Last week, the BC government announced they would not be pursuing an extension to the three-year drug decriminalization pilot program.
Drug policy advocates who were initially involved in creating this policy say the decision was made to score political points rather than to help save the lives of substance users.
In 2023, when drug decriminalization was implemented, it was meant to be a small step towards destigmatizing substance-use and helping those impacted by keeping them out of the criminal system.
In essence, the pilot program decriminalized possession of some illicit substances that were under 2.5 grams in volume.
However, drug decriminalization was heavily amended with the most impactful change coming in 2024.
This change saw the legislation amended to restrict possession to private homes, places where unhoused people are legally sheltering and designated health-care clinics.
DJ Larkin, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition told Victoria Buzz the policy contributed to positive change in the short time it was in effect, but the amendments did not help.
“We saw offences and what are called drug seizures for small amounts of drugs decrease,” Larkin explained.
“The reason that’s positive and important is because there is decades of data showing that there are harms from that type of enforcement—people can lose housing, employment, students can get kicked out of school and people are put at much higher risk of overdose if they’re even brought into custody for even a short amount of time.”
Furthermore, they explained that substance-users were initially engaging more with health outreach services, there were increases with people accessing overdose prevention sites and a decrease in calls for emergency health services.
“There was initial data showing people were more comfortable talking about substance use and asking for help—seeking services—and asking for help when they did that,” Larkin continued.
They added that there was still data showing some still felt stigmatized, but that research has shown that reduction in stigma on a wider scale would certainly have taken longer to accomplish.
“We’ve been building up these stigmatizing attitudes for hundreds of years and it will take more than just three years to disentangle that.”
When the BC government announced the drug decriminalization pilot would come to an end, their main claim to justify the decision was that it was ineffective in what it set out to accomplish.
To this, Larkin says that there were three problems with the policy which made it impossible to work as initially intended, and each of which could have been mitigated through better implementation.
Looking only at BC’s announcement and press conference last week, Larkin says the data did not align with what was said at the podium.
“The government was saying, ‘we didn’t see it as effective because it didn’t decrease stigma.’ First, that’s actually not what the data shows,” they explained.
“Second, they indicated that it wasn’t effective in people self-referring or seeking care, and again, that is not what the data shows.”
They added that there is an obvious imbalance between what was said versus what the data has shown.
However, the biggest blunder of this policy on behalf of the government came from a lack of education around it, and the political backlash that ensued.
“The government did not do community-based education and did not do even basic informational and education materials adequately or even accurately,” said Larkin.
“So they ended up with political backlash and that’s the primary driver behind the decision to cancel it.”
Larkin explained that the execution of the drug decriminalization policy is what was ineffective, not the idea behind the policy.
This is shown most clearly by the way that the Province altered the policy numerous times in a short timeframe, creating confusion.
“I think they’ve been pretty transparent about this and we can say with confidence that those were politically motivated changes, and again, coming back, because they weren’t doing proactive community engagement and education that is necessary to help a policy like this succeed.”
How ending drug decriminalization will impact BC communities
Because the decision to end drug decriminalization is so fresh, and doesn’t actually come into effect until the beginning of February, Larkin says that they can only hypothesize how different communities will be impacted.
That being said, they can anticipate five key ways this policy ending will impact British Columbians.
The first being that an initial uptick of assertive police enforcement can be expected.
“Every time a policy changes, they dig in and enforce it more heavily than they have before,” Larkin explained.
“Second, we’ll see a return to really inconsistent policing across the province where some jurisdictions continue along the current de facto decriminalization, or light criminalization, whereas other locations may enforce really heavily—in particular we anticipate that could impact rural, more remote and Indigenous communities.”
Larkin’s third anticipated consequence is the return to people being more concerned, cautious and fearful around criminal law involvement.
This can be critically impactful, as it has been shown to drive substance users to do drugs in more isolated locations where they won’t be found if they suffer an overdose or drug poisoning.
“Here I’m speaking about both the people that a lot of people are thinking about, people without housing, but also people who are heavily impacted,” said Larkin.
“Trades and construction workers who might be using in isolation and afraid to talk about it, young people who are using occasionally or for the first time and might not want to talk to a friend or have someone around who can respond if they are in an emergency.”
Their fourth point is that when something is communicated to be “going back to being criminal,” it will actually increase stigma, leading to more people calling police when they see someone living in poverty that they assume to be using drugs.
And Larkin’s fifth point is that they say this increased stigma can reduce the number of substance-users willing to seek treatment because of an increased environment of fear.
Mom’s Stop the Harm
Another drug policy advocacy group which was co-founded by Leslie McBain in Victoria is Mom’s Stop the Harm.
McBain and two other grieving mothers who lost their children to drug harms and overdose formed the organization in 2016 to reduce stigma, prevent other peoples’ children from suffering as theirs had and helping families who have lost a loved one.
Back before drug decriminalization, McBain was one of many voices at the table with the BC government working to create the policy that would eventually be introduced.
McBain echoed the position of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition in that the policy that was introduced failed to follow through in an effective way.
“The way it was rolled out in its original form was good—people were not going to get arrested if the police found 2.5 grams on them, it kept them out of the system,” she explained.
McBain added that one aspect that was supposed to happen but didn’t was that police were supposed to carry cards that would give the substance-users they interacted with connections to services that may help them.
On the prospect of the policy destigmatizing substance use, McBain says that the amendments to the legislation defeated any hope for reduced stigma.
“Even though it was an okay call in some respects because we have to keep public safety in mind, it restigmatized people who use drugs,” said McBain.
She added that following the amendments, an air of fear was created that made some people afraid of interactions with substance-users.
How this will impact the future of drug decriminalization policy
Larkin believes that BC needs to reinvest and begin a new approach to drug decriminalization immediately.
They say that if the Province can rethink implementation, then a new decriminalization model could be developed that would be more effective and impactful in decreasing stigma around substance use.
“We need to move quickly on that because we are going to see harm as a result of this change and because the world is watching,” said Larkin.
“Decriminalization is something that is broadly supported across the globe—from human rights experts to [United Nations] bodies—but people are looking to BC, and if BC gives up, other jurisdictions will be too fearful to implement their own policy.”
Larkin says that over the next handful of months, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition will be analyzing how the BC government communicated throughout the three-year pilot, specifically, the failures in the community-based dialogue and education.
Further, the organization is working with other human rights advocates across the country to bring this matter to the United Nations’ civil and political rights review of Canada.
For Mom’s Stop the Harm, McBain says she plans on meeting with BC’s Minister of Health, Josie Osborne this week to address why no advocates were consulted in the decision to end decriminalization.
Aside from not consulting Mom’s Stop the Harm or the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, the BC government did not consult the First Nations Health Authority who continue to be disproportionately impacted by the toxic drug public health emergency and overrepresented in the criminal justice system.
