British Columbia’s premier is signaling he’s open to a province-wide approach to addressing open drug use in public areas, as the City of Nanaimo joins a growing list of municipalities looking at bylaws to restrict the practice.
It comes as B.C. continues its three-year experiment with decriminalization of possession of small quantities of certain illicit drugs.
On Tuesday, Nanaimo city council voted to have staff look at options to regulate the use of controlled substances in public places.
The city joins Kamloops, which has already passed such a bylaw, and Maple Ridge, Campbell River, Penticton and Prince George who are also exploring the approach.
“There is great concerns expressed from families, tourists, business operators of open drug use in every nook and cranny,” Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog told Global News.
“It is disturbing for people.”
After months of pressure from some B.C. mayors and the Official Opposition, Premier David Eby said Tuesday his government was open to a provincial approach, rather than a patchwork of municipal bylaws.
“The message we’re getting from mayors is that they would like the province to take this on as an integrated project, that we have more capacity to deal with for example the public health implications of different restrictions,” Eby told reporters.
“We’re happy to work with them on that and we will be doing so, I’ve asked the minister of public safety and the minister of mental health and addiction to work with their teams, with local governments, to prepare a proposal for us to be able to address this at a provincial level.”
B.C.’s decriminalization initiative is meant to reduce the stigma drug users face and keep them out of a cycle of incarceration and crime related to addiction.
The initiative allows the possession of up to 2.5 grams of drugs including heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA. It directs police not to confiscate drugs, and to instead hand out resource cards on where people can access services in their community.
Under the plan, drugs remain banned on school grounds, at licensed child care facilities and at airports.
BC United Leader Kevin Falcon said it should be an “easy decision” to expand those restrictions to other public areas frequented by children and families.
“This is exactly why we voted against decriminalization, because the NDP are careening down a risky experiment without having the proper guardrails in place,” Falcon said.
“We’ve been very clear that … at minimum we have to protect our parks, playgrounds and beaches, especially as our kids are coming out of school in the next few weeks … we cannot have them exposed to open drug use of heroin, crack cocaine, fentanyl and all the other dangerous drugs.”
Along with concerns over public drug use, B.C.’s decriminalization approach has been criticized for not being paired with adequate access to treatment resources or safer supply of tested drugs.
B.C.’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has previously warned that fear of criminalization drives people to hide their drug use, leaving them at risk of using alone and fatally overdosing, and urged cities to work closely with public health officials before implementing any bylaws that could put drug users lives at risk.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Nanaimo Coun. Hilary Eastmure raised similar concerns.
“I really want to turn this back on the province and say what are you going to do to make this tenable for B.C. municipalities,” she said.
“I don’t think this is the right time for Nanaimo to go out on its own and try and make some piecemeal bylaw to deal with this because all it’s going to do is push people out of the public eye and, as Councillor (Paul) Manley, said that’s when they die, and our numbers are already untenable.
The province is still working on getting feedback from municipalities on what provincial drug use restrictions could look like, and it remains unclear how quickly the premier and his government is willing to move on the issue.
The latest update from the BC Coroners Service showed that at least 596 people died from toxic drugs between January and March, the second-highest death toll the province has ever recorded for the first three months of the year.
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