Ottawa wants more data on rates of substance use, treatment capacity and how police would confront people using illicit drugs in public as Health Canada considers B.C.’s request to recriminalize open consumption in places such as parks and beaches.
Jennifer Whiteside, British Columbia’s Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, said in the legislature Wednesday that her office had responded within hours to her federal counterpart’s call for this extra information before Ottawa amends the drug law exemption underpinning the province’s pilot project in decriminalization.
Neither the province nor Ya’ara Saks, federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister, released copies of Wednesday’s official correspondence, but Ms. Whiteside’s ministry sent a statement saying the information included “data on substance use and care as well as possible guidance to police.”
Last Friday, Premier David Eby announced the policy reversal, citing recent reports that people were using drugs in hospitals and restaurants, making health care workers and other staff feel unsafe. He also said he requested the recriminalization of illicit opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA after the realization that a constitutional challenge stopping his government from banning public consumption might drag on for another year.
With a B.C. election looming this fall, provincial and federal conservative politicians have attacked Mr. Eby for supporting the decriminalization project, which is an attempt to respond to an opioid and toxic street drug crisis that has killed more than 14,000 people since the province declared a public-health emergency in 2016.
B.C.’s coming rollback has also spurred concern from drug policy experts who worry the political and public vilification will hurt chances that Health Canada will approve Toronto’s proposal to decriminalize all controlled drugs and substances for personal use in the country’s largest city.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre posted a letter on social media Wednesday asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reject Toronto’s request, which is the only other decriminalization-related application Health Canada is reviewing.
Mr. Eby batted away criticism from opposition politicians in the B.C. Legislature Wednesday that his decriminalization plan had failed, repeating that the rollback would increase public safety. Decriminalization would still apply in people’s homes and at drug-checking or supervised consumption sites.
Ms. Saks recently said that – just a year into a three-year project – it is too early to judge whether decriminalization had been successful in reducing the stigma and harms related to these substances as well as improving access to health and social services for users.
But, she told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that her government understands B.C.’s request is urgent and Mr. Trudeau pledged to work with the province on this adjustment.
Drug policy experts have lauded B.C.’s shift away from criminalizing drug use but have noted, with overdose deaths still rising, that the policy does little to improve the direct causes of fatal drug use.
Retiring chief coroner of B.C. Lisa Lapointe said earlier this year it is estimated that 225,000 people in the province access their drugs from the toxic, illicit market, putting them all at risk. She said 70 per cent of those who died last year were between the ages of 30 and 59, and more than three-quarters were men. The highest rates of death were in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and in Hope, a community of about 6,000 at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley.
Thousands of people have died preventable deaths since the emergency was declared, Ms. Lapointe said, because of the focus on policing and punishment instead of the underlying reasons for drug use such as pain, trauma and mental-health issues.
With reports from Justine Hunter in Victoria, Marieke Walsh in Ottawa and The Canadian Press
Mike Hager