Beginning on January 31st, the Canadian province of British Colombia will officially decriminalize and no longer go after residents aged 18 and over who are caught possessing less than 2.5 grams of hard drugs, which include such drugs as heroin, morphine, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and molly/ecstasy (MDMA).
Those who are caught will be offered information on social programs to help overcome the addictions, at the request of the drug user. Drug trafficking, itself, is still considered illegal regardless of the amount possessed.
This experiment will only last three years to see if this policy change proved effective.
Given our understanding that substance use is a health issue, not a criminal issue. We need to take this further step to address the shame and stigma.
Jennifer Whiteside, British Columbia’s minister of mental health and addictions, said in an interview, and that the new law would make people feel more comfortable reaching for help
British Colombia has been seen as a proving and testing ground for drug policies, along boosting clinicians and other social programs designed to remove the criminal taint drug abuse has to it. But as Bloomberg has noted, it appears these things have done little to stop the drug problems in the province.
‘British Columbia remains plagued by rising levels of drug-related deaths and crimes. Overdose deaths last year were 41.7 per 100,000 people, or more than five-fold the rate in 1996, according to the province’s Coroner’s Service. For comparison, overdose deaths in the US were 28.3 per 100,000 in 2020. The province spends billions of dollars annually on services and facilities for drug users as it attempts to cope with its public health emergency,’ Bloomberg wrote.
‘The change will be most visible in the region’s largest city, Vancouver, known for its world-class skiing, hiking and restaurants. Yet tourists are often shocked to see alleys close to some of the main shopping areas filled with heroin addicts,’ Bloomberg added.
The outlet that notes that Portugal implemented a similar type of policy in 2001, but has yet to have shown any real effectiveness if curbing drug use. The U.S. state of Oregon also decriminalized the use of hard drugs in 2020.
In Portland, Oregon, the city has recently implemented a new surveillance and mapping system that tracks where all the homeless encampments are at, as the homelessness epidemic in the city continues to skyrocket. And just prior to that announcement an instance of cannibalism was reported at a train station in Portland.
Kevin Sabet, a drug policy adviser during the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations and a Vancouver resident, says he’s never the seen the drug problem in Vancouver, British Colombia, this bad before. Sabet, the president of the non-profit Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, says that the city police have long since turned a blind eye to drug use and peddling problems, but rather have diverted more attention to the actual dealers and other related crimes.
I’m not arguing to stigmatize drug users and throw them in prison, but they need a more holistic health response, not this libertarian hands-off response.
Sabet explained
Sabet added that he finds it ironic that a nation with such a strong social safety net does not have a more comprehensive policy that deals with related issues such as housing, employment and health care.
Bloomberg concluded their report by noting, ‘Trafficking, production or distribution-related crimes rose to 61.7 per 100,000 people in 2012, from 25.5 per 100,000 in 2017. The severity of crimes in Vancouver and two other provincial cities was also worse than the national average in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.’
Vancouver has already been facing a large homelessness epidemic as well, coupled with tons of drug abuse, especially since 2020. Chinese resident Dan Seto routinely films the homelessness and substance abuse in the city, to which he often describes it as the “walking dead” in parts of the city.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Get ready for the drug problem in British Colombia to reach all new levels of crazy. The police were already not stopping the crime and abuse anyways, and now it is going to rocket higher all over the province, and bleeding into many other areas of the country, which also is dealing with drug and alcohol abuse.
But it’s not just Canada. All of the Western nations and allies are facing these identical problems. Homelessness and evictions in the U.S. have totally fallen out of the media discussion, but it is so bad everywhere you go, and everything is becoming so trashy everywhere.
[1] How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! [8] Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. [11] All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile. Lamentations 1:1, 8, 11
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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The city in Manitoba, Winnipeg is no better than this. Crime, homelessness and drugs are rampant. But in less-populated country-type areas in Manitoba, you won’t see this (not yet, at least). People love to be in jam-packed cities.
Some attitudes never change. Lot didn’t want to go to the mountains either, but to a city (thanks to one of Bryan’s older studies pointing this out):
Genesis 19:17-20
Authorized (King James) Version
17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. 18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: 19 behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: 20 behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
Same in Edmonton, Alberta. I assume sedateding people will make them more compliant.