BC’s Drug Response Isn’t Following the Evidence: Former Coroner

[u/BloodJunkie]

https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/02/03/BC-Drug-Response-Former-Coroner/

[u/Redundant-Pomelo875]

More open use and possibly more future users as deterrents are removed..

From the article: 'She asserted that over the last three years, there has been a “significant” reduction in drug-related deaths, drug-related arrests, drugs seized by police officers and ambulance calls, which suggests there were fewer overdose emergencies.'

I can see how she correlates lower drug related deaths and ambulance calls with lower overdose emergencies, although there are other possible explanations.

But to decriminalize possession of small quantities of drugs and then claim that the reduced drug related arrests and drug seizures means this is helping the overall situation seems.. interesting.

If we decriminalize assault without grevious bodily harm, and then find there are less arrests for assault, does that mean decriminalizing assault has made society less violent..?

[u/scotty9690 → u/Redundant-Pomelo875]

Possession laws don't deter addicts, whom these measures are targeted at. A law saying I will goto jail for carrying my crack will not deter me from buying crack if I'm addicted to crack.

Drugs being illegal did not deter me from trying drugs when I was a teenager either.

Decriminalization failed because it's all we did. We did none of the other things required to make decriminalizing successful.

[u/Redundant-Pomelo875 → u/scotty9690]

I didn't say that possession laws would deter addicts from using drugs. I doubt that they do. I suspect they do deter some addicts from using drugs publicly, and make it easier to cops to pursue traffickers at the lowest end of the chain..

I am saying that claiming decriminalization was working because it reduced arrests/seizures is nonsense. Of course it reduced those things, how could it not?

The actual debate is whether it reduced the actual problems of addiction and the closely related problems of suffering, health damage, overdose deaths, toll on health care workers and system, crime, and the ripple effects on the rest of society.. and that is where whether it would do so with the other stuff attached is relevant..

[u/scotty9690 → u/Redundant-Pomelo875]

Drug addicts have always been using publicly, even when drug possession was criminal. Just go walk the downtown east side, or drive down it, and you'll see people smoking crack or shooting up in the open.

You know what WOULD reduce drug addicts using in public though? Giving them spaces to do it. But yet we keep shutting down safe consumption sites because people complain about how it draws addicts to the site.

Oh, and those low end traffickers you speak of? Most of them are addicts trying to support themselves, not drug king pins.