There is the academic view of public policy, and then there is the practical, boots-on-the-ground assessment of its implementation. If ever there was a disconnect between the wants and wishes of the so-called experts and those dealing with the fallout from their policies, it’s on full display in B.C. now in the fight over drug decriminalization.
It began as a three-year experiment on Jan. 31, 2023, but it’s impossible to imagine it being extended beyond its proposed end date, so badly executed has the trial been in the eyes of the public.
The rollout has been so grossly mangled, it has galvanized conservative forces across the country and helped spawn a new war on drugs.
Well done everyone.
Fact: reversing course on decriminalization is not going to fix the drug crisis in this country. It’s not going to end the scourge that is killing so many people, mostly young men, right across Canada at never-before-seen rates. What ending decriminalization will do, and only do, is allow voices like federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford and many others like them to talk about how they were right all along: that decriminalization was a bad idea from the start, and people who use drugs should be arrested, thrown in jail and seek treatment after.
And they have a broad swath of the Canadian public onboard because it’s easy to look with disdain and disgust at someone shooting up in an alley and blithely say that they should be off the street and in jail where they can get help.
Sure. That has worked like a charm before.
What’s next for B.C.’s decriminalization experiment
Don’t get me wrong; the execution of decriminalization in B.C. was far from perfect. It’s one thing for health professionals to say we can’t stop addicts from using drugs in public because it will only drive them into the shadows where they can more easily die if they overdose. In theory, that sounds good and makes for a fair rationalization for decriminalization. But the reality is, the majority of the public doesn’t want to see someone shooting up when they walk to the community centre or lay their blanket down in a park on a sunny day, young children in tow.
That was never going to fly.
Decriminalization has to come with guardrails. The restrictions on public use that the B.C. NDP is now seeking from the federal government – which had to permit the decriminalization trial to proceed – should have been in place from the beginning. They weren’t.
Also, it’s one thing for big centres like Vancouver and Surrey and Victoria to proceed with decriminalization, and another for it to unfold in smaller communities. Bigger cities have more resources available to help people struggling with addiction. The public is more used to seeing people use drugs in these places. That’s not the case in many small towns and cities around B.C., where attitudes toward drug use are not as liberal.
There was always going to be a split between the view from the big city and the view from more rural parts of the province. It’s one thing for progressives to say yes, let’s charge ahead with decriminalization because it’s the only pathway out of this crisis, and another for a farmer in Prince George or a retired senior in Princeton to see the positives in this policy.
And they should have just as much say on government policy as millennials living on the east side of Vancouver.
But if you think people like Pierre Poilievre or Doug Ford or anyone else denouncing decriminalization as a disastrous liberal experiment that has cost more lives than it saved have the answers to Canada’s drug crisis, you are delusional. They don’t. Decriminalization is just a campaign prop for Mr. Poilievre. (The federal Conservative Leader was ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday for refusing to withdraw a statement in which he called the Prime Minister a “wacko” while calling decriminalization “wacko” as well.) I don’t believe for a second that Mr. Poilievre has any deep, abiding concern for those people on the street shooting up.
He just doesn’t want to have to look at them. Neither do a lot of others.
Decriminalization is not bad policy. Its execution, in this case, was terrible. There needed to be much deeper thought given to the potential consequences, much deeper thought given to the social supports (see: addiction beds/therapist access) needed to be available to handle all the people decriminalization was intended to help. That was largely not the case.
So, in the eyes of the public, and the police, it became a bit of a free-for-all. And now the B.C. NDP are retreating fast, leaving a lot of down-and-out people in the province to fend for themselves.
Gary Mason