Last year, British Columbia (BC) became the first province in Canada to decriminalise the use of hard drugs as part of its efforts to tackle a deadly opioids crisis. But the policy is facing pushback, leaving its future uncertain.
Every Monday, former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart would receive an email listing all the people who had died in the city from a drug overdose the previous week.
One day, three years ago, that list included the name of a relative – his brother-in-law’s sister, Susan Havelock.
“She died out here on the street at two o’clock in the morning,” Mr Stewart told the BBC at his office in Downtown Vancouver, pointing out the window.
“When it gets in your family, you begin to see how desperate this whole situation is.”
North America is in the midst of a toxic drug crisis. Fatal overdoses peaked above 112,000 in the US for the first time last year.
In Canada, nowhere is this issue felt more acutely than in BC, where the crisis was first declared a public health emergency in 2016. Last year, the province saw a record of more than 2,500 overdose deaths.
About 225,000 people are estimated to use illegal drugs in BC, and experts say a toxic street drug supply – laced with fentanyl and other products – places each of them at risk of death.
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In an attempt to address the crisis in January 2023, BC became the first – and only – province in Canada to decriminalise the possession of a small amount of hard drugs, to “reduce the barriers and stigma” that bar those with severe drug addiction from life-saving help or treatment.
The BC programme, which runs on a pilot basis until 2026, allows adults to possess up to 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine or methamphetamine without being arrested, charged or having their drugs seized, except around schools and airports.
But just over a year into the project, it has come under increasing pressure from some residents and political opponents, who have called it a “harmful experiment” implemented without safeguards for the public, one that has “utterly failed” to reduce drug overdose deaths.
BC has since introduced a bill that would expand places where drug use is prohibited to include not just schools and airports but playgrounds and near homes and businesses – a move blocked, for now, by the BC Supreme Court over concerns it would cause “irreparable harm” to people who use drugs.
Now supporters of decriminalisation fear that public buy-in for the policy is eroding.
“It’s really unfortunate,” said Deputy Chief Fiona Wilson of the Vancouver Police Department, who also serves as the president of the BC Association of Chiefs of Police.
“At the end of the day we’re all rowing in the same direction with respect to the fact that we don’t want to criminalise people by virtue of their drug use, which should be treated as a health matter.”
It is a debate felt not just in the bigger cities like Vancouver, but in places like Port Coquitlam, a suburb of 60,000 people east of Vancouver rich in walking trails, public parks and single-family homes.
There, it was an altercation during a child’s birthday party that was “the last straw” for Mayor Brad West.
Now supporters of decriminalisation fear that public buy-in for the policy is eroding.
“It’s really unfortunate,” said Deputy Chief Fiona Wilson of the Vancouver Police Department, who also serves as the president of the BC Association of Chiefs of Police.
“At the end of the day we’re all rowing in the same direction with respect to the fact that we don’t want to criminalise people by virtue of their drug use, which should be treated as a health matter.”
It is a debate felt not just in the bigger cities like Vancouver, but in places like Port Coquitlam, a suburb of 60,000 people east of Vancouver rich in walking trails, public parks and single-family homes.
There, it was an altercation during a child’s birthday party that was “the last straw” for Mayor Brad West.
Decriminalisation is based on the argument that the war on drugs has failed – that arresting people with severe addiction and seizing their drugs could increase their likelihood of overdose by forcing them to find other drugs that may be lethal. A criminal record may also bar them from finding a stable job, reducing the chance of recovery.
“I got thrown in jail for nine months for a half a gram of cocaine,” said Guy Felicella, a Vancouver-based advocate for drug harm reduction and recovery, who recovered from drug addiction after overdosing six times in 2013.
Decriminalisation, he said, would have helped reduce his fear of being legally punished – a fear that forced him and others to use in private, out of view from someone who could call for help if they overdosed.
Portugal, where drugs were decriminalised in 2001, has drug death rates that are significantly lower than other countries.
Its success inspired efforts in both BC and in the US state of Oregon, which decriminalised drugs in 2020.