Chief slams B.C. drug policies

‘A joke’ that is costing lives

Ronnie Chickite, chief of the We Wai Kai Nation, is upset — with good reason. In February, approximately 3,500 diverted safer supply hydromorphone pills were discovered in a drug bust on one his nation’s reserves near Campbell River, B.C. Chickite says although he had previously been aware of safer supply diversion, the discovery of so many pills in his community invoked “shocking disbelief.”

“Safer supply” refers to the practice of prescribing free recreational drugs as an alternative to potentially tainted street substances. While advocates claim that this practice saves lives, critics counter that clients regularly divert their taxpayer-funded drugs to the black market, leading to new addictions and overdoses.

Unlike some Indigenous communities, the We Wai Kai Nation has minimized alcohol and drug abuse among its members with relative success. Rather than “destigmatizing” drugs, the nation’s leadership has invested in recovery-oriented services while restricting the local supply of illicit substances.

Gates block access to the main reserves and, although most members are given unique buzzer codes to let themselves or others in, known drug dealers are given a single access card instead, limiting their ability to invite “guests.” After this system was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chickite saw an immediate effect — the number of cars making daily visits to a local drug house dropped from more than 20 to about one.

But while the community has found inventive ways to undermine drug dealers, shutting them down entirely has proven onerous. Chickite said it took three years for the RCMP to investigate and raid the house featured in the recent safer supply bust, where fentanyl and meth were also discovered, even though the police were called “tons of times.”

And despite herculean efforts, it appears that the community’s addiction issues are slowly deteriorating.

Diverted pharmaceutical opioids have been a “huge, huge issue,” Chickite said. For as long as he can remember, some community members have faked illnesses to secure and resell prescription drugs. But while diversion may not be a new problem, safer supply has increased the amount of opioids that can be funnelled into the black market. Discovering 3,500 pills in one house, as happened last month, was previously unheard of.

Chickite, who strongly disagrees with politicians and activists who portray pharmaceutical opioids as “safe,” describes B.C.’S drug policies as “a joke.” Members of the We Wai Kai Nation have developed serious addictions due to such pills and, once hooked, many have escalated to using stronger substances, sometimes with fatal results.

“All these safe supply pills are the ones that are alarming because lots of times nobody knows how powerful they are,” he said. “I don’t think they’re safe.”

Community members, including his own daughter, have also told him that youth are increasingly accessing diverted pharmaceutical drugs, including safer supply. It appears that children as young as 12 are using (and overdosing on) diverted opioids, and there are now 16-year-olds in dire need of rehab.

However, not only have drug decriminalization and “safer supply” exacerbated problems in Chickite’s community, provincial officials are not investing in local Indigenous-led recovery services despite repeatedly promising to do so.

Those who seek addiction treatment often have to wait, as there is simply not enough service capacity to meet demand. To address this problem, the We Wai Kai Nation recently used $1.5 million of its own money to open an Indigenous-informed treatment centre.

Chickite hopes that this centre will be integrated into other rehabilitative programs, such as supportive housing and therapy that addresses the intergenerational traumas of residential schools. “All the (community members) that have gone to the place where there’s a second stage, you know, turned their lives completely around,” he said.

While the B.C. government says it is investing in treatment centres, no public funding has materialized for the We Wai Kai Nation’s project — even though officials repeatedly promised Chickite over the past year that some money would arrive.

Chickite said his nation’s entire band council was, from the beginning, “entirely against” decriminalizing drugs as they anticipated it would only “make things worse” — but no one listened to them. While drugs are still criminalized on the We Wai Kai Nation’s reserves, the free-for-all in surrounding areas has had spillover harms.

One of the drug dealers on his reserve now simply makes more trips while carrying smaller amounts of drugs that he can legally possess, the chief said. “It’s probably a little tougher for him and his business to have to do multiple trips, but now he’s legally allowed to do that.”

The normalization of open drug use has also been difficult to handle. Chickite noted that, when he was younger, adults would drive their kids all the way to downtown Vancouver to show them the horrible effects of drug addiction. “Now I can simply drive right down the bottom of the hill from my house.”

“To me,” he said, “it’s kind of crappy that you can get charged for holding an open can of beer, but now you can literally smoke whatever kind of illicit drug you want and you’re OK.”