British Columbia denies limited possession of cocaine, opioids

As of that date, adults over the age of 18 in Canada’s westernmost state carry up to 2.5 grams of drug for personal use without being arrested or prosecuted or confiscated. Is allowed. Illegal drugs include opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

Trafficking, production, export and import of these drugs remains illegal, and possession of these drugs by airports, day care facilities, near elementary and junior high schools, or by members of the military is also illegal.

“This is not legalization,” Bennett told reporters at a press conference in Vancouver. “We are not downplaying this decision.”

Other Health Crisis in Canada: As Overdose Soars, Authorities Demand Government to Non-criminalize Illegal Drugs

The first move in Canada took place six years after British Columbia declared a public health emergency in response to the surge in deaths from overdose. Since then, the death toll has increased dramatically. A record 2,236 people died from overdose in 2021. This is an increase of 125% from the 2016 Public Health Emergency Declaration.

According to state officials, drug overdose is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 19 and 39, and the crisis has reduced life expectancy for men in recent years.

Nationally, between January 2016 and September 2021, about 27,000 people died from overdose.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has long been non-committed, is increasingly chorusing people, including the national police chief, to criminalize the possession of illegal drugs for personal use.

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart was one of them. He told reporters every Monday that he would receive an email with the number of overdose and the number of people who died in the city. Once upon a time, Kennedy’s family was in the statistics. This Monday he learned that there was an agreement on non-criminalization.

“I can say I wanted to cry, but I still feel like crying,” Kennedy said. “This is a big deal … it represents a fundamental rethinking of drug policy that prioritizes health care over handcuffs.”

In a submission requesting an exemption from Health Canada, the state stated that disciplinary drug policies would disproportionately affect communities that had reached their limits and ultimately would not address public health issues. I did. Federal drug law said it had the opposite effect and increased the likelihood of drug overdose.

“Criminalization and stigma lead to many people hiding their use from family and friends, avoiding seeking treatment, thereby creating a situation where the risk of death from drug addiction increases,” he said. ..

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Submissions exacerbated the crisis by pandemics reducing access to treatment services and driving people to use drugs alone in dangerous situations, while border closures provided a more unpredictable street supply. Said it was created.

The 2.5 gram threshold is below the 4.5 gram limit required by the state. In his submission, it stated that too low a threshold was ineffective for non-criminalization purposes and “reduced progress.”

“With the evidence we have all over the country [from] Law enforcement … was that 85 percent of the confiscated drugs were less than 2 grams, “Bennett said.

She said the government would monitor the threshold and see if non-criminalization achieved its purpose.

Canada, which legalized marijuana for entertainment purposes in 2018, It has embraced a harm reduction approach to overdose more than the United States.

The British Columbia Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver provides medicinal-grade heroin to patients who have proven ineffective with other types of treatment.

State officials changed guidelines last year for fear of resurrecting deaths from overdose during pandemics, with doctors prescribing some patients a “safe supply” for take-out drugs such as methadone and opioid hydromorphone. And made it possible to reduce the use of contaminated street drugs.