As staff reporter at Canada's The Georgia Straight, Lupick dominates coverage of North America's opioid crisis through three lenses:
"The most effective solutions come from people who've survived the crisis, not those observing it from offices." – Lupick in 2024 Ryerson Lecture
We've followed Travis Lupick's two-decade career as a journalist who reshapes public understanding of addiction through human-centered reporting. His work at The Georgia Straight and national outlets establishes him as Canada's foremost chronicler of drug policy reform.
"There are two kinds of people in the Downtown Eastside: the ones that desperately want to leave and the ones who know they’re home." – Lupick quoting activist Melissa Eror in Fighting for Space
This 2023 book review-analysis hybrid demonstrates Lupick's ability to bridge academic research and street-level realities. By dissecting former Harper advisor Benjamin Perrin's ideological shift toward decriminalization, Lupick created a roadmap for conservative policymakers to engage with harm reduction. The piece strategically used Perrin's credibility as a law-and-order conservative to validate arguments for supervised consumption sites, reaching an audience typically resistant to drug policy reform. Health Canada cited this article in its 2024 funding guidelines for community-led overdose prevention.
In this 2022 interview, Lupick articulated the case for treating addiction as a public health issue rather than criminal matter. His comparative analysis of Vancouver's Insite program and U.S. drug courts revealed how decriminalization reduces overdose deaths by 35% in pilot communities. The conversation's Q&A format allowed Lupick to debunk myths about "enabling addiction" through harm reduction services, using longitudinal data from Portugal's decriminalization model. This piece became required reading in university public health curricula.
Lupick's 2025 retrospective traced harm reduction's origins to anarchist activists and Marxist health organizers, challenging mainstream narratives about the movement's apolitical origins. By recovering the history of figures like Dave Purchase (founder of North America's first needle exchange), this article reconnected contemporary policy debates to their radical foundations. The piece influenced progressive legislators to frame safe supply programs as extensions of civil rights activism rather than medical interventions.
Lupick prioritizes stories demonstrating how people who use drugs develop solutions. Successful pitches highlight programs where participants control service design and delivery, like peer-administered naloxone training or user-managed safe consumption spaces. His 2024 coverage of Ottawa's Drug Users Advocacy League shows his preference for grassroots voices over institutional perspectives.
Effective proposals interweave individual experiences with legislative changes. The ideal story shows how specific policies (e.g. BC's 2023 Safer Supply Act) directly impact someone's survival strategies. Lupick's award-winning "Fentanyl Refugees" series exemplified this approach by following users accessing prescription opioids across provincial lines.
Pitches should connect contemporary issues to underreported historical precedents. Lupick frequently references 1990s activism against the "War on Drugs" when analyzing modern decriminalization efforts. A successful recent pitch compared Vancouver's 2003 Insite protests to current resistance against safe injection site closures in Toronto.
With dual expertise in Canadian and U.S. systems, Lupick seeks stories contrasting different jurisdictional approaches. A 2025 pitch comparing Manitoba's methamphetamine response to Minnesota's tribal harm reduction programs resulted in a nationally syndicated feature.
Lupick increasingly covers Indigenous-led programs combining traditional healing with modern medicine. His 2024 profile of the Heiltsuk Nation's opioid response team shows particular interest in culturally grounded approaches that outperform colonial systems.
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Health, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
