Advocates of drug users staged a rally in Vancouver Wednesday, raising concerns that new legislation targeting open drug use will further stigmatize people with addictions.
The provincial government announced Thursday that it has introduced legislation to expand areas where police can enforce consumption. It would give police across the province authority to ask an individual to move on from the area or to stop consuming an illegal substance in the area.
“We are seeing (overdose prevention sites), we are seeing harm reduction be attacked and rolled back all across the nation,” said Vince Tao on Wednesday, a community organizer with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU).
Last month, the province expanded restrictions to include playgrounds, spray pools and skate parks, while possession or use on school grounds was already banned.
Those moves came amid controversy over the province’s three-year drug decriminalization pilot project, which allows adults to possess 2.5 grams of cocaine, heroin, MDMA and methamphetamine without arrest or confiscation.
The initiative is intended to keep drug users out of a cycle of prison and crime, while reducing the stigma of accessing treatment.
“What’s critical is that we keep people alive, and that means overdose prevention, and that’s the purpose of the decriminalization measures we’ve taken, it’s not a reason to use drugs, use hard drugs, in playgrounds or in front of stores, doorways of stores and other places.” Health Minister Adrian Dix said.
VANDU, however, argues that the provinces’ escalating moves to restrict where drugs can be used will undo the potential benefits of decriminalization.
Drug users, it argues, will be once again forced into hiding, where they are at a higher risk of fatally overdosing.
“For a government during a poisoning toxic drug crisis in its seventh year to backtrack on its own policies to save lives and using language that demonizes our communities, that further entrenches us in stigma, this will kill people,” Tao said.
The BC United opposition has pledged to end decriminalization in B.C. if elected next year.
The party has also repeatedly called on the NDP government to support businesses affected by open drug use, and to respond to parents upset about drug use in their neighbourhoods.
‘The entire decriminalization pilot project has been a failure. We’ve seen an increase in overdoses during this entire time,” BC United House Leader Todd Stone told Global News.
“It’s pretty disappointing that communities were forced to deal with this on their own for so long.”
British Columbia remains on track for another deadly year from toxic drugs, with 1,600 lives lost in 2023 as of August, according to the BC Coroners Service.
The number of deaths set new monthly records for much of the year, though bucked the trend in August, with 174 fatalities — the fewest since June 0f 2022.
Unregulated drug toxicity has become the leading cause of death in the province for people aged between 10 and 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined.
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