Five years later, things are only worse. This week, British Columbia announced a grim record. Lisa Lapointe, the provinceтАЩs chief coroner, said that 201 people had died from overdoses in October, the most ever in a single month. And the cumulative total of 1,782 overdose deaths for 2021 is already the highest number in one year, with two more months of data to come.
Ms. Lapointe called it a тАЬheart-rending milestone.тАЭ
British Columbia is not alone in overdose-related grief. Because of fentanyl, in large part, opioid deaths and overdoses have worsened across much of the country, urban and rural, with Alberta and Ontario also particularly afflicted.
When Ms. Lapointe announced British ColumbiaтАЩs latest terrible numbers, she also called on provincial governments to give the drug crisis the same sort of urgent attention and resources that have been brought to bear against the pandemic, particularly with vaccination.
тАЬThis is not an issue thatтАЩs going to go away without intensive change and involvement of a variety of levels of government,тАЭ she told a news conference.
Among politicians and public health officials, thereтАЩs general agreement about what perhaps is obvious: The current system of laws surrounding drugs isnтАЩt working when it comes to preventing drug-related deaths and overdoses. But exactly what will work and whatтАЩs possible politically are less clear.
The city of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia have asked the federal government for permission to decriminalize possession of up to 4.5 grams of illegal substances within the province. This week, TorontoтАЩs board of health authorized Dr. Eileen de Villa, the cityтАЩs chief medical officer, to also seek the same exemption from Health Canada.
ItтАЩs a proposal that many police forces support.
тАЬOver the years, we realized that we cannot arrest and charge our way out of this crisis тАФ the opioid crisis,тАЭ Chief Gary Conn, of the Chatham-Kent police service and president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, told the CBC, adding: тАЬWhat weтАЩve got to do is examine the underlying issues surrounding drug addictions.тАЭ
So far, the federal government said that it would carefully consider all decriminalization requests. This week, it also introduced a bill ending minimum mandatory sentences for some drug offenses.
But this week 21 organizations тАФ a mix of public health, drug policy and drug usersтАЩ groups тАФ published a joint plan that urged the government to go much further. It calls for full decriminalization of drugs for personal use, as well as the sharing and selling of drugs for тАЬsubsistence, to support personal drug use costs, or to provide a safe supply.тАЭ The groups are also asking that funds allocated to the police for enforcing drug laws be redirected to тАЬnon-coercive, voluntary policies, programs, and servicesтАЭ for drug users, including housing, social services, education and health services.
тАЬThe war on drugs has been a colossal failure,тАЭ Sandra Ka Hon Chu, the co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network, one of the groups behind the document, said in a statement. тАЬUnder a regime of criminalization, people who use drugs are vilified, subject to routine human rights abuses, and denied access to lifesaving health care.тАЭ
ItтАЩs an open question whether thereтАЩs the political will in Canada to go as far as the plan recommends. But Ms. Lapointe urged a swift expansion of a program in British Columbia for doctors to prescribe safe drugs to users to prevent overdoses and deaths тАФ an idea few physicians have embraced.
тАЬWe donтАЩt have time to wait months and years to continue to look for evidence that safe supply will work,тАЭ Ms. Lapointe said. тАЬWe know from studies it does work.тАЭ
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A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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