Canada’s British Columbia decriminalises hard drugs in bold test to fight overdose crisis
- British Columbia launches three-year pilot project to address a drug overdose crisis that has killed thousands
- Government hopes to tackle the drug issue as a health problem rather than through the criminal justice system
The western Canadian province of British Columbia on Tuesday began a three-year pilot programme to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, Ecstasy, or crack cocaine, as part of an effort to fight a drug overdose crisis.
British Columbia accounts for about a third of the 32,000 deaths due to overdose and trafficking nationally since 2016, according to official data. The province declared drug overdose a public health emergency that year.
The problem worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted illicit drug supply chains as well support services, leaving people with more toxic drugs that they used alone.
Preliminary data released Tuesday by the province showed there were 2,272 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2022, the second largest annual number ever recorded, behind 2021, which had 34 more deaths.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government said in May it would let British Columbia decriminalise the drugs in a first-of-its-kind exemption in Canada.
By not prosecuting people carrying small amounts of drugs, the British Columbia government hopes to tackle the issue as a health problem rather than through the criminal justice system.