Effective immediately, it is illegal to use hard drugs in public in BC

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Illicit drug use is once again illegal in public spaces, after Ottawa agreed to BC’s request to roll back parts of its decriminalization experiment.

Harm reduction advocates said the new edict “guts” decriminalization and will push drug users back into the shadows, where they are more likely to suffer a fatal overdose.

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Federal Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks announced in Ottawa on Tuesday that BC’s application to recriminalize public drug use had been approved, meaning that, effective immediately, police will have the power to intervene when see illicit drug use in public spaces, including inside hospitals. , in transit and in parks.

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Premier David Eby announced on April 26 that the province had submitted an urgent request to Health Canada to amend British Columbia’s exemption under the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The original exemption, granted on January 31, 2023, allowed for the decriminalization of small quantities of drugs such as heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.

“This is a health crisis, not a criminal one,” Saks told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday. “That said, communities must be safe. “People need to have confidence in it in their own communities to be able to move freely and feel comfortable.”

BC Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said Tuesday the province sent a letter to police departments informing them the changes are now in effect. In the coming days, the province will send guidelines to police that people in the state should only be arrested for simple possession of illicit drugs in “exceptional circumstances.”

When police are called to an area for a complaint about “illegal and dangerous drug use,” Farnworth said police will first ask the person to leave and will only confiscate the drugs or arrest the person if they do not comply.

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A Vancouver police spokesperson, Sgt. Steve Addison, said the goal is not to “further stigmatize drug users and we are committed to a compassionate, health-oriented approach that supports people with substance use disorders while addressing the concerns we have heard loud and clear from community members. . “We do not support incarcerating people simply because they have a substance use disorder.”

People are still allowed to use illicit drugs in homes or places where someone is legally sheltered or at overdose prevention sites and places with drug control services.

Farnworth disputed that the changes would effectively end decriminalization, saying that “decriminalization was never about using drugs in public, ever.”

Garth Mullins, an organizer with the Vancouver Area Drug Users Network, said the changes will “take us all back into the shadows and back into the alleys.”

“People who consume in public do so because they have no other alternative. Because there is no (overdose prevention site) in their area, because they have no housing,” he said.

BC Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside said there are 50 overdose prevention sites in BC and the province is working to expand those sites to allow snorting, which has become the preferred consumption method.

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BC United addictions critic Elenore Sturko said the problem with the BC government’s plan is that “they’re putting this in the hands of the police, telling them to get on with the people. But where are they moving people?

He said BC should follow Portugal’s model, which includes involuntary treatment for drug users.

“Right now we have a system that has completely failed from the beginning,” said Sturko, a former police officer. “They didn’t have the services we needed to… even give us a chance to be successful.”

The radical shift in decriminalization comes after weeks of concerns about drug use in hospitals that the British Columbia Nurses Union says puts its members at risk of exposure to toxic drugs.

Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department and president of the BC Police Chiefs Association, told a House of Commons Health committee last month that the BC NDP’s decriminalization program has tied the hands of the police to respond to problematic drug use both in public and in hospitals.

Last fall, the BC NDP passed the Restriction of Public Use of Illegal Substances Act in an attempt to crack down on public drug use, but it has been blocked by the BC Supreme Court pending a challenge constitutional.

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Corey Ranger, president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, which sought the injunction and launched the constitutional challenge, said in a statement that he is “deeply concerned and frustrated by (Tuesday’s) announcement to recriminalize people who run increased risk of fatal drug poisoning. .”

Ranger said it represents an “inappropriate circumvention of the BC Supreme Court order and will directly jeopardize the health and safety of BC’s most marginalized.” Ranger said restrictions on hospital use will deter people from accessing health services, resulting in more isolated and covert use.

“We know that criminalizing drug use will lead to irreparable harm, and we know that irreparable harm can mean death,” he said.

Critics of decriminalization say that, a year after the experiment began, it has not been effective in stemming the tide of drug deaths.

Data from the BC Coroners Service shows that 2,511 people died from toxic illegal drugs in 2023, an average of seven people per day. It is the highest number since a public health emergency was declared in 2016.

Coroners Service figures published on Tuesday show 192 people died from drug toxicity in March, a decrease of 11 per cent on the same month last year, and 572 people have died up to the end of March this year.

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