Juno News - Liberals keep pushing for drug decriminalization, despite failure in B.C.

00:00:00.000 all right well let's talk about British Columbia I was in Vancouver for a very brief period of time

00:00:14.460 last week and actually got the chance to see my next guest speaking he's been following this issue

00:00:19.940 in a way that very few in the media are and I would say having a little bit of success now

00:00:25.940 British Columbia did a significant about face last week on this three-year decriminalization

00:00:32.040 project they have in their province where for three years you cannot you cannot be criminally

00:00:37.080 charged for using drugs in most public spaces we're one year into the three years and BC has had

00:00:44.360 enough and said no no please please we don't want to do this anymore they've now asked the federal

00:00:48.280 government to essentially reverse this project and the federal government is not yet committing to it

00:00:55.060 this is a clip from Yara Sachs who is the federal addictions and mental health minister talking

00:01:01.080 about how well this isn't even really a criminal issue I'd like to know what your reaction is to

00:01:06.520 BC going back on the criminal well at this point in time I met with Minister Whiteside in BC on Friday

00:01:12.780 and we are reviewing the request to the exemption that they put forward to us we're sitting with

00:01:18.800 Health Canada officials at this time but we are wholeheartedly committed to continue to work with

00:01:23.500 BC they requested this exemption from the federal government with a full plan for a suite of tools

00:01:29.840 to address the illicit toxic drug supply and the overdose crisis our commitment is to keep this

00:01:34.600 firmly in the frame that this is a health care crisis and it is not a criminalization issue

00:01:39.500 so sir BC has asked you to take these actions and as you said you met with the minister how quickly

00:01:46.080 can you respond and give them what they're looking well considering I only received the letter on Friday

00:01:51.780 and today is Monday we are it is under review with officials are you submitted to decriminalization

00:01:56.940 if another jurisdiction I know Toronto for example has an application to allow for decriminalization

00:02:02.080 would the federal government be in the position given BC's experience to be granting more exemptions

00:02:07.340 for decriminalization so I think we need to go back to first principles of policy here

00:02:11.640 in addressing the illicit toxic drug supply and the overdose crisis we know as a federal government

00:02:16.660 that we work with jurisdictions on a case-by-case basis making sure we have a full suite of tools

00:02:21.940 available to help vulnerable populations that includes prevention that includes harm reduction

00:02:26.620 that includes treatment and then includes a full set of health considerations at this time Toronto's

00:02:32.980 request is under review we look at this case-by-case it's not an apples-to-apples situation and we continue

00:02:38.200 to partner and work with restrictions you would still decriminalization is still something you would be

00:02:43.180 prepared to go forward with and grant in a jurisdiction the overdose crisis as I've said before and I say

00:02:48.080 again is a health crisis issue it is not a criminal one not a criminal issue well British Columbia is

00:02:55.860 saying well we kind of think it should be a criminal issue again in BC this is not some like ravaging

00:03:01.520 right-wing conservative government here this is the NDP government which has been one of the most

00:03:06.920 effectively drug permissive governments in the western world on this certainly in Canada and

00:03:13.920 Minister Yara Sachs is now fine with just slow walking BC's request to get out of this and still

00:03:19.420 actively considering the request from Toronto this was another clip from that same scrum that I found

00:03:25.060 interesting when well let's just hear it from her words tell us about the decriminalization tool though

00:03:32.440 I take your point it's a suite of tools but this is one of the tools what's the lesson here about

00:03:36.280 that one year into a three-year pilot and we continue to work with the BC government to

00:03:40.540 evaluate what went wrong in your mind because one year in BC is already saying we got to pull back

00:03:45.100 and it's too much so what went wrong here one year in we're still evaluating the data and working with

00:03:49.740 BC thank you

00:03:50.680 oh it's just one year in we we don't have the data yet okay well you want to do two more years of this

00:03:58.860 Minister Sachs is that really what you think people need uh joining me is Adam Zivo founder and

00:04:04.360 director of the center for responsible drug policy Adam I know that there are people whose lives and

00:04:10.400 livelihoods are at stake here but you must have a bit of I told you so with your work on this and now

00:04:16.300 even BC really seeing the error of its ways to some extent well so I mean the the failure of this

00:04:22.940 experiment in BC was completely predictable I actually wrote an article for the Washington examiner

00:04:27.420 uh predicting everything that we saw and there's a clear reason for this there are a variety of ways

00:04:33.620 that you can decriminalize drugs and and some models of decriminalization are actually fairly

00:04:37.980 sensible and have had positive results in the past for example Portugal but what BC did is decriminalize

00:04:44.740 drugs in the least responsible and laziest way possible so I'm gonna go back to Portugal and explain

00:04:51.480 what they did and how that uh contrast starkly with what we saw in Canada so so Portugal uh in the lead

00:04:58.500 up to decriminalization in the early 2000s they spent years investing into their treatment capacity

00:05:04.500 to ensure that anyone who wanted to get better could easily get into rehab then when they decriminalize

00:05:10.260 drugs they didn't just let people do whatever they wanted like we saw in BC uh what they did is they

00:05:15.320 created a parallel justice system where if you were caught uh openly using drugs or possessing the small

00:05:21.860 amount you were sent to a non-criminal dissuasion commission composed of a social worker a lawyer

00:05:29.140 and a psychologist and that commission could use punitive measures including fines to coerce you

00:05:34.740 into treatment so what this does is it ensures that there is some level of accountability for people's

00:05:39.580 actions and that there is a mechanism in place to push you into rehab which is very available BC did none of

00:05:46.820 that uh did invest in treatment they had no mechanism in place to divert people into into recovery they

00:05:52.660 basically said well if you know you destigmatize drugs that'll increase treatment uptake and there's no

00:05:57.700 real evidence behind that hypothesis which turned out to be spectacularly incorrect yeah and I mean the fact

00:06:04.660 that they're seeing this so early on I think is noteworthy because this was a three-year trajectory so they I

00:06:10.500 guess assumed that it was going to take them three years to be able to see if this was working or not

00:06:14.260 and now a year in they're they're basically tapping out now I maybe there there is a genuine conversion

00:06:20.040 here or maybe they're realizing hey we've got an election coming up in October and this isn't working

00:06:25.200 or maybe a little bit of both but do you I mean do you think the election is more of a driver to a

00:06:30.420 recognition of wrong because they haven't been showing any real contrition on their approach even as

00:06:35.300 recently as a couple of weeks ago I would say so because when you look at the BC NDP they've basically done

00:06:40.960 the bare minimum to roll back decriminalization safe supply you kind of have to force them to do a

00:06:47.880 kicking and screaming example decriminalization was immediately disastrous and last year throughout

00:06:54.380 the summer of 2023 people expressed a lot of concerns about public disorder only when those concerns became

00:07:00.620 impossible to ignore did the provincial government try to amend decriminalization to recriminalize open

00:07:07.180 drug use in public places through provincial law uh then of course the harm reduction nurses association

00:07:12.420 launched a lawsuit against the provincial government and managed to get an injunction

00:07:16.300 uh which prevented bill 34 which was the law that recriminalized drugs at the provincial level from being

00:07:22.760 enforced and that injunction was granted in January uh so at that point at that point David Eby

00:07:30.440 could have asked the federal government to step in he could have been proactive but instead he's like

00:07:35.480 well you know what like it's in front of the courts now what can we do and I think it's notable that he

00:07:40.460 only wants the federal government now when there is polling showing that support is consolidating

00:07:46.520 behind the BC conservatives who have a serious shot of displacing the BC NDP in the October election

00:07:54.520 yeah and I was wondering if you could then go to the federal perspective on this and and why the federal

00:08:00.200 government is not really being responsive it seems like to the same polling I mean we heard from

00:08:04.600 Minister Sachs in that clip I played a couple of moments ago and they're basically not even

00:08:08.440 committing to granting BC's request and they still have this active request from Toronto to do the

00:08:13.880 same thing well I'm gonna be really blunt here oh sorry about the noise I'm at an airport no I

00:08:19.860 know I was gonna say I appreciate you squeezing us in yeah uh so so Yara Sachs the Minister of Addiction

00:08:26.060 Mental Health is incompetent and an ideologue and this is something that you know I know a lot of people

00:08:31.340 who know her as well uh she doesn't have a strong grasp of the evidence base uh she's unwilling to 0.99

00:08:36.620 listen she has a certain idea of what we should do in Canada uh and she wants to pursue that goal

00:08:44.140 regardless of what we see on the ground so I don't think we're gonna see any real change as long as she's

00:08:49.420 the federal Minister of Addictions Mental Health uh given her background and given her lack of knowledge on

00:08:54.300 this issue I mean for god's sakes she used to be a yoga teacher and her only qualifications here is 0.97

00:09:01.020 that she had a non-profit based on addiction mental health that's how they try to sell it and when you 0.69

00:09:05.580 go to the website you see that she was advocating for mindfulness meditation I'm sorry we need someone

00:09:11.020 who actually has experience on the job running this file yeah I think that's an incredibly valuable

00:09:17.020 point here and or the very least someone who's listening to the evidence and listening to the experts on

00:09:21.580 this and is not so driven by by ideology well uh it's a bit of a victory hopefully for uh the people

00:09:26.940 of bc who I know have been pushing for this and we'll see if the federal government ultimately goes

00:09:30.460 along with it Adam's Evo National Post and uh more crucially on this file the Center for Responsible

00:09:36.700 Drug Policy good to talk to you Adam and safe travels wherever you're going

00:09:40.540 thanks for having me back on the show thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show

00:09:44.460 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - May 05, 2024

Liberals keep pushing for drug decriminalization, despite failure in B.C.

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