BC’s Decriminalization Experiment: A Potential Solution to the “Volatile and Dangerous” Drug Supply?
Breadcrumb Trail Links
Partly due to supply disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, street drugs are increasingly being laced with toxic or unknown ingredients, leading to drug users overdosing and dying
Author of the article:
Reuters
Anna Mehler Paperny
Published on 02/07/2023 • 4 minutes reading time
Join the conversation People hold banners at a march in Vancouver on International Overdose Awareness Day to remember those who have died during the overdose crisis and to demand a secure supply of illicit drugs. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/File
content of the article
TORONTO — A BC experiment to decriminalize small quantities of hard drugs could reduce stigma and police crashes for addicts, but does little to address a larger problem of overdose deaths from drugs adulterated with deadly ingredients.
advertising 2
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
SIGN UP TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES
Create an account or log in to continue your reading experience.
- Access items from across Canada with one account
- Share your thoughts and join the discussion in the comments
- Enjoy additional articles per month
- Receive email updates from your favorite authors
content of the article
British Columbia, at the epicenter of a drug poisoning crisis that has already claimed the lives of more than 32,000 Canadians since 2016, last week launched a three-year pilot program that would protect people found carrying less than 2.5 grams of drugs, such as meth and heroin, from criminal prosecution to be tracked .
By clicking the subscribe button, you agree to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails or any newsletter. Postmedia Network Inc | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300
Thanks for registering!
content of the article
However, doctors and drug user advocates argue that preventing overdose deaths also requires expanding a “safe supply” of medicines, allowing those at risk of overdose to obtain banned substances legally on prescription.
Partly due to supply disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, street drugs are increasingly being laced with toxic or unknown ingredients, leading to drug users overdosing and dying.
“There (are) no decriminalization policies that address the fact that supply is very, very variable and volatile and dangerous,” said Gillian Kolla, drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research.
advertising 3
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
content of the article
“If you want to influence the overdose crisis, you have to target supply.”
The rationale behind safe-of-care programs and other “harm reduction” initiatives is that people who use drugs will continue to do so, and offering them a safer option keeps them alive. Proponents say they are not intended as an alternative to addiction treatments, but as a complement to them.
In part, this reflects a broader move away from criminal charges as a deterrent to drug use and towards treating addiction as a health problem.
Nonetheless, expanding safe supply on a large scale would mean a sea change in the government’s approach to illicit substances, one that would include it in the provision and regulation of now illicit drugs.
Critics fear it could backfire by encouraging drug use and causing the drugs to be diverted for sale on the street, which doctors who prescribe drugs say rarely happens.
advertising 4
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
content of the article
Studies show that the programs can be successful. A 2021 British Columbia Center on Substance Use study of 42 participants in a program in Vancouver that gave out hydromorphone tablets — an opioid — found it reduced drug use on the street, the risk of overdose and health, improved well-being and pain management.
A 2016 study by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research found a 67 percent reduction in illicit drug use in a group treated with prescription heroin or diacetylmorphine and a 47.7 percent reduction in a group treated with the opioid been treated with methadone.
But not everyone in Canada advocates this approach: Alberta has emphasized a “recovery-focused” approach to addiction that favors more abstinence-based treatment.
advertising 5
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
content of the article
As part of this approach, people with addictions are encouraged to attend inpatient treatment centers and wean themselves off substances.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the conservative opposition party, said last week he would end BC’s plan if he were prime minister, arguing that BC’s de facto decriminalization has been in place for years and is “a complete disaster” and ” had been “hell on earth”.
Police in British Columbia file thousands of drug possession charges annually.
About 32,632 Canadians have died from opioid-related deaths since 2016, with a rate of 20.9 opioid-related deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, compared to a rate of 24.7 in the United States for that year.
Facing the challenge of an adulterated supply of illicit drugs before the United States, Canada has been quicker to adopt harm reduction tools to combat drug overdose cases, said Lindsey Richardson, a researcher at the BC Center on Substance Use.
advertising 6
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
content of the article
British Columbia has been at the forefront of testing new methods of dealing with the crisis, including opening North America’s first official, sanctioned controlled drug use website in 2003. Its latest program is being closely watched elsewhere.
Toronto also asked last year to decriminalize personal possession of illegal drugs, and the city says it is working with authorities to decide how to define that.
Decriminalization could change the lives of patients for the better for Scott MacDonald, the chief physician at the Providence Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver.
Many of them are on pharmaceutical-grade injectable heroin because they are severely addicted and cannot tolerate or respond to more conventional treatments, said MacDonald, who has 115 diacetylmorphine and hydromorphone patients there.
Some of them still buy street drugs. But he says they may now feel, “It’s safer to leave the house; it is safer to go to the grocery store; It’s safer to go to a clinic.”
But Ryan Maddeaux, who started using drugs as a teenager and continues to take them at age 44, says BC’s latest plan is of no help to him because he risks taking something deadly every time he buys street drugs.
“I don’t know what they are, don’t know the exact potency,” he said.
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Denny Thomas and Deepa Babington)
Share this article on your social network
Display 1
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
Comments
Postmedia strives to maintain a lively but civilized discussion forum and encourages all readers to share their opinions on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour to be moderated before they appear on the site. We ask that you keep your comments relevant and respectful. We’ve turned on email notifications – you’ll now receive an email when you get a reply to your comment, there’s an update on a comment thread you follow, or when a user you follow comments follows. For more information and details on how to customize your email settings, see our Community Guidelines.
Don’t miss interesting posts on Famousbio
