July

It is with profound sadness that we write of the sudden and unexpected death of a long-time friend and colleague, Dr Patricia Mark. Paddy was born in Ballyshannon, Northern Ireland, in 1941. She graduated in medicine from Trinity College. She met her husband, Mark Nixon, in 1966. They emigrated to Canada in 1967 and married in 1971. They subsequently moved to Vancouver Island where Paddy practised full-service family medicine and Mark joined the department of anesthesia.

Jim was born on 30 October 1932 in rural Lebret, Saskatchewan. On 1 February 2021, he succumbed to COVID-19 complications as a resident of Royal City Manor in New Westminster, at age 88.

We appreciate Michelle Danda’s letter in response to our case report “An inside look at BC’s illicit drug market during the COVID-19 pandemic” [BCMJ 2021;63:9-13,19].

While the case study presented in “An inside look at BC’s illicit drug market during the COVID-19 pandemic” [BCMJ 2021;63:9-13,19] may provide physicians who have limited knowledge of the illicit drug trade information about substance use, there are multiple problematic depictions of persons who use drugs (PWUD).