Pick Your Poison ... Brave New World

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the notorious drug capital of the nation. How to solve the problem of drug overdoses without exacerbating the problem of addictions to killing, mind-altering drugs? The answeer is so simple, it stared us all in the face and no one recognized it. The War on Drugs made people fiercely possessive about their right to procure drugs and ruin their lives. How to get around that? Simple enough, legitimize possession for personal use of all drugs, not merely marijuana, but the hard stuff, too. That will endow the users with a sense of comfort and self-respect, and a cure will take off from there.

 

And just think; it relieves police of the nasty work of harassing people, taking them into custody, keeping a sharp eye out for drug users who may go berserk. Drugged out bodies littering the pavement of an early morning on a beautiful winter day? Walk on by, none of your business Vancouver Police. Someone's got a syringe of heroin injecting and moaning with the pain of it all? Not your business, chum. 

 

A man holds boxes containing tested cocaine, meth and heroin given out by the Drug User Liberation Front in July 2021. It will not be a criminal offence to possess up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs in B.C. starting Tuesday, Jan. 31. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The gracious government of British Columbia has enacted a policy that adults in possession of 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine or ecstasy for personal use will no longer face arrest or their drugs seized. Isn't life wonderful, after all? Of course there are niggling, inconvenient realities like the fact that since 2015 over 11,000 British Columbians died from drug overdoses. That's life, waddyagonnado? 

And what does the federal Minister of Health say about the issue? Time for "a monumental shift in drug policy". The goal "is to save lives". All well and good, right?

"Substance use is a public health issue, not a criminal one."

"By decriminalizing people who use drugs, we will break down the stigma that stops people from accessing life-saving support and services."

B.C.Minister of social development and poverty reduction, previously minister of mental health and addiction, Sheila Malcolmson 

"The new role of the police in British Columbia is] to redirect people who possess small amounts of certain illegal drugs away from the criminal justice system and towards health and social services."

Staff Sgt.Kris Clark, Vancouver Police Service

"Every step of the way we need to make sure we are following science and data and that's what we're doing."

"You don't want to do it without the system and support in place. Of course we've heard of cities like Toronto and Edmonton wanting to take this on, and we're going to work with them every step of the way as, or if, we move forward."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Death due to drug toxicity remains the leading cause of unnatural death in British Columbia, and is second only to cancers in terms of years of life lost."

B.C. Chief Coroner, Lisa Lapointe

A woman holds a sign during a protest in May 2021. The decriminalization pilot has been criticized for its low threshold, with advocates saying it likely won't stop thousands of people dying from a tainted drug supply. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

Oddly,  ironically, several weeks ago the federal government, concerned over the health of Canadians issued guidelines to updated recommendations addressing alcoholic beverages; no more than two drinks a week. Plans are afoot to have food marketers place warning labels on any food processed with high fat, sugar or salt contents. Canadians' poor health, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and more latterly, the coronavirus, has burdened the health care system beyond capacity, not to mention the costs involved.

British Columbia is convinced it has the solution to the issue of five people daily for the last six years dying of drug overdoses. Thinking well ahead, the 2021 provincial budget pledged $500 million for mental health and substance abuse services; $152 of the total meant for opioid user treatment; $133 million for treatment and recovery services; and $45 million for overdose prevention. What could go wrong?

This is in the nature of an 'experiment', meant to last for a three-year period when an analysis will presumably create a study document setting out the enormous success of this visionary plan to save the drug addicted from the fate of early mortality. Outreach worker James Harry, a former drug addict, confesses to being baffled by the reform project. "We're giving people the freedom to walk around with that poison in their pockets. It just doesn't make sense to me", he averred. What does HE know, after all?!!

 

In the House of Commons Justin Trudeau has been criticized by the leader of the official opposition, Pierre Poilievre who charged: "after eight  years you have given in to Canadian cities that are turning into crime zones". Toronto, for example, where the proliferation of street crimes and particularly violent and sometimes deadly crimes in the transit system of sudden, random attacks by the homeless with mental illness and drug addiction problems has terrified the population.

While relaxing public and government censure under the law of personal drug use, the toxicity of street drugs such as fentanyl -- the synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin -- involved in 87 percent of overdose deaths, has been ignored. Fentanyl is on offer through prescription in British Columbia,with drug campaigners urging to have this "safe supply" expanded to include other substances. 

The B.C. Coroners Service announced suspected drug toxicity was responsible for the loss of 2,272 lives in 2022; with 2,306 overdose fatalities racked  up the  year before, making for an average of six people expiring each day last year. "So the police  won't arrest us now? I guess they'll just be here to help with the bodies", observed one woman addicted to crack cocaine. 

An undated photo shows illicit drugs being prepared for use.   CTV

"He is promoting addiction and trafficking. There is absolutely no way he will be able to stay open. [Jerry Martin, proposing to open a private shop in the Downtown Eastside to sell 'clean drugs' to users]."

If so, every other gangster or organized crime group would open up shop as well."

"If we allow stores to sell cocaine, it will be the dumbest thing in the world."

Andy Bhatti, drug addiction interventionist

"This action [British Columbia legalizing personal use of all drugs] will likely result in a dramatic increase in drug use, violence, trafficking and addiction."

"Something that health systems are already overburdened with."

Former Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenny