Drug-decriminalization pilot will continue, premier says
The B.C. NDP used its majority on Monday to block a BC United motion to vote on scrapping the three-year drug decriminalization pilot, days after saying it wants to ban drug use in public areas and hospitals.
Premier David Eby said while the change to ban public use of illicit drugs is needed, there’s been no indication the experiment, which began in January 2023, will end early.
“It is very clear that the public drug use that we’re seeing, some of the problematic conduct that we were seeing in communities, is unacceptable to British Columbians and it’s unacceptable to me, and we had to address it,” Eby said at a housing announcement in Langley on Monday.
But Eby said arresting someone struggling with addiction and taking them to court does not deal with addiction or save lives. “It is a significant use of time, energy and money that could be better put toward treatment or rehabilitation.”
On Friday, the province — which in 2021 asked the federal government to “decriminalize” possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use — asked the federal government to amend its exemption from drug laws to “recriminalize” both possession and use in public places for public safety reasons.
Police and Crown counsel will be encouraged to focus on individuals who are causing a threat to public safety, said Eby.
Use of personal amounts of hard drugs in private residences, as well as in shelters and overdose-prevention sites, would continue to be allowed.
Toronto has also requested an exemption from Health Canada. Toronto Public Health said in a statement that it is monitoring B.C’s experience, adding that in its proposed model, public drug use would remain illegal.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford repeated his call Monday for Toronto to drop that application, saying he’s spoken to Eby about how things have gone in B.C. and “it’s turned into a nightmare.”
But Eby said other jurisdictions can learn from B.C.’s experience when it comes to public drug use.
“There are important lessons to be learned on where we are to date that don’t need to be repeated in other places,” he said.
The Conservatives lost an attempt Monday to hold an emergency debate on the drug crisis.
Harm-reduction activists have balked at the province’s proposed amendment banning public drug use, arguing it will drive drug users to hide their addictions from police, and some will die as a result.
The 4,000-member strong Moms Stop the Harm was set to testify before a federal standing committee on health on Monday to urge parliamentarians to “stop the angry, harmful and polarizing rhetoric and social media posts and to listen to people who use drugs when developing drug policy.”
Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Leslie McBain of Salt Spring Island, who lost a son to toxic drugs, called the proposed ban a “step backward.”
“I think the government is making a mountain out of a molehill for the number of places and times when people use publicly that there has been issues.”
The province initially attempted to ban drug consumption in parks and beaches through legislation, but that was suspended by the B.C. Supreme Court after a Charter challenge by the Harm Reduction Nurses Association.
Eby said he was advised last week the challenge could last more than a year, adding federal laws are less likely to be successfully challenged.
Corey Ranger of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association said the province’s “end-run” around the group’s court challenge “pushes people who use drugs out of sight to covert and isolated use. … We don’t want people to die hidden in alleyways.”
The move to ban drug consumption in public places follows a public backlash against open drug use, police complaints that they don’t have the tools they need to keep public order, and nurses reporting drug use and drug deals in hospital rooms.
The challenge is to keep people who use drugs alive “to get them the opportunity to get into treatment to rebuild their lives,” but safety for all must come first, said Eby.
Since the toxic drug crisis was declared a provincial health emergency in 2016, more than 14,000 have died.
The province has also been opening new treatment and recovery centres and services as well as trying to open more overdose-prevention sites.
While politicians debated the wreckage of B.C.’s drug decriminalization experiment Monday, traipsing through the background of the “pilot project” gives a clue to where it went wrong.
There was a huge amount of work that went into the province’s formal request to the federal minister of health to decriminalize. Ottawa spent months assessing it, and the approval in 2022 was a comprehensive document, as was its letter of requirements as to how B.C. was expected to manage decriminalization.
But in all that work product, there is scant mention of the specific problem that forced Premier David Eby’s retreat on Friday. That is: The uncontrolled, uncontrollable increase in public drug use that quickly accompanied decriminalization.
The obvious focus of concern was saving the lives of drug users. It was about destigmatizing addiction, shepherding addicted people into treatment rather than criminal courts and ending the catch and release charade that police and the courts have been running for years.
But widespread legal open use, with all the resulting alarming side effects, quickly became one of the dominant concerns. Very few members of the united front of politicians, health experts and police who advocated decriminalization seem to have seen it coming.
Eby said Monday the safety of the broader community is nonnegotiable and is as important as the safety of those addicted to drugs.
But try to find that anywhere in the documentation
The actual approval of the request doesn’t explicitly mention public safety. The federal letter of requirements stressed a number of principles like ongoing engagement, increasing the health system’s capacity to treat users, and public engagement.
But it was mute on anything to do with protecting taxpayers from having to deal with people using drugs in public spaces. The section on law enforcement readiness urges B.C. to address vague “relevant concerns and risk mitigation,” without identifying any of them.
The letter states: “There are various tools available to address concerns and unintended consequences that arise.”
Whatever is in that toolbox, it remains unopened. Eby bolted and is now asking the federal government to suspend the major part of decriminalization.
He said Friday that the compassion for people who are struggling “does not mean that anything goes.”
So he wants public use of illicit drugs recriminalized. Use will only be condoned in private homes or treatment centres.
Eby said the unforeseen challenge was that when police tell people smoking toxic drugs in public places that it is not appropriate, “they aren’t able to back up that request with the authority that they need.
“It’s very clear in hindsight that those authorities should have been there.”
There will also be a crackdown on people now using dangerous drugs at will in hospitals, often through smoking, which puts everyone at risk.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said many more hospital security staff will be hired on top the 320 added in the last year, along with more health workers as needed. People with addictions will still get the drugs they crave, but under medical supervision, he said.
Eby started Monday by telling reporters: “To the extent we can avoid politicizing this health crisis, the better off we’re going to be.”
Fat chance. Opposition critics launched on him Monday following the retreat. The bigger problem is that decriminalization isn’t saving lives, they said. Last year set another record for overdose deaths, even with decriminalization in effect for 11 months.
BC United Leader Kevin Falcon said the NDP is asking for a band-aid to put on its self-inflicted policy disaster and the experiment should be abandoned. The opposition also upped the pressure to end the unwitnessed safe supply program, where some people with dependencies trusted to use drugs supplied by pharmacies are reselling or trading them on the black market.
A year ago Eby told the legislature: “If it’s not working the way we want it to, we won’t continue it.”
But he’s not living up to that assurance. His government is trying to amend a federal exemption to drug laws and carry on with the fragmentary remnants of what was first envisioned.
That will turn decriminalization into even more of a farce than it now is. It looks like pretending the pilot project is still flying is easier than admitting the government, the doctors and the police bought into an approach in desperation, without fully appreciating the huge downside.