‘Decriminalizing’ is beside the point
‘Humanitarian disaster’ seems more accurate
If anyone doubted that the conversation around harm reduction for opioid addictions has changed dramatically, it came loud and clear from Ottawa last week: The federal government denied Toronto’s request to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs for personal use. And nobody much complained.
Associate Minister of Health Ya’ara Saks, who handles the mental health and addictions file, didn’t really bother getting specific about why. She didn’t need to, the D-word having come to connote all the opioid-related urban misery we see most famously in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
"(Saks) has determined that (Toronto’s proposal) does not adequately protect public health and maintain public safety,” her office explained in a statement. “This includes concerns with feasibility and ability for law enforcement to implement the proposed model, protection of youth, and lack of support from key players including the province of Ontario.”
Some harm-reduction proponents expressed disappointment. But none suggested the sky would fall ... or at least not any harder and further than it has already fallen. The latest federal data recorded 5,975 opioid overdose deaths nationwide from January to September last year, up eight per cent from the previous year.
It’s not one of those situations where the Liberals get away with something for which the Conservatives would be pilloried, either. The Progressive Conservative government at Queen’s Park strongly advised the city last week not to pursue decriminalization — hence the “lack of support from ... the province” Saks mentioned — and that wasn’t really a big deal, either. Not so long ago, I feel like Premier Doug Ford would have been called a murderer.
“The recent disastrous examples of British Columbia and other jurisdictions that have attempted this experiment are the latest examples that show decriminalization does not work,” Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Solicitor-general Michael Kerzner wrote to Dr. Eileen De Villa, Toronto’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. “Instead, it encourages dangerous behaviour in public spaces, victimizes innocent people and undermines law enforcement’s ability to protect our communities.”
I could spend a whole column pulling that apart, but I’ll just note again that every mainstream politician I’m aware of, including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, agrees addicts should be treated first and foremost as patients, not criminals.
I’ll note again that B.C. is the only Canadian jurisdiction to have decriminalized hard drugs, and yet Ontario suffered just as many opioid-overdose deaths per capita in the first nine months of last year as B.C., with Alberta nipping at their heels. I’ll note again that “decriminalization” only has to mean “it’s OK to shoot up in a playground” if we allow maniac judges the last word.
As frustrating as the logic is, though, we do seem to be coalescing around a useful common understanding that decriminalization isn’t the be-all or end-all of anything. No less than Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow — caricatured by her opponents as the gleeful harbinger of urban chaos — said as much recently, no doubt anticipating the city’s application was dead in the water but also making good sense.
Without adequate housing and treatment options, Chow told The Globe and Mail, it’s just a battle over a word.
That’s dead right. You can have supervised injection sites without decriminalization, as Toronto and many other cities do. You can have safer-supply opioid programs without decriminalization. No one is suggesting sending the cops out to round up addicts on the streets.
Indeed, when you look at the state of parts of this city on your average evening, the question of whether or not to decriminalize possession of hard drugs seems ludicrously moot.
I happened to be reading about Toronto’s failed decriminalization application over a beer at the indomitable Imperial Pub, established in 1944 on Dundas Street just east of Yonge, and an anchor of boozy stability in a city that constantly erases itself and starts over. That neighbourhood has never been salubrious. Nowadays, though, it’s pretty much dead at night but for the Imperial and the endless, grotesque parade of the addicted and otherwise downtrodden passing by the pub’s window.
A block west on Victoria Street, outside and across the street from one of Toronto’s supervised-injection sites — which closes at 10 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and 5 p.m. on Sunday — a small community of obviously desperate people congregates with their meagre worldly goods. As I left the Imperial, I witnessed two security guards shoo them out of an alcove, where they didn’t seem to be doing any harm except to themselves, and onto Dundas Street itself. Belongings were flung onto the sidewalk. People were staggering, limping, moving their wheelchairs along by foot. It was stomach-turning.
On a recent visit to a friend’s place on Queen Street, across from Moss Park, I came across two people in consecutive doorways shooting up. The view from my friend’s back deck late at night is, I am told, like something Danny Boyle might have cut from Trainspotting for being too over the top.
So what do we call this situation? “Criminalization” sure doesn’t cut it; you’d need police to pay any attention first. “Decriminalization” doesn’t work either, since that implies a deliberate, strategic choice.
I’d go with something like “humanitarian disaster,” because I would hope we could all agree on that. It’s natural people disagree on how best to tackle the issue. But the risk of dwelling on disagreement is that we simply become inured to this disaster as a reality of urban life — and not just in big cities like Toronto or Vancouver. We mustn’t let that happen.