Straight talk

GREEN MLA WANTS TALKS TO LEGALIZE HARD DRUGS

The leader of the B.C. Green party has said that the fentanyl crisis is a reason for Canada to have a national debate about legalizing drugs, including heroin.

“This is a very important discussion that we need to have,” Andrew Weaver told the Straight. “If you want to deal with organized crime in the drug area, legalization is the way forward. But we’re not ready for that here in Canada yet.”

Weaver is the MLA for Oak Bay– Gordon Head and a distinguished climate scientist. He explained that although studies show that there are benefits to legalizing drugs for both individual addicts and society as a whole—improving people’s physical health and reducing crime, for example—the general public requires more time and education to better understand those issues and the controversial policies to which they relate.

Weaver emphasized he would not want the legal distribution and sale of narcotics to occur without improved access to treatment. He said that all three levels of government would need to coordinate on complementary programs that must be deployed in conjunction with any legal system for the government distribution and sale of heroin.

“In isolation, no single policy like legalization or decriminalization is actually going to deal with the issue,” Weaver said. “Because there are a multitude of issues.”

Last year, 922 people in B.C. died of an illicit-drug overdose. The synthetic opioid fentanyl was detected in about 60 percent of those deaths.

Weaver said his opinions on legalization and his decision to call for a debate on the issue were partly inspired by Dr. Hedy Fry, the longtime Liberal MP for Vancouver Centre.

Last February, the Straight reported that Fry wants an open debate about legalizing narcotics in response to the fentanyl crisis.

“This is the discourse that we must have now,” Fry said. “Nobody is ramming anything down anybody’s throats. I’m not saying ‘Let’s legalize.’ But I am saying ‘It’s time we discussed this, openly and publicly.’ ”

The previous month, Don Davies, the NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway and Opposition health critic, similarly told the Straight he wants an open debate about legalizing drugs.

“I am in favour of starting that dialogue,” he said. The park board has voted to ban Vancouver’s annual 4/20 festival from all public lands it controls, but that won’t stop the event from happening at Sunset Beach this April 20, an organizer says.

“Not probably, definitely, it is still happening at Sunset Beach,” Dana Larsen told the Straight. “There is no question.”

In a telephone interview, he said he had hoped that commissioners would approve a permit for the event to facilitate cooperation between organizers and authorities.

“All the vote does is remove the park board’s ability to regulate our event,” Larsen said. “But staff, they just want to make sure that this event is safe and peaceful and goes off without any problems, and we’ll still work with them closely to make sure that happens.”

Last year, the annual protest and celebration of all things marijuana relocated from its long-time home on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery to its new waterfront location in the city’s West End.

In a telephone interview, NPA parks commissioner Sarah Kirby-yung said that prompted complaints from area residents. She stressed that the vote was not about any position for or against marijuana but was simply a matter of upholding city bylaws that forbid smoking in public parks.

“Even if it were legal, we would not permit the event because we have a nonsmoking bylaw and it is not something that people want in their park,” she said.

Larsen noted that, in fact, quite a few Vancouver residents do want 4/20 hosted at Sunset Beach. According to an estimate by the Vancouver Police Department, the event attracted a peak crowd of some 25,000 people in 2016.

“If it was an alcohol event, they would have loved to give us a permit,” Larsen argued. “Cannabis events are safe and peaceful with no problems; alcohol events are full of problems. But they’ll license the boozers and they won’t license the tokers.”

Kirby-yung remains optimistic organ- izers will find a home for the event that is not on park-board property.

“I think that is where the energy should be focused,” she said. The simmering dispute between the Vancouver park board and community-centre associations over the operation of recreation facilities has been prevented from spilling over.

Park commissioners have deferred a decision on a new joint operating agreement that community associations previously vowed to reject. Commissioners were supposed to vote on a deal Monday (March 6) but chose to send the contract back to staff. More important, the board heeded the call by community associations to have lawyers from both parties discuss outstanding disagreements.

“We really want this to be a careful document that everybody feels they’re respected and that they’re heard,” vice chair Erin Shum told the Straight in a phone interview.

According to Shum, a new version is expected to be presented to the board on April 10. With city and community-association lawyers working together, Shum said that both sides may finally come to an agreement.

The past and current park boards have been trying to seal a new pact with 20 community-centre associations regarding their joint operation of recreation complexes across the city. In 2013, the park board at the time tried to evict six associations from their respective centres but was stopped by a court injunction.

Most of the existing operating agreements date back to 1979. The city has been trying to revamp these deals since the 1990s.

A majority of the community associations have told the present board that language in the current draft of a new agreement undermines their independence and their ability to serve their constituencies.

Sherry Breshears, president of the Hastings Community Association, said that she is “encouraged” by the move taken by park commissioners on March 6. “They listened to us when we were trying to communicate to them very clearly that we need to resolve some issues from the legal perspective,” she told the