventable deaths.
- Partnerships with libraries and groups such as Moms Stop the Harm help bring community conversations about drug policy into public spaces.
- Janice Finlay notes that chronic pain clinics rarely address sexuality, while sexual health clinics often overlook chronic pain and disability.
- Janice encourages people living with chronic pain to speak openly about sex with healthcare providers so services can better respond to real needs.
“People aren’t really dying of drugs. They’re dying of politics.”
What drives someone to seek a life without shame around drugs, pain, or sex? People First Radio’s 26 March 2026 episode lines up two big conversations that many people quietly worry about but rarely say out loud. First up, long-time organiser Anne Livingston talks about the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU) and an upcoming author event with Crackdown host and memoirist Garth Mullins.
Anne explains NANDU’s simple mission: “to improve the lives of people who have not been successful at stopping using drugs through user-to-user advocacy, education, and support.” She shares how weekly meetings, legal advocacy, and partnerships with the public library and groups like Moms Stop the Harm aim to counter a “poison drug supply” and the deep stigma that leaves people disbelieved and unsafe. Anne argues that people “aren’t really dying of drugs.
They’re dying of politics,” and calls for wider, honest public conversations about safer supply, methadone, treatment, and the human cost of criminalisation. The second half shifts to the quieter pain that often stays behind closed doors. Nurse and PhD student Janice Finlay talks about her research on chronic pain and sexuality, drawing on her own long history of pain and her work in sexual health clinics.
She points out that pain services often ignore sex, and sexual health clinics often ignore pain, leaving people stuck between two systems. Janice notes that “one in five Canadians live with chronic pain,” and urges people to be bold with healthcare providers, saying that the more patients talk about sex, the more professionals will learn to respond.
If you care about drug policy, safe supply, stigma, chronic pain, or how identity and intimacy fit into health, this episode gives you plenty to chew on. Whose voices about drugs and sex are you ready to hear that you might have overlooked so far?
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