Dan Walton 
Oliver Chronicle

Is it time to stop punishing illicit drug users with criminal charges?

A new report from B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer says so.

“There is widespread global recognition that the failed “war on drugs” and the resulting criminalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs has not reduced drug use but instead has increased health harms,” reads Stopping The Harm.

MLA Linda Larson isn’t sold on the idea.

“I don’t think it would be effective to do what they’re trying to do,” she said. “The criminality of something, I can’t say whether or not that makes a difference.”

MP Richard Cannings thinks it would make a difference. Although he’s a federal politician, he said provincial governments can only make changes to the criminal code through Ottawa. And it’s an issue which NDP leader Jagmeet Singh “has been a proponent of for sometime.”

Cannings said people shouldn’t be punished for causing harm only to themselves.

Decriminalizing drugs is about “fixing the problems that affect our communities while still controlling the situation,” he said. “I personally think it’s something we should seriously consider.”

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Portugal, where the rate of drug use has dropped since it was decriminalized in 2001, was used as an example in the provincial report and by Cannings.

“It may seem counterintuitive to provide drugs to these people,” he admitted. “But this is about reducing crime – if people are getting the drugs they are addicted to then they don’t have to go around stealing, breaking into homes and cars to get the money to get the illegal drugs.”

Larson doesn’t see how regulation would solve the problem.

“I do not have faith that giving other drugs, equally as dangerous – I don’t see how that would help save anybody,” she said.

Local doctor Peter Entwistle, who ran against Larson as an independent in 2017, made decriminalization central to his platform.

“See benefits for health, mortality, well-being and reduction in crime in Portugal since they decriminalized,” he said.

But Entwistle doesn’t expect it to happen in the near future.

“No politicians have the political courage.”

The Stopping The Harm report didn’t have anything positive to say about prohibition. Here are its key messages:

• Criminalizing non-violent individuals for possessing a substance for personal use has considerable negative harms both to the individual and society.

• Prohibition and punitive-based drug policy magnify harms associated with substance possession, such as communicable disease transmission, increase stigmatization of people who use drugs, and increase drug-related mortality, while having little to no impact on reducing drug use rates.

• There are potentially long-lasting harms associated with incarceration, including a criminal record for otherwise law-abiding British Columbians who in turn may experience barriers to employment, travel, and other situations that require a criminal background check.

• Law enforcement and health officials recognize that B.C. cannot arrest its way out of the overdose crisis.