By Chris Beach

The Northern View

The Northern View#43: Positive Step in Decriminalization

May 8, 2024 | 3:15 PM

Last week the BC government announced they would end drug use and possession in public places like parks, school grounds, on public transit and in hospitals.

Mayors of large, medium and small cities from across the political spectrum have welcomed this decision to amend the province’s three year-old decriminalization pilot.

While this should make spaces more “public” again so citizens and families can feel safer and more comfortable using them, this will not solve the drug overdose crisis that continues to plague every corner of the province.

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In order to save more lives, and really put a dent in the crisis, the BC government needs to make more changes.

Municipal police chiefs still say it is much too difficult and complicated for drug addicts to get into treatment.

And this was the primary failure in the recently ended Oregon state decriminalization pilot: Many addicts couldn’t negotiate the complex bureaucratic framework to find a place in subsidized treatment.

When you’re addicted to drugs, living on the street, malnourished and in poor health, and possibly freezing, you need to be able to make one phone call, or get one ride to a treatment center once you’ve made that bold decision to get help.

In Portugal, where addicts were not given free reign to do drugs wherever they wanted, the much lauded drug policy model there was initially very successful: Addicts were channeled into good quality rehab programs rather than going to jail after committing crimes.

This worked and countless lives were saved. But once that program lost its teeth and funding by emphasizing harm reduction over high quality treatment, the system began to fall apart.

This NDP government needs to muster the political will to take lessons learned from Oregon and Portugal and make tough but necessary decisions that will further increase public safety and save lives by enabling more drug addicts to get into effective treatment. Is there a chance this can happen before the October election?

Maybe… after the October election? Highly doubtful… but I hope I’m wrong. I’m Chris Beach and this is the Northern View.

Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.