New Canada Research Chair now teaching with School of Public Health and Social Policy

Jaime Arredondo Sanchez Lira joined UVic in September 2021 and started teaching In January 2022 as an assistant professor with the School of Public Health and Social Policy and as a research scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. He brings an amazing range of experience and understanding and is a newly appointed Canada Research Chair on Substance Use and Health Systems.

Known to refer to himself as ‘the NAFTA guy’, UVic has an opportunity to gain new learning from Jaime’s diverse, international knowledge having studied, worked and conducted harm reduction research in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Case in point: he worked for four years as Chief of Staff for the Ministry of Public Security in Quintana Roo, Mexico, supporting federal programs and research partnerships with local universities. During his PhD at the University of California, San Diego, he helped implement an occupational safety and harm reduction program, training close to 2,000 Tijuana police officers.

While living in Tijuana, he was able to work as a researcher at Prevencasa, a non-government organization in Baja California, Mexico. There, he helped implement overdose prevention programs, including naloxone distribution and a fentanyl detection service. During his time at the US/Mex border, he helped create the first safe consumption site in Latin America with the Verter organization in Mexicali, the fourth of its kind in Mexico exclusively for women.

Jaime’s overarching quest is to transform the public debate so that substance use is understood as a public health issue rather than a public safety one. Above all, he plans to implement a community-based research agenda that empowers local organizations, helps to fight the “War on Drugs” narrative and fosters knowledge exchange across North America. 

“I hope to bring some successful Canadian harm reduction interventions to Latin America, while also bringing to Canada lessons I’ve learned on failed decriminalization,” he says. “In doing so, perhaps we can learn to see the needs from drug-producing countries as a shared problem.”