The Ferret Investigates The Ferret

In 2017 synthetic opioid fentanyl hit the Canadian city of Toronto and people using drugs started dropping. Drug deaths hit record levels - across the state of Ontario there were 1,270 that year.
Health professionals, activists and drug users called for an emergency response to the toxic drug death crisis facing them. And when authorities failed to set up a safer drug consumption facility activists in the Moss Park neighbourhood of the city  took matters into their own hands.
They gathered supplies and nurses and set up an unsanctioned overdose prevention site in the park where they ran it illegally for a year before being granted permission to operate by the health authority and moving inside with funding.
With the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility due to open in Glasgow this summer The Ferret visited the Mosspark Treatment and Consumption Service in Toronto, Canada to find out what difference the community-focussed approach it takes can make.
We heard from those struggling to cope with the realities of super-strength drug fentanyl as well as those whose lives had been saved by the Moss Park team. We heard stories of love and loss, of systemic failure and of the limitations of a service like this.
The toxic drug crisis is ongoing with deaths in the state more than doubling to  2,857 in 2021 and continued alerts about the contaminated drug supply causing multiple deaths.
But we heard stories of hope and healing and the impact that being part of a community that cares can have.


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"Our deaths by suicide rate is not coming down because we have too many poor people. They don’t have enough money, they can’t feed themselves, they don’t have any hope because they don’t know what’s coming down the road. " Sean McCann, trauma psychotherapist
In part three of The Ferret investigates…the health gap – a three-part special podcast from The Ferret media co-op and Greater Govanhill magazine – we turn our attention to the mental wellbeing of young and middle aged men, another issue driving health inequalities in Scotland.
In Scotland, men in the most deprived areas of Scotland have a life expectancy of almost 14 years less than those in the most affluent areas. Of the 753 people that completed suicide in 2021, three quarters were men.
In this episode we hear from James, a joiner from Glasgow, about his struggles with his mental health and Bill Hill of the Lighthouse charity tells us about the way the construction industry, which is currently losing two workers to suicide every day, has been forced to mobilise to save lives.
We also visit San Francisco's Harm Reduction Therapy Center and find out how offering people struggling with substance use therapy on the street is dismantling the myth that some are hard to reach.
In the studio our hosts are joined by Linda Birnie of Mikey’s Line which offers suicide prevention and a helpline across the Highlands and was set-up following the tragic death of two friends, Martin Shaw and Michael Williamson.
Other guests include Graeme Callander of We Are With You, a charity which works with people struggling with their mental health, or alcohol or substance use and psychotherapist Sean McCann, who also works for Strathclyde University
You can find all three episodes of The Ferret investigates...the health gap on The Ferret or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Hosts: Karin Goodwin, of The Ferret and Samar Jamal, of Greater Govanhill magazine
Interviews: Karin Goodwin
Production: Halina Rifai and Karin Goodwin
Episode editing and sound: Halina Rifai
Music: Loris S. Sarid

Package about the Harm Reduction Therapy Center
Reporting, sound recording and writing: Karin Goodwin
Editing and sound design: Flora Zajicek


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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If it wasn't for safer injecting sites I wouldn't be alive today that's for sure because I wouldn't be able to stay alive long enough to hit bottom – to have a moment of clarity where I was able to say 'I don't want to do this any more'. "
Trey Helton, manager of the Overdose Prevention Society in Vancouver
In part two of The Ferret investigates…the health gap – a three-part special podcast from The Ferret media co-op and Greater Govanhill magazine – we look at drug deaths, one of the key factors driving Scottish health inequalities.
In Scotland, men in the most deprived areas of Scotland have a life expectancy of almost 14 years less than those in the most affluent areas. And for women that gap is ten and a half years.
A total of 1,051 people died of drug overdoses across Scotland in 2022 – that’s almost three people a day. And you’re 16 times as likely to die of a drug overdose if you live in a deprived community than if you live in a wealthy one.
In this episode we visit Simon Community Scotland's We See You project and hear from coordinator Jim Thomson and participant Owen Docherty about the power of finding connection.
We also visit Vancouver where Trey Helton tells us how the Overdose Prevention Society is saving lives, and we hear from indigenous women at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre – a group disproportionately impacted by the opioid crisis there – about how reconnecting with their culture is helping them heal.
In the studio we hear from Simon Community Scotland's Claire Longmuir and Professor Andrew McAuley from Glasgow Caledonian University about what's working in Scotland and what more we need to do.
You can find all three episodes of The Ferret investigates...the health gap on The Ferret or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Hosts: Karin Goodwin, of The Ferret and Samar Jamal, of Greater Govanhill magazine
Interviews: Karin Goodwin
Production: Halina Rifai and Karin Goodwin
Episode editing and sound: Halina Rifai
Music: Loris S. Sarid
Package about indigenous culture
Reporting, sound recording and writing: Karin Goodwin
Editing and sound design: Flora Zajicek
The Vancouver interviews were recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh Nations.  


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
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"We know that the first 1,000 days are the most important time in a child's life. If you get that right you have a much better chance of a life being healthy in the future.” Professor Monica Lakhanpaul, the Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition (NEON) project 
The Ferret investigates…the health gap, is a three-part special podcast from The Ferret media co-op and Greater Govanhill magazine looking at the health gap – that’s the stark difference between the health and wellbeing of people depending on where you live.
In Scotland men in the most deprived areas of Scotland have a life expectancy of almost 14 years less than those in the most affluent areas. And for women that gap is ten and a half years.
This podcast – part of our year-long Mind the health gap solutions journalism project – doesn’t just highlight the problems but looks at the responses, from Scotland and beyond, that might help us fix them.
Part one looks at child and infant health and hears why a good start in life really matters for long term wellbeing. Guests include Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at Edinburgh University who is also a Scottish Government advisor. She claims the Scottish Child Payment is having an impact on reducing child poverty.
We also hear from migrant women accessing English lessons at Milk Cafe in Govanhill,  Glasgow about the challenges of eating well on a restricted budget, and visit the Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition (NEON) project in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.
You can find all three episodes of The Ferret investigates...the health gap on The Ferret or wherever you get your podcasts.
Credits:
Hosts: Karin Goodwin, of The Ferret and Samar Jamal, of Greater Govanhill magazine
Interviews: Rhiannon Davies and Samar Jamal 
Production: Halina Rifai and Karin Goodwin
Episode editing and sound: Halina Rifai
Music: Loris S. Sarid

Package about Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition
Reporting, sound recording and writing: Samar Jamal and Rhiannon Davies
Editing and sound: Flora Zajicek


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
AdBarker -...

Conservationists have urged NatureScot to stick to the timetable it set for Scotland’s new policy on wild beavers, to save animals from being shot.
In our latest podcast, Richard Baynes talks to campaigners, landowners and NatureScot about the challenges and benefits of relocating beavers.


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy

Why is a supermarket sponsoring vital climate talks? And just how green is it?
The Ferret has reported on the total carbon cost  of the “principle partners” of COP26, which produce a staggering 350m tonnes of carbon a year.
Now, in this exclusive podcast, we look in more depth at the one of the most high-profile of these, the climate talks’ “Principal Supermarket Partner”, Sainsbury’s.


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy