You’re listening to a Frequency Podcast Network production, in association with City News.
News Clip
Over the course of the pandemic, eleven provinces and territories have seen an increase in the toxicity of illicit drugs, and in B.C. a report reveals more drug deaths in the first six months of 2021 than that province has ever seen.
News Clip Subject #1
How do you know it’s not laced with something?
News Clip Subject #2
I don’t know. It’s a roulette wheel.
Jordan
By now, anyone paying attention knows that drugs are more potent, users are in more danger, and the overdose crisis is spiralling out of control. So far in Canada, though, most steps taken to prevent deaths have been half-measures designed to help, if possible, but also not to rock the boat of the status quo. There are places around the world that are doing things differently, and this week, one of our provinces joined them, just a little, as a test.
News Clip
January 31st, 2023, adults 18 and over in British Columbia will no longer be subject to criminal charges for the possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs for personal use.
Jordan
British Columbia is decriminalizing drugs, some drugs, some amounts for a few years, and we’ll see how it goes. For people invested in harm reduction or people who worry about a loved one who uses or people in the healthcare system who see the results daily, this measure is a true glass half-full or half-empty test. Is it a massive step that will change the course of Canada’s approach to the O.D. crisis, or is it too little, too late? Another example of our policy makers doing just about the least they can do while still moving forward? Or is it both of those things? Whatever it is, we will find out starting next January in B.C.
I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Manisha Krishnan is a senior editor at Vice News. Among her beats is drug policy. Hi, Manisha.
Manisha Krishnan
Hi, Jordan.
Jordan
Why don’t you just start by telling us what happened in British Columbia on Tuesday in the fight against the overdose crisis?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah. So yesterday, Canada’s Minister of mental health and addictions, Carolyn Bennett, announced that the federal government would be giving B.C. an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, allowing for B.C. to decriminalize small amounts of drugs. So basically what this means is that as of January next year, people who are caught with very small amounts of drugs will no longer be arrested.
Jordan
And we’re going to talk about the details of that exemption in just a minute. But first, in terms of your beat, how big a deal is this in terms of Canada’s approach to the problem?
Manisha Krishnan
It is a big deal. I mean, it is the first jurisdiction in Canada to decriminalize possession of drugs. And, besides Oregon, it’s the only place that’s doing that. I think it’s sort of sending the message that this is not a criminal issue, this is a public health issue. So I think on a philosophical level, in terms of de-stigmatizing drug use and changing people’s attitudes and how they view drug users, it’s an important step.
But in terms of will it actually save lives? I mean, it could, because when people are arrested and they go to jail and when they’re released again, they’re actually at higher risk of overdose because their tolerances go down while they’re in jail. And recently, that actually happened to a subject who I was talking to for a documentary that I was working on where he went to jail, he got out of jail and he immediately overdosed and died. So it is a big deal. But at the same time, there are a lot of other arguably more radical measures that I think are probably needed to address this crisis, because the potency of the drugs, the toxicity of the drugs is just really bad right now.
Jordan
Let’s first talk maybe about the philosophical part of this approach. Can you rewind a bit? Why do drug policy experts and harm reduction advocates think that decriminalization is critical to solving this crisis? What’s the general thinking behind this?
Manisha Krishnan
I think the general thinking is that criminalization does not work. It forces people to use drugs in secret, perhaps using higher doses of those drugs, which can put them at higher risk of overdose. It also traps people in the criminal justice system and in poverty, which can be a barrier to seeking treatment. Or, as I just said, it can also put them at high risk of overdose if they go into jail and they sort of get sober and then come out and use right again, especially with kind of the advent of fentanyl and these super strong synthetic drugs.
That aside, we know that a lot of these drug arrests are racist. And so there is a very strong sort of criminal justice element to this. In Vancouver, if you’re Indigenous, you are eight times more likely to be arrested for drug possession than a white person. So I think there’s a lot of different elements to this.
Jordan
And so the measures that were announced yesterday, specifically, how did that come about? How did it first get on the table, and then who had to sign off on it? Like, just how did the process work?
Manisha Krishnan
So it was actually Vancouver initially asked the feds for a Section 56 exemption to decriminalize drugs. I believe that was last June. And then the province followed in their footsteps, and they submitted their application in November, and their application sort of outlined how they would see decriminalization working in the province. What threshold, like what limits of drugs would people be allowed to possess, that type of thing. But really, this builds on years of what public health experts and addictions experts in B.C. have been saying, including Bonnie Henry, who’s their Provincial Health Officer. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have come out and said that criminalization doesn’t work.
It’s interesting that this announcement happened yesterday, because today there’s an NDP bill in the House of Commons that is calling for national decriminalization. And the Liberals have said that they will not vote in favour of it. And so the rationale for that has been sort of vague. Like, I think Trudeau said today that they don’t want to do it without systems and supports in place and building up capacity and making sure there’s ways to support people. But really, public health advocates, people have been calling for decriminalization for a long time.
Jordan
What will decriminalization in British Columbia look like, as of next January? You mentioned a limited amount of drugs. What drugs? How much? Et cetera, et cetera.
Manisha Krishnan
So this will apply to, quote, unquote, hard drugs. I kind of hate using that term. But drugs like heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, meth, MDMA–it will apply to all of those drugs. And people will be able to carry up to two and a half grams of those drugs without worrying about arrest. So if a cop busts you and you have less than that, they can’t take your drugs away, they can’t arrest you, they can’t ticket you, and they cannot force you to get treatment. Above those amounts, though, you can still be arrested. And people who are selling drugs can certainly still be arrested. It’s not legalizing drugs and it’s not legalizing trafficking or anything like that.
Jordan
I want to take a sidestep for a minute. Why do you hate the term “hard drugs?”
Manisha Krishnan
I think that it’s stigmatizing. I think that it’s very easy for people who smoke weed and use psychedelics to other-ize people who use heroin and fentanyl and the drugs that are resulting in all these overdose deaths. And I think that when we really differentiate between the users of these different types of drugs, certainly sort of on a moral scale, it’s really easy to kind of brush the problem aside and say, well, those people are using those drugs that I would never use, and so maybe they deserve the consequences of that.
Jordan
And you’ve been on this beat for quite some time as well, and you already told us one story about an overdose of a documentary subject. You’ve reported and produced a lot of heartbreaking stories about people caught up in this crisis. What was your first initial gut reaction when you heard this news on Tuesday?
Manisha Krishnan
I don’t want to be overly negative. I do think that this is progress. But honestly, my gut reaction is that it’s not enough. If you look at what’s happening in B.C. and you look at some of the policies there, like they have people prescribing fentanyl to opioid users because they don’t want them to be using the street supply. That’s how bad things have gotten there. So there are already more extreme measures in place you could argue in B.C., than this one. And I think that decriminalization is just one piece of the puzzle.
I think the larger problem here is the drug supply is so toxic, people do not know what they’re putting into their bodies. Even the term “overdose”–it’s like, how can you overdose when you can’t even dose properly because you don’t know what you’re taking. It’s so bad that the fentanyl supply is now contaminated with really strong benzos or in some places, tranquilizers. So my initial reaction is that unfortunately, decriminalization does not address that issue at all. It doesn’t address how bad the drug supply has gotten. And that is really what’s driving these deaths.
Jordan
Not to go on a tangent here, because we will come back to how decriminalization will or will not be enforced. But is there anything on the table right now anywhere in Canada that would do a better job of addressing the drug supply that’s causing this?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah. So there’s funding for small projects for safe supply that I think the government recently announced a bit more funding for them. But I think the problem is that they’re still kind of small pilot projects. They’re not widespread. They’re probably most common in B.C. I think there may be a couple of other places that are experimenting with them. But I think that we probably need to see sort of a wide scale expansion of those programs and maybe making it easier for people to access those types of programs, because otherwise we’re just not going to see that dramatic reduction in drug deaths.
Jordan
In terms of B.C. going forward, how will decriminalization be enforced on the ground? It sounds like I’m joking here, but you’ve already talked about the problems with racism and enforcement of, quote, unquote, hard drugs. Are cops going to carry around little scales and make sure that it’s under 2.5 grams? How much do you trust the system to work based on those qualifications?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah. I mean, that is a great question. I do know that the cops are going to be given more funding for training. Somehow, there’s always a way to increase the police budget. Yeah, I don’t know if they’re going to carry around little scales or whether they’re going to be eyeballing it. I do worry that, again, when you give cops discretion that they will target BIPOC people, because traditionally that’s what’s always happened.
I also wonder about things like, will we see an increase in possession for the purpose of trafficking charges, as opposed to just the simple possession charges? And the line between a drug seller and a drug user is really blurry. There’s a lot of people who sell drugs because they’re addicted to drugs and it’s just a source of income for them, or people who share drugs, for example. So I just wonder if we’re going to sort of start to see those types of unintended consequences from this.
Jordan
There’s also a time limit on this program, is that right? And what is that about? And could this rug still be yanked out, I guess, from under B.C. at some point?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah. So right now the exemption is set to last until 2026–so three years. After which, the government will decide whether to extend it or not, or maybe we’ll have a new measure in place by then. Who knows? Maybe decriminalization will be national at that point. But this is kind of the same thing that happened with Insite, which was the first safe injection site in North America. In Vancouver, they had like a time limit, and then they looked at the data and ended up extending it. So I think it’ll sort of follow that route.
Jordan
One of the things that I saw Canadian officials, B.C. officials, saying yesterday is that this could be a template for the rest of Canada. Where are the other provinces on this? I know we’ve talked before about how B.C. is at the forefront of this because they kind of have to be, but how far along is the rest of the country?
Manisha Krishnan
I would just add to that B.C. is on the forefront of this, not only because they have to be. They do have to be, it is ground zero for the O.D. crisis. But also, it has a very strong and rich history of drug user activism. Activism in Vancouver is really like nothing that I’ve seen. So I just want to give credit to those people.
Jordan
What do you mean by that? Can you describe it?
Manisha Krishnan
Well, it’s just like when you’re there and you see people who are just parked in front of a police station handing out little boxes that say cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, to give people a safe supply. And that’s like their form of protest. Maybe in Canada we’re kind of used to that, but that is a very radical form of protest. Now that I cover the U.S., I think it’s even crystallized even more to me how unique Vancouver and B.C. are in that sense. So I just wanted to give credit to the activists who have really been pushing for all of these measures that we’ve seen over the years.
But that being said, Toronto and Montreal have both expressed interest in getting exemptions provincially. I haven’t seen like another province sort of raise their hand and say that, but perhaps it’ll end up being like a city by city thing. I know Trudeau, he did say that they’re interested in working with jurisdictions who want this to happen. But that said, that’s a bit of a slippery slope, right? Because if you have a bunch of people who are dying in your province and you have a leader who is ideologically opposed to decriminalization, I really don’t know if that’s in the best interest of the drug users, right? To leave it up to the province who wants this there, it should really just be like, is this good? Is this going to save lives or not?
Jordan
In terms of this being the template for other places and other jurisdictions in Canada, whether it’s a city or a province or whatever, and you may not know the answer to this, but does that mean that this is kind of the line for what the federal government will allow? And that means if, say, Toronto or Montreal or somewhere else wanted to enact decriminalization itself, it would be limited to the same sort of like 2.5 grams over three years type of test run?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that. I mean, I do know that B.C. wanted a higher threshold limit and that the federal government came back and said, no, we’re going to limit it to 2.5 grams. So honestly? Yeah. I would guess that they would stick to that for the other places that they allowed this exemption.
Jordan
You mentioned covering drug policy in the U.S. as well. Does this step hurt us at all with our neighbours who are notoriously anti-decriminalization?
Manisha Krishnan
I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t think right now. You do have Oregon, which is decriminalized. They have a harsher form of decriminalization than what B.C. will have. Like, the limits are lower and you can still get a fine if you’re caught with drugs. But Joe Biden, he recently mentioned harm reduction in his sort of national drug control strategy and budget, and that was a historic first in the U.S. There’s never been another President who has said the term “harm reduction.” And you’re seeing like de facto decriminalization. It’s actually happening in Baltimore as well. They’re not charging people for low level drug arrests or drug possession anymore. You are seeing a wholesale kind of momentum shift. It is just happening at a slower pace in the U.S. Like, they just opened up their first safe injection sites.
Jordan
What will you, and I guess people who fight for harm reduction, be looking at in the months beginning next January? How will we know if this is working? Is it as simple as, like, number of O.D. deaths drops?
Manisha Krishnan
Yeah. It’s interesting because when Portugal did this in 2001, they had these dramatic drops in like HIV rates, drug deaths. I don’t know if we’re going to see those dramatic rates because frankly, our drug supply is just so screwed up at this point. But I will be looking to see, you know, is there a drop in racist arrests? Are more people getting charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking? How are police using their discretion? How are they sort of measuring, as you said, who’s over the threshold limit? I’ll be looking to sort of see how all of those things unfold. And as always, I’ll be asking the frontline drug users what they’re seeing on the streets.
Jordan
And we will probably catch up with you then to hear about it. Manisha, thank you for this. Thank you for all of your work on the O.D. crisis.
Manisha Krishnan
Thank you so much for having me.
Jordan
Manisha Krishnan of Vice News. That was The Big Story.
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Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
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