B.C.’s retreat on drug decriminalization spurs concern about fates of similar plans

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British Columbia’s decision to roll back part of its landmark experiment with decriminalizing possession of small amounts of hard drugs could affect similar efforts elsewhere in the country, experts say.

In Toronto, for example, officials have asked Health Canada to approve a decriminalization plan that is even more sweeping than what was tested in B.C.

B.C. Premier David Eby announced Friday that his government has asked Health Canada to amend an exemption to federal drug law so that police can once again arrest people for using small amounts of illicit substances in public spaces, including in hospitals and restaurants. There has been a public and political outcry that blamed the decriminalization pilot project for a growing sense of disorder in B.C. communities.

Adults will still be allowed to possess up to 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine or methamphetamine if they use the substances at home, in a tent in a sanctioned park, or at one of the province’s safe drug consumption sites, the Premier said.

Toronto and other jurisdictions considering decriminalization should be “watching and learning and heeding the lessons from B.C.,” said Benedikt Fischer, a senior researcher on substance abuse and public policy at the University of the Fraser Valley. “B.C. has paid a high price for the roller coaster this experiment has taken.”

Dr. Fischer is concerned that the backlash in B.C. will lead other places to abandon plans for decriminalization. He said decriminalizing small amounts of hard drugs is a sensible policy if well-regulated to protect the wider public and accompanied by a significant expansion of safe, indoor places for people with substance-use disorder to take their drugs.

“Criminalization in itself makes no sense,” he added. “It’s bad policy, it’s outdated, it’s the enemy of health-oriented drug policy.”

B.C.’s three-year decriminalization pilot project, which began on Jan. 31, 2023, was 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.

The tragedy, driven largely by the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, shows no signs of abating. Last year, 2,511 people in B.C. died from toxic drugs, the largest number in history reported to the province’s coroners and a 5-per-cent increase over the year before. Paramedics in B.C. responded to more than 42,000 calls for overdoses or drug poisonings last year, a 25-per-cent increase over 2022.

The crisis has not spared other parts of Canada, including its largest city. Last March, in a letter signed by the city’s medical officer of health, city manager and police chief, the municipality proposed a “made-in-Toronto” solution that would decriminalize all controlled drugs and substances for personal use for all people in the city, including youth.

Health Canada is still reviewing the Toronto proposal, which is the only application of its kind currently before the regulator, according to a spokeswoman for Ya’ara Saks, the federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

The minister’s office also confirmed in an e-mailed statement that Health Canada is reviewing Mr. Eby’s request for an amendment to the B.C. exemption, but declined to provide a timeline.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who was elected three months after Toronto sent its revised proposal for decriminalization to Health Canada, was not available for an interview Sunday. Her office declined to make any comment on B.C.’s decision.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday, but Mr. Ford’s views on decriminalization are no secret. He called Toronto’s proposal “the craziest thing I’ve heard” on a Toronto radio show last year.

And last month, provincial Health Minister Sylvia Jones dismissed a call for decriminalization of simple possession of hard drugs from Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Kieran Moore, which was contained in his annual report to the legislature.

Lindsey Richardson, an associate professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia who holds a Canada Research Chair in social inclusion and health equity, said it would be a shame if B.C.’s experience led other jurisdictions considering decriminalization to back away.

“I think that’s obviously a concern because, without an understanding of the nuance, people will think, ‘Oh, decriminalization fails, we shouldn’t do it,’ and that isn’t what the key takeaway should be,” she said.

“I think the key takeaway should be that decriminalization is difficult, but it’s important and we should learn from people who are trying.”

Overdoses aren’t the only metric on which decriminalization should be judged, she added. Dr. Richardson said preliminary research shows arrests for simple possession are down significantly in B.C. since the pilot program began, and that was one of the program’s goals.

But for Meldon Kahan, a professor of family medicine at the University of Toronto and the former medical director of the substance-use service at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, B.C.’s about-face underscores the shortcomings of the province’s model.

He pointed out that the use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are all regulated in public, and said it was no surprise that allowing open use of hard drugs provoked a backlash. “It should have been regulated towards the ends of good public health and public safety. That never happened,” Dr. Kahan said.

After the pilot began, B.C. tried to make drug use illegal in public places with its own legislation, but the Harm Reduction Nurses Association challenged the bill in court. Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in December that if the laws were enacted, “irreparable harm will be caused.”

Brittany Graham, the executive director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said that though she hasn’t seen the specifics, the proposed change currently only seems to affect those who have no home and are living in poverty.

“People cannot afford housing any more,” she said. “This is a housing issue, not a decriminalization issue.”

With reports from The Canadian Press