As the B.C. government deals with two failed policies designed to address the toxic drug crisis, a worker on the front lines of the worsening situation in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside says politicians have been tackling the wrong problem for years.
Earlier this month, Premier David Eby admitted the three-year decriminalization pilot was a failure.
“We are not going back to the old policy of decriminalized public drug use in British Columbia,” Eby said on January 6. “It didn’t work.”
On Jan. 14, Minister of Health Josie Osborne confirmed the province will not be asking the federal government to renew the exemption that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of hard drugs.
Since Jan. 31, 2023, adults in B.C. have been allowed to carry up to 2.5 grams of drugs like meth or cocaine without facing arrest – but public and police complaints about street disorder prompted the province to restrict where possession was permitted.
Osborne said the program did not deliver the results the government had hoped for, and decriminalization will come to an end Jan. 31.
Effective Dec. 30, 2025, the B.C. government also rolled back its safer supply program to a witness model.
Anyone with a prescription for alternatives to illicit drugs must now take their dose in front of a pharmacist or another medical professional.
The move followed the B.C. government’s announcement early last year that it was overhauling its safe supply program to make sure prescribed medications are being used by the people they are intended for.
Get weekly health news
While the health minister said the province knew people had benefited from prescribed alternatives such as hydromorphone, which were first introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also aware of concerns the medications were being diverted and ending up in the wrong hands.
The Feb. 2025 policy shift came after the BC Conservatives leaked a briefing unit from the Ministry of Health that had been provided by the police, which showed the ministry had been investigating an alleged scheme involving “incentives” paid by dozens of pharmacies to patients, doctors and housing providers.
“We haven’t seen any improvement down here in terms of businesses and the overall situation,” Jillian Skeet told Global News.
Skeet, who assists in managing three privately owned single room occupancy (SROs) buildings, said the B.C. government and its recently appointed Downtown Eastside advisor, Larry Campbell, need to understand what the area’s problems are.
“We have had governments for decades who have been trying to solve the wrong problem,” Skeet said in a recent interview. “They always look at the problem on the Downtown Eastside as a housing problem, that the housing is inadequate.”
Private SRO owners, Skeet said, are often referred tenants who are struggling with severe mental health issues, yet who receive little to no medical support.
Skeet said a recently renovated SRO unit in one of the buildings she manages was destroyed in six weeks after an individual with complex challenges, whom they were not made aware of during the screening process, was accepted as a tenant.
It’s a recurring scenario, she said, when tenants battling mental illness are moved into private rooms without the appropriate supports.
In another building, a tenant is still living in a unit compromised by severe hoarding and has refused help, Skeet said.
“The problem is we’ve got untreated mental illness and addiction and a large criminal element that makes it very, very difficult to provide stable housing to people,” said Skeet.
Vancouver Police Chief Const. Steve Rai said his department has been a leader in progressive drug policy for decades, recognizing that substance-use disorders require a health-led approach, not a criminal one.
Faced with a years-long toxic and deadly drug crisis, Rai said police, who were initially willing to support decriminalization recommended and led by health professionals, now believe ending the pilot project is the right decision.
“Decriminalization of simple possession, combined with safe supply and harm reduction measures, was not matched with sufficient investments in prevention, drug education, access to treatment, or support for appropriate enforcement,” Rai said in a Jan. 15 post on X. “Because of that, decriminalization created unintended harm to our community that outweighed any benefits.”
In an interview on Friday, Rai said the toxic drug crisis remains a public health emergency that cannot be resolved by policing alone.
“It’s not going to get better by just wishing it away,” Rai said in reference to the Downtown Eastside.
The city’s top cop said he has met with Campbell, who was hired by the province to “convene and co-ordinate partners in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) with the aim of improving the quality of life for all people who live and work in the neighbourhood”.
The former Canadian senator’s roots in the DTES date back more than 50 years, and Rai said he is confident the former drug cop, chief coroner and Vancouver mayor who oversaw the city’s first safe injection site, will provide an accurate perspective on what police and other front-line workers are seeing.
“You need the back-end supports and we need to put the resources in there to get people the help they need so it’s not a uniform that’s showing up as the first line of defence and it’s just a revolving door,” Rai said.
Global News requested an interview with Campbell, who is more than halfway through his six-month $92,000 contract, but we have yet to receive a response from Eby’s office.
Comments