BC asks Ottawa’s help in cleaning up mess from decriminalization ‘pilot project’

The government of British Columbia is admitting it needs help decreasing public drug use stemming from its decriminalization pilot project, which has gotten out of hand and is requesting help from Ottawa.

BC Minister for Mental Health and Addictions Jennifer Whiteside will meet with her federal counterpart Ya'ara Saks on Friday, where the two will discuss what options are available and for the government to review its current exemptions to the pilot.

The British Columbian government's drug decriminalization pilot program is once again at the centre of controversy after comments from two of the province's most senior police officers.

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"We'll be having a conversation about how the exemptions are working to this point," Whiteside said in an interview, reports The Globe and Mail.

She noted that she would request that Ottawa provide more support for supervised "drug-consumption" sites.

Both the BC and federal governments are now attempting to address the use of drugs in public areas where families roam, such as parks and beaches. The province's decriminalization experiment started on January 31, 2023, which made it so that adults in BC could not be arrested or charged with possessing less than 2.5 grams of drugs.

The pilot needed the greenlight from Ottawa, which provided a three-year period for the pilot to take place. Some clear exceptions were made where drug use would be prohibited, such as school grounds, child-care facilities, airports, playgrounds, and skateparks.

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Police officers now say, though, that the pilot program has largely failed, and that drug use has gotten so out of control that we are past the point of being able to do anything about it.

Vancouver police deputy chief Fiona Wilson told the Ottawa Standing Committee on Health that the situation has gotten out of control. When asked by the committee if she believed B.C. was better off after decriminalization, Fiona said she did not.

Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, proposes raising the legal drinking age from 19 to 21 while advocating for the decriminalization of hard drugs in his 2023 Annual Report.

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The province has seen record-setting numbers of drug-related deaths since the decriminalization program took effect.