Ruminations: Canada's Hard Drugs Problem

"The Drugs Store will provide customers with reliable access to safe, tested drugs, harm reduction supplies such as unused sterile needles, pipes, etc., and educational information."
Basically, allowing medical storefront access has been the main goal all along."
"I would risk my freedom all over again and lose everything, give up everything to change the law so that people could get help medicinally."
Jerry Martin, "king of compassion", Vancouver, British Columbia

Tents remain on East Hastings in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside a week after city staff began the process of removing them, citing a fire department order that the structures constitute an extreme fire safety hazard. (CBC News)

Personal-use quantities of heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA is set to be provincially decriminalized in British Columbia at the end of this month. Beginning on January 31, possession of fewer than 2.5 grams of any of these drugs will no longer be classed as illegal.

Although this verges on Federal territory since criminal status of drugs is a federal responsibility, British Columbia was successful in obtaining a two-year "time-limited exception" to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The emergency measure is purposed to "reduce the barriers and stigma" attached to drug addiction in hopes of achieving a reduction in the province's huge rates of fatalities due to overdose.

Even so, while personal-use possession of drugs will for the next two years, become decriminalized, the federal law remains unchanged; selling or trafficking in any of these drugs will remain illegal. "Under this exemption, illegal drugs ... will not be legalized and will not be sold in stores", according o a provincial background policy document.

Despite which a Vancouver entrepreneur is preparing to open a storefront for the sale of illegal drugs. The store to be named The Drugs Store. It is unknown where the business plans to source its inventory. Vancouver is known for its clinics that prescribe medical-grade opioids to drug users, but it is unknown whether The Drugs Store plans a similar service to its clients.

The soon-to-be proprietor of The Drugs Store was on trial recently to face charges regarding operation of an illegal cannabis dispensary in Whitewood, Saskatcewan. Jerry Martin's dispensary, Martin Medical Services, had been raided in 2016 by the RCMP two years before the legalization in Canada of retail sales of recreational cannabis.

Prior to the legalization of marijuana in 2018, Vancouver hosted over three dozen cannabis "dispensaries", all of them with no legal status since their very existence was in direct contravention of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Vancouver police wee open about their refusal to shut down these dispensaries.

"We do have a priority-based approach to policing here in Vancouver, and we do have other priorities", stated Vancouver police spokesman Constable Brian Montagne. That changes when a dispensary was viewed as a conspicuous threat to public safety or violated the rules by selling to minors, and that would warrant a visit from police.

It's a different story altogether with regard to selling drugs linked to the overdose crisis. Before Christmas the Vancouver Police Service made public a major bust of a drug ring funneling fentanyl into Vancouver's infamous Downtown Eastside. Mr. Martin's scheme however, is to get arrested, to draw attention to a charter challenge against the federal prohibition on hard drugs.

Essentially the plan is to present a case arguing that banning retail sales of hard drugs is itself a contravention of the charter-guarantee of the right to "life, liberty and security of person", since it causes people using drugs to search for illegal sources of drugs carrying a higher overdose risk.