The call comes following a motion from Mayor Mike Hurley, introduced at this week’s regular council meeting. The text of the motion pointed to calls by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and B.C. Premier John Horgan for the federal Liberal government to decriminalize simple possession of drugs.
The call for decriminalization has been growing steadily over the past several years. Once a pipe dream of drug policy activists, the issue began gaining traction in the years since 2016, when the B.C. government declared drug toxicity deaths a provincial public health emergency.
An increasingly toxic drug supply in recent years has caused deaths to soar into the range of 1,500 annually in B.C., with the first 11 months of 2020 already setting a new record for drug toxicity deaths.
Here in Burnaby, 49 people died between January and November last year, which Hurley noted is a 72% increase over 2019.
While harm reduction efforts, such as opioid agonist therapy, mass distribution of naloxone and proliferation of overdose prevention sites, appeared to have an effect on fatalities, EMS calls provincially continued to climb. And the reduction in deaths in 2019 were reversed entirely when effective harm reduction advice – never use alone – came into conflict with COVID-19 physical distancing measures.
Hurley told council Monday night that the crisis has “pretty much gone unnoticed by many because of the pandemic” and said he’s personally had a good friend who died of drug toxicity.
“This was a person that had a really good job, really had his act together until about three years ago. I played soccer with him for years,” Hurley said.
“I can tell you I personally know four other people who succumbed the same way in the last 18 months. … This is going to keep getting worse and worse.”
Hurley said action needs to be taken at the federal level.
In spring 2019, Henry introduced Stopping the Harm, a plan to achieve de facto decriminalization of drug users in B.C., without waiting for the federal government to take action. That plan was quickly dismissed by the provincial government.
But in last fall’s provincial election, the BC NDP campaigned on advocating for decriminalization at the federal level, with a vague promise to otherwise take action provincially.
Councillors queued up to speak on the matter in this week’s meeting, each speaking in support of the resolution, largely echoing Hurley’s comments.
Hurley said he wanted to see criminal penalties increased, however, for “those who peddle drugs or those who are part of the getting drugs out there to our kids.”
“I’m talking about treating this as a health issue instead of a criminal issue with the simple possession,” Hurley said.
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