BC United is calling on the province to allow municipalities to make their own bylaws surrounding hard drug use in public spaces.
The City of Kamloops recently introduced a motion to restrict drug consumption in public parks, while the City of Penticton is also pressing forward with a proposed bylaw that would ban the consumption of illicit drugs in public places.
“They could have implemented a province-wide strategy to help municipalities and we could have used that to guide people to services as well,” MLA Elenore Sturko with BC United told Global News.
“You could have considered a provincial ticketing system. What you have now is a patchwork and municipalities considering their own bylaws.”
B.C. has embarked on a three-year experiment with the decriminalization of small quantities of certain illegal drugs without criminal penalty.
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Hard drugs are still banned on school grounds and at child-care facilities but parks are exempt.
Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas has proposed a bylaw that would add playgrounds and areas around parks frequented by kids to the list of locations where drug possession is still banned.
Earlier this year, Campbell River passed, then withdrew, a pair of bylaws that would have banned public consumption of illicit drugs and imposed a fine of up to $200.
Those bylaws faced a court challenge from the Pivot Legal Society, which argued the proposal undermined the purpose of decriminalizing people who use drugs and could force them underground where they were at higher risk of a fatal overdose.
“Criminalizing public drug use will not stop people from using drugs—it will just make it more dangerous. In this way, the bylaws mimic the harms of criminalization and frustrate the aims of decriminalization,” the group said in a statement after the Campbell River bylaws were repealed.
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