Reversing Drug Decriminalization in British Columbia

"Enough is enough. Common Sense Conservatives will not allow this devastation from this experiment to play out in other Canadian communities. Canadians deserve a government that will keep hard drugs out of hospitals and will protect staff and patients."

"Do British Columbians believe that someone should be allowed to smoke crack, meth and bring machetes into hospitals right next to patients who are trying to recover from cancer or a heart attack?"

"Or do they believe in my common sense approach that would ban the drugs, stop giving out tax-funded opioids and instead invest in treatment and recovery to bring our loved ones home drug-free?"

"The Safe Hospitals Act will stop some of the insanity that [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau and the NDP have unleashed in our communities."

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Parliamentary opposition Conservative Party, next Prime Minister of Canada 

Fentanyl is pictured during the first day of decriminalization of drugs in British Columbia on Jan. 31, 2023. The B.C. government is now significantly rolling back the pilot following months of public pressure and concerns over public safety. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

The leader of Canada's official opposition party in the House of Commons has committed to bringing into law a bill his party is set to introduce to prevent drug decriminalization "insanity", a year-old experiment in the Province of British Columbia that has resulted in a wild frenzy of public recreational drug use without penalty under the law, where drugs proliferate, endanger the lives of new young users when freely available government-sponsored drugs meant to wean addicts away from more dangerous opioids are being sold in the streets so the recipients of the free drugs can buy fentanyl.

The Safe Hospital Act set to be presented in Parliament would ensure that no exemptions are granted under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act in response to a phenomenon where hospital staff in British Columbia are advised they must not confiscate drugs brought into hospitals by addicts admitted for health care, nor the weapons they may also bring with them; to be regarded as 'personal effects' and left in the possession of those patients. Open drug use in those hospitals now runs rampant, and so do incidents of violence.

Bill C-321 includes a sentencing aggravating factor against assaults committed by those patients against health-care workers or first responders, along with tougher punishment should a weapon be brought into a hospital by a criminal. The situation in British Columbia has engendered a backlash of opposition and outrage from British Columbians, to the extent that the provincial premier of the NDP government, David Eby, sought a reversal of the approval he was granted last year for decriminalization.

That reversal would return the status quo to once more make public drug use illegal in public spaces; in effect the decriminalization pilot project has been an abysmal failure. The health and safety of nurses, hospital staff and other patients were placed at risk by patients openly using drugs across the province's hospitals. A leaked memorandum reflected the situation that nurses in the Northern Health Region where nurses were ordered not to confiscate patients' belongings including drugs of weapons.

In the wake of British Columbia's attempts at decriminalization, the City of Toronto requested a similar exemption in forwarding an application for decriminalizing small amounts of hard drugs. Ontario's Premier Doug Ford is adamantly hostile to granting the now-two-year-old-and-waiting request by Toronto. And the federal government has made it clear that without the support of the provincial government to permit this exception for Toronto, permission would be withheld.

In 2021 Montreal too passed a motion calling on the federal government to decriminalize certain drugs. Accidental deaths caused by the powerful fentanyl used to lace other drugs and sold on the street have harvested the lives of far too many drug users, to the extent the deaths have become a national emergency looking for avenues of deterrence.

A safe injection site in Vancouver, where drugs will still be permitted following the ban. Photograph: Christopher Morris/Corbis/Getty Images