To the editor:
I am responding to the comments from federal Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre over what he calls Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “deadly and radical legalization of crack, heroin and other hard drugs in children’s parks, hospitals and on transit.”
Here are the actual facts. On April 26, 2024, Premier David Eby announced that public use of substances will be recriminalized in BC.
Crack, heroin, and other hard drugs were never legalized. In fact, heroin is almost non-existent in B.C. These drugs have always been banned from children’s parks, and transit. Public use of substances in hospitals has never been legal let alone smoking.
There is a huge difference between legalization and decriminalization. Decriminalization is very restrictive. A person is legally allowed to carry a very small amount (2.5 grams accumulative) of still-illegal substances without fear of arrest. Any more than that amount leads to arrest. The substances are still illegal to produce and distribute.
Any policies regarding substance use within hospitals are created and managed by hospitals, not by the government. There are a variety of harm reduction programs and strategies in certain hospitals to prevent the spread of disease, and to prevent and or treat wounds that occur from needle use.
Nurses do not provide illicit substances to patients. A hospital may have a harm reduction policy in place to treat proper withdrawal symptoms from illicit substances such as fentanyl. Smoking is banned in every hospital.
Pierre Poilievre is completely in the dark regarding drug policy and the nature of issues surrounding substance use. He needs to start researching what has really been done, what has really failed and what has really succeeded so far in the efforts to quell overdose deaths.
I also have to wonder where he is getting his information. As someone who has the trust of some of the public, at least, he has an obligation to deliver the whole picture.
Is he deliberately embellishing certain choice facts to make it look like the Liberals and NDP are out to “kill people” as he has suggested?
Mr. Poilievre, hard drugs are already illegal. Why are you hyper focused on this?
Millions have been spent on treatment so far and we are headed to well beyond $1 billion in treatment funding. Yet here we are with numbers increasing.
“Pointy-headed professors” (to use another Poilievre phrase) like myself and thousands of others follow the science and are working toward long term solutions based on individual and social health.
If this was not so dire, dangerous and deadly, Poilievre would be the laughing stock of the scientific community related to mental health and substance use.
You can’t motivate permanent and meaningful change through fear and punishment. You only hide whatever it is you are trying to change. We have spent at least the last 30 years digging ourselves out of that hole in mental health and substance use. Admittedly we’re not there yet. And progress is always fluid. But to turn around and fall right back in that hole will set us back a century of progress.
We need evidence-based treatment that is beyond just faith-based abstinence only. Harm reduction is always needed for people who are considering treatment and have completed a program and have (typically) relapsed.
Harm reduction is also sorely needed for the more than half the population that does not need or will not access treatment who are using substances for their own personal reasons. They too must access a tainted poisoned supply. Are they to be ignored and summarily sentenced?
William Morrison,
Terrace, B.C.
