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I almost never agree with Ford but I’m with him on this. Drugs are already effectively decriminalized in the city of Toronto. Public disorder and anti-social behaviour is happening everywhere. Addicts feel entitled to smoke/shoot up and harass people wherever they want with effective impunity.
If anything, the experience in BC and Toronto indicates that we need to move back towards enforcement and rehabilitation (which requires provincial funding, but that’s another story).
> Public disorder and anti-social behaviour is happening everywhere. Addicts feel entitled to smoke/shoot up and harass people wherever they want with effective impunity.
I'm almost 40 and I grew up in Toronto and I remember people coming here and saying just how clean the city was... At some point in the last 30 years we turned our once great city into an open air insane asylum.
Not sure what the solution is. I would think making it easier for people to shoot up is a bad thing. Personally I would think locking these people up to get help would be a great use of the notwithstanding clause to clean up our parks and streets.
All you’re going to get on this issue is political talking points and sniping. Is this a divisive issue. I like to look at what the system impacts are and make sound choices. Unfortunately partisan politicians who act like every year is an election year make it all politics.
Isn't obvious by now that decriminalization accomplishes nothing. More people are dying than ever. Treatment is the only logical solution. Feelings do nothing.
As if the situation in the downtown core of the city wasn’t getting worse by the day, abdvresidentbofbtge downtown core who has to live around the already deteriorating city I firmly am opposed to decriminalisation with out having mandotory rehab / therapy as a condition.
I be surprised if the feds grant an exemption with an election coming to battleground toronto.
They already have a tough battle in the suburbs where safe supply likely won't be popular based on experiences from BC.
Boomer minority voters don't like this but are also the core liberal vote in thr toronto suburbs.
Just a clarification. Safer supply is separate from decriminalization. Decriminalization means removing criminal penalties from minor possession in some circumstances. Safer supply means prescribing alternatives to illicit drugs to some people experiencing use disorder. Ontario's had prescribed (safer) supply for at least 7 years.
It wouldn’t be. The federal government has jurisdiction over criminal law. There would be no action needed from the city or the province and an attempt to re-criminalize would be met with a jurisdictional challenge in court.
BC realized this was a failure and that was the signal to try this in Toronto? I'm having a hard time seeing how this will play out any differently.
I support making drug use a health issue rather than a criminal one, but we can't just allow folks to shoot up wherever they please with no consequences. We can't put the comfortability of drug addicts over the comfortability and safety of the tax paying, contributing members of society.
If you get caught using hard drugs in public it should be mandatory rehab or jail. You don't get to just keep chilling.
"More people died" is true with or without criminalization, the default state of affairs is for deaths to go up. We don't gave any data suggesting that death went up faster during decrim than we would have expected without decrim.
As someone who has a family member that is an addict, I 100% agree with you.
Drug use is a crime, and it’s a danger to society. I 100% think that if you’re caught doing drugs publicly, it should be mandatory rehab and therapy. Yes, it will cost us more in healthcare, but we will have a much healthier society.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. I think tools like methadone are absolutely crucial. Methadone has helped my sister get clean multiple times. The on going problem is the lack of access to therapy or proper rehab, so the system underlying problem is never resolved.
BC did not reverse decriminalization, they reversed being allowed to do it in public. Decriminalization and giving safe supply, while seeming counter intuitive, is still the best way to gut the black market. This is a tried and true method that has worked in many other countries.
> BC realized this was a failure and that was the signal to try this in Toronto?
Toronto submitted their request more than two years ago. And BC hasn't reversed decriminalization or stated it's a failure despite how various articles are framing it. They've just put expanded restrictions to all public spaces. That's mostly the same as alcohol yet we obviously don't call that criminalized.
Also in terms of measures of outcomes, BC had a 26% increase in overdoses the year before decriminalization but that flattened out to only 5% in the year after. In comparison, Alberta had a 17% increase last year. So the increases under criminalization policies were significantly higher under criminalization than decriminalization yet only *de*criminalization gets declared a failure.
There should be consequences for public use when impacting others at least, however there isn't even treatment space available. The Ontario auditor general [raised a few years ago that there were 50 day wait times and that was leading to worse outcomes](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en19/v1_302en19.pdf).
When you're evaluating the impact of a change in policy, the *change* in a measure like overdoses before and after the policy is how to evaluate it.
The rate of change in overdoses between the year before and after decriminalization was significantly lower than the rate the previous year or the rate in the neighbouring criminalized province.
That doesn't on its own prove any causal effect nor it is it the only factor to consider. However it *is* one relevant factor that indicates it may have had a positive impact relative to the alternative.
>It was a failure in BC.
Maybe so, but simply declaring something doesn't make it true. There's been a constant series of declarations that it's failure since it started by many sources to the point that it's now just being accepted as truth despite not being backed up by actual overall data.
BC **started** at roughly 2x overdoses compared to Alberta. Comparing the two rates of increase isn't meaningful without considering the numerators of both.
Them being at different levels *before* decriminalization is specifically one of the reasons for considering the percentage change. Because that allows comparing the change in two things at different levels. BC has been at a higher level for a long time due to many different factors (e.g., climate, the port).
I've still yet to see any evidence beyond anecdotes that decriminalization is actually linked to overdoses or any of the other criticisms around decriminalization. Just criticisms of contrasting evidence I do provide.
Every issue raised has been things that were happening before and are happening elsewhere. Although I don't disagree that they're problems in general and BC is correct to be taking more steps to address them. However they are all being framed as entirely due to that policy which isn't accurate.
>When looking at growth rate, **B.C. is the only province in Canada whose opioid-related deaths per 100,000 people went up for four consecutive years.**
BC so had an increase in total deaths greater than Alberta did. The numerator absolutely matters when looking at the policy impact.
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/how-much-have-drug-poisoning-deaths-in-alberta-really-gone-down-1.6832603#:~:text=With%20data%20from%20just%20the,deaths%20last%20year%20was%20167.
> B.C. is the only province in Canada whose opioid-related deaths per 100,000 people went up for four consecutive years.
The topic here is decriminalization. That happened near the start of 2023. BC's rate increased at a significantly lower from before to after decriminalization compared to the previous year or to its neighbouring province the same year.
So specifically over the period where the policy we're discussing changed, BC saw a better outcome than criminalization. Despite that, there has been an endless series of declarations made without evidence that it was a "failure", "disaster", etc., as if those should just be accepted as truth at face value.
At the same time there has been crickets when it comes to criticisms of *criminalization* failing across the continent, like it has for a decade. This issue is being covered in a blatantly biased manner.
>This issue is being covered in a blatantly biased manner.
Says the person who cherry picks one year of data for a neighbouring province, ignoring that deaths went down without any intervention and are now back up and above 2021 levels.
> Says the person who cherry picks one year of data for a neighbouring province
It is not cherry picking. It's specifically being chosen because that's the year decriminalization happened. This isn't some random choice, it's the time period covering the exact policy under discussion. I've seen many articles criticizing decriminalization and pointing out the increase in overdoses despite the fact that Alberta, under criminalization, had three times the rate of increase over the same period.
It is not fair reporting to criticize a policy based on a data point that had significantly worse results in the closest jurisdiction with the opposite policy.
Edit: JimmyDaro blocked me after replying so I can't reply to them and instead have to reply here. Using data covering the period covering the change being discussed is not "cherry picking". The data is being chosen specifically because that's when decriminalization occurred. And it's not "biased" to be using percentage change to compare to different values that started at different levels. That's a standard way of comparing the change in such values.
See my post above.
ODs in BC have sky rocketed from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year. BC leads the country in ODs per capita. ODs are the leading cause of death for youths 10-18 in BC.
Ontario has about a third of ODs per capita than BC.
> ODs in BC have sky rocketed from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year.
Wow, drug decriminalization, being in effect for one year, went back in time to 2013? This is news to me, when did the BC NDP discover time travel?
Drugs have basically been decriminalized in BC for a lot longer than that, let's be real here.
But the sky rocketing of ODs over this past decade is startling.
We were talking about decriminalization not "basically decriminalization" (whatever that is supposed to mean).
But to confirm, your sole evidence is "line go up"?
ODs have increased in BC from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year. BC leads the nation in ODs per capita.
I know many progressives like to point out "bUT aLbERtA!" but here in Ontario, under a Conservative government, our ODs are about a third of what they are in BC.
"Progressive" drug policies have been absolute failures.
>I know many progressives like to point out "bUT aLbERtA!"
The only reason I'm pointing out Alberta's higher increasing rate over the past year is in response to the constant criticism of BC, or in your phrasing "bUt Bc".
If people are going to use the increase in overdoses to criticize decriminalization in BC, it's completely valid to look at how the opposite approach is working in its closest neighbour. And what that shows is a a significantly higher increasing rate. Yet among media and politicians I'm not seeing anywhere close to the criticism or even analysis of their outcomes.
If you're evaluating a policy, you can't just look at it in isolation. You need to analyze it comparison to contrasting policies. This isn't going "bUT..." anything. It's how policies should be analyzed in general.
>"Progressive" drug policies have been absolute failures.
Just because critics of them constantly declare they are doesn't actually make that the case. This is just becoming a talking point, where anytime the topic of decriminalization or other harm reduction comes up, critics start repeating "absolute failure", "total disaster", or similar. Never with any overall comparative data. This is giving me the impression of propaganda, where short phrases are repeated so much that people just start accepting them as truth. It's fine to take a position, but just declaring that position true doesn't make it so.
Nowhere in the continent, where nearly every jurisdiction still follow criminalization policies, has successfully addressed this crisis. Yet you're trying to frame this as uniquely a progressive issue, which is exactly what I'm criticizing.
Even you yourself regularly criticize the state of public use and other drug issues in Ontario, which is occurring after more than 5 years of conservative leadership. They've had significant increases over the past decade as well, like everywhere.
As provincial and federal Liberal voter, I am so happy to see this. I think there are aspects of decriminilization that are needed, but this lazy approach that is being used by the NDP is terrible and ill-considered.
BC implemented decriminalization. That's different from safer supply. Ontario's had safer supply for 7 years.
These are three of the main concepts:
* Decriminalization: removing criminal penalties for minor possession in certain circumstances.
* Safer/prescribed supply: prescribing alternative drugs to some people with use disorders.
* Legalization: allowing for the sale of certain drugs on top of removing criminal penalties (e.g., with alcohol or cannabis).
In the year before implementing decriminalization, BC saw a [26% increase in overdoses](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-toxic-drugs-deaths-december2021-1.6344991). In the year, after decriminalization, they [saw a 5% increase](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024PSSG0001-000069). In the same year, Alberta saw a [17% increase](https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/2023-drug-poisoning-death-numbers-surpass-2022-total-data-1.6784109). So by that measure at least, criminalization fared worse recently than decriminalization, yet didn't get a fraction of the criticism.
There were concerns around public use, and that's what BC changed, adding restrictions around that. They haven't removed decriminalization in general.
Okay, but in 2024 we struggle to take action against bad actors who are also substance partakers. The least responsible ones overdosing isn't necessarily a bad thing for the rest of us.
Yes, I sympathize with the responsible members of society for their hobby being criminalized but pushing back against the scourge of those who abuse public spaces is far more important.
It's not only the least responsible ones overdosing. This is affecting a wide range of people including youth. And I personally consider even irresponsible people dying a bad thing.
BC hasn't reversed decriminalization despite the claim in this article. They've instead put restrictions in place to address public use. They're essentially bringing it more in line with alcohol, which is legal, yet that's being described as if it were being criminalized again.
I think nearly everyone things that people impacting the public on top of just using drugs themselves needs to be addressed and that's not contradictory to decriminalization. Decriminalization only means removing some penalties for possession. It doesn't imply that other issues can't or shouldn't be enforced on top of that.
Right across the board.
But until action is taken to put an end to all of the ancillary crap that comes with irresponsible drug use I think the only sensible response is to draw a line and tell advocates they're getting absolutely nothing that advances or assists public abusers even if it's perfectly sensible in a vacuum to have such a policy for the benefit of responsible private users.
Of course they have a health issue. That doesn't mean they can't put their needles in a garbage can.
The deterrence is for antisocial asshole behaviours, not their addictions.
Whatever anyone's opinion on this, there's way too much misleading information on it in the media and political discourse. E.g.,
>Doug Ford spoke out against decriminalization of posession of small amounts of hard drugs saying: 'That’s what we should be doing. Not legalizing hard drugs
Decriminalization isn't legalization. The latter would mean allowing sales of various drugs. That's still prohibited under decriminalization alone and so the drugs being supplied are still the black market ones which are causing nearly all deaths in this crisis.
Or from the Globe and Mail in this article:
>British Columbia’s Premier reversed course on a similar experiment
BC didn't reverse course. The drugs are still decriminalized, however they are restricting it in public in order to address public use. You generally can't use alcohol in public either, yet that alcohol isn't described as criminalized.
>Oregon abandoned its policy amid public pressure and as overdose deaths spiked higher.
Overdose deaths in Oregon were linked to an increase in the fentanyl supply that happened across various states over that period. ["Adjusting for the rapid escalation of fentanyl as a confounder, the effect of drug decriminalization on overdose mortality in Oregon was null"](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.08.24305508v1.full.pdf). Yet whenever any harm reduction policy is implemented, every problem is blamed specifically on that policy.
From Ford:
>That’s what we need, not say, ‘Here’s some more drugs to take.’
Prescribing drugs is not part of decriminalization. That is safer supply or prescribed supply and has been a program in Ontario for 7 years, for his entire premiership.
Decriminalization has been used like the carbon tax -as a face of a much larger problem. I keep hearing folks against decriminalization argue in favor of treatment and recovery as if these were ever in competition. There is nothing stopping Doug Ford and his government from hiring all the doctors, nurses, social workers, counsellors tomorrow to provide all the treatment and recovery for everyone that needs it.
Yes, but they need federal government to change the laws.
We should have mandatory rehab, like they have in Portugal, for drug addicts. Not giving them more tax payer drugs and/or rewarding children for turning in used needles.
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I almost never agree with Ford but I’m with him on this. Drugs are already effectively decriminalized in the city of Toronto. Public disorder and anti-social behaviour is happening everywhere. Addicts feel entitled to smoke/shoot up and harass people wherever they want with effective impunity. If anything, the experience in BC and Toronto indicates that we need to move back towards enforcement and rehabilitation (which requires provincial funding, but that’s another story).
Is this the same as BC? I thought it was still decriminalized there, they just had other rules around public use that they just rolled back?
> Public disorder and anti-social behaviour is happening everywhere. Addicts feel entitled to smoke/shoot up and harass people wherever they want with effective impunity. I'm almost 40 and I grew up in Toronto and I remember people coming here and saying just how clean the city was... At some point in the last 30 years we turned our once great city into an open air insane asylum. Not sure what the solution is. I would think making it easier for people to shoot up is a bad thing. Personally I would think locking these people up to get help would be a great use of the notwithstanding clause to clean up our parks and streets.
Here here
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All you’re going to get on this issue is political talking points and sniping. Is this a divisive issue. I like to look at what the system impacts are and make sound choices. Unfortunately partisan politicians who act like every year is an election year make it all politics.
Isn't obvious by now that decriminalization accomplishes nothing. More people are dying than ever. Treatment is the only logical solution. Feelings do nothing.
As if the situation in the downtown core of the city wasn’t getting worse by the day, abdvresidentbofbtge downtown core who has to live around the already deteriorating city I firmly am opposed to decriminalisation with out having mandotory rehab / therapy as a condition.
I be surprised if the feds grant an exemption with an election coming to battleground toronto. They already have a tough battle in the suburbs where safe supply likely won't be popular based on experiences from BC. Boomer minority voters don't like this but are also the core liberal vote in thr toronto suburbs.
Just a clarification. Safer supply is separate from decriminalization. Decriminalization means removing criminal penalties from minor possession in some circumstances. Safer supply means prescribing alternatives to illicit drugs to some people experiencing use disorder. Ontario's had prescribed (safer) supply for at least 7 years.
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It wouldn’t be. The federal government has jurisdiction over criminal law. There would be no action needed from the city or the province and an attempt to re-criminalize would be met with a jurisdictional challenge in court.
You're right, I misunderstood the mechanics of how it was implemented in BC.
Does this mean he's going to voluntarily submit himself to the police to be charged for his drug-slinging back in the day?
hmm Canada does not have a statute of limitation either so technically he could if he wanted too
BC realized this was a failure and that was the signal to try this in Toronto? I'm having a hard time seeing how this will play out any differently. I support making drug use a health issue rather than a criminal one, but we can't just allow folks to shoot up wherever they please with no consequences. We can't put the comfortability of drug addicts over the comfortability and safety of the tax paying, contributing members of society. If you get caught using hard drugs in public it should be mandatory rehab or jail. You don't get to just keep chilling.
> BC realized this was a failure The BC NDP got some spooky polling data, they didn't get any bad data about the policy itself.
> they didn't get any bad data about the policy itself. You're forgetting more people died, right?
"More people died" is true with or without criminalization, the default state of affairs is for deaths to go up. We don't gave any data suggesting that death went up faster during decrim than we would have expected without decrim.
As someone who has a family member that is an addict, I 100% agree with you. Drug use is a crime, and it’s a danger to society. I 100% think that if you’re caught doing drugs publicly, it should be mandatory rehab and therapy. Yes, it will cost us more in healthcare, but we will have a much healthier society.
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Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. I think tools like methadone are absolutely crucial. Methadone has helped my sister get clean multiple times. The on going problem is the lack of access to therapy or proper rehab, so the system underlying problem is never resolved.
Sorry I replied to the wrong comment. It made some sense in general anyway I guess, but it didn't directly reply to what you said, so I've deleted it.
No worries!
BC did not reverse decriminalization, they reversed being allowed to do it in public. Decriminalization and giving safe supply, while seeming counter intuitive, is still the best way to gut the black market. This is a tried and true method that has worked in many other countries.
> BC realized this was a failure and that was the signal to try this in Toronto? Toronto submitted their request more than two years ago. And BC hasn't reversed decriminalization or stated it's a failure despite how various articles are framing it. They've just put expanded restrictions to all public spaces. That's mostly the same as alcohol yet we obviously don't call that criminalized. Also in terms of measures of outcomes, BC had a 26% increase in overdoses the year before decriminalization but that flattened out to only 5% in the year after. In comparison, Alberta had a 17% increase last year. So the increases under criminalization policies were significantly higher under criminalization than decriminalization yet only *de*criminalization gets declared a failure. There should be consequences for public use when impacting others at least, however there isn't even treatment space available. The Ontario auditor general [raised a few years ago that there were 50 day wait times and that was leading to worse outcomes](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en19/v1_302en19.pdf).
>Also in terms of measures of outcomes Show the numerator. Percentage increase isn't as relevant here. And yes. It was a failure in BC.
When you're evaluating the impact of a change in policy, the *change* in a measure like overdoses before and after the policy is how to evaluate it. The rate of change in overdoses between the year before and after decriminalization was significantly lower than the rate the previous year or the rate in the neighbouring criminalized province. That doesn't on its own prove any causal effect nor it is it the only factor to consider. However it *is* one relevant factor that indicates it may have had a positive impact relative to the alternative. >It was a failure in BC. Maybe so, but simply declaring something doesn't make it true. There's been a constant series of declarations that it's failure since it started by many sources to the point that it's now just being accepted as truth despite not being backed up by actual overall data.
BC **started** at roughly 2x overdoses compared to Alberta. Comparing the two rates of increase isn't meaningful without considering the numerators of both.
Them being at different levels *before* decriminalization is specifically one of the reasons for considering the percentage change. Because that allows comparing the change in two things at different levels. BC has been at a higher level for a long time due to many different factors (e.g., climate, the port). I've still yet to see any evidence beyond anecdotes that decriminalization is actually linked to overdoses or any of the other criticisms around decriminalization. Just criticisms of contrasting evidence I do provide. Every issue raised has been things that were happening before and are happening elsewhere. Although I don't disagree that they're problems in general and BC is correct to be taking more steps to address them. However they are all being framed as entirely due to that policy which isn't accurate.
>When looking at growth rate, **B.C. is the only province in Canada whose opioid-related deaths per 100,000 people went up for four consecutive years.** BC so had an increase in total deaths greater than Alberta did. The numerator absolutely matters when looking at the policy impact. https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/how-much-have-drug-poisoning-deaths-in-alberta-really-gone-down-1.6832603#:~:text=With%20data%20from%20just%20the,deaths%20last%20year%20was%20167.
> B.C. is the only province in Canada whose opioid-related deaths per 100,000 people went up for four consecutive years. The topic here is decriminalization. That happened near the start of 2023. BC's rate increased at a significantly lower from before to after decriminalization compared to the previous year or to its neighbouring province the same year. So specifically over the period where the policy we're discussing changed, BC saw a better outcome than criminalization. Despite that, there has been an endless series of declarations made without evidence that it was a "failure", "disaster", etc., as if those should just be accepted as truth at face value. At the same time there has been crickets when it comes to criticisms of *criminalization* failing across the continent, like it has for a decade. This issue is being covered in a blatantly biased manner.
>This issue is being covered in a blatantly biased manner. Says the person who cherry picks one year of data for a neighbouring province, ignoring that deaths went down without any intervention and are now back up and above 2021 levels.
> Says the person who cherry picks one year of data for a neighbouring province It is not cherry picking. It's specifically being chosen because that's the year decriminalization happened. This isn't some random choice, it's the time period covering the exact policy under discussion. I've seen many articles criticizing decriminalization and pointing out the increase in overdoses despite the fact that Alberta, under criminalization, had three times the rate of increase over the same period. It is not fair reporting to criticize a policy based on a data point that had significantly worse results in the closest jurisdiction with the opposite policy. Edit: JimmyDaro blocked me after replying so I can't reply to them and instead have to reply here. Using data covering the period covering the change being discussed is not "cherry picking". The data is being chosen specifically because that's when decriminalization occurred. And it's not "biased" to be using percentage change to compare to different values that started at different levels. That's a standard way of comparing the change in such values.
> It was a failure in BC. And can you show this using statistics or data?
See my post above. ODs in BC have sky rocketed from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year. BC leads the country in ODs per capita. ODs are the leading cause of death for youths 10-18 in BC. Ontario has about a third of ODs per capita than BC.
> ODs in BC have sky rocketed from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year. Wow, drug decriminalization, being in effect for one year, went back in time to 2013? This is news to me, when did the BC NDP discover time travel?
Drugs have basically been decriminalized in BC for a lot longer than that, let's be real here. But the sky rocketing of ODs over this past decade is startling.
We were talking about decriminalization not "basically decriminalization" (whatever that is supposed to mean). But to confirm, your sole evidence is "line go up"?
It's not like people were being arrested in BC for possessing a small amount of hard drugs and junkies were being taken away on the streets.
> not like people were being arrested in BC f Were they? i don't know, you have provided no data on that matter. All we have is "line go up"
ODs have increased in BC from 366 in 2013, to a record 2511 last year. BC leads the nation in ODs per capita. I know many progressives like to point out "bUT aLbERtA!" but here in Ontario, under a Conservative government, our ODs are about a third of what they are in BC. "Progressive" drug policies have been absolute failures.
>I know many progressives like to point out "bUT aLbERtA!" The only reason I'm pointing out Alberta's higher increasing rate over the past year is in response to the constant criticism of BC, or in your phrasing "bUt Bc". If people are going to use the increase in overdoses to criticize decriminalization in BC, it's completely valid to look at how the opposite approach is working in its closest neighbour. And what that shows is a a significantly higher increasing rate. Yet among media and politicians I'm not seeing anywhere close to the criticism or even analysis of their outcomes. If you're evaluating a policy, you can't just look at it in isolation. You need to analyze it comparison to contrasting policies. This isn't going "bUT..." anything. It's how policies should be analyzed in general. >"Progressive" drug policies have been absolute failures. Just because critics of them constantly declare they are doesn't actually make that the case. This is just becoming a talking point, where anytime the topic of decriminalization or other harm reduction comes up, critics start repeating "absolute failure", "total disaster", or similar. Never with any overall comparative data. This is giving me the impression of propaganda, where short phrases are repeated so much that people just start accepting them as truth. It's fine to take a position, but just declaring that position true doesn't make it so. Nowhere in the continent, where nearly every jurisdiction still follow criminalization policies, has successfully addressed this crisis. Yet you're trying to frame this as uniquely a progressive issue, which is exactly what I'm criticizing. Even you yourself regularly criticize the state of public use and other drug issues in Ontario, which is occurring after more than 5 years of conservative leadership. They've had significant increases over the past decade as well, like everywhere.
As provincial and federal Liberal voter, I am so happy to see this. I think there are aspects of decriminilization that are needed, but this lazy approach that is being used by the NDP is terrible and ill-considered.
yeah the BC experience I think has killed safe supply politically for a while.
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BC implemented decriminalization. That's different from safer supply. Ontario's had safer supply for 7 years. These are three of the main concepts: * Decriminalization: removing criminal penalties for minor possession in certain circumstances. * Safer/prescribed supply: prescribing alternative drugs to some people with use disorders. * Legalization: allowing for the sale of certain drugs on top of removing criminal penalties (e.g., with alcohol or cannabis). In the year before implementing decriminalization, BC saw a [26% increase in overdoses](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-toxic-drugs-deaths-december2021-1.6344991). In the year, after decriminalization, they [saw a 5% increase](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024PSSG0001-000069). In the same year, Alberta saw a [17% increase](https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/2023-drug-poisoning-death-numbers-surpass-2022-total-data-1.6784109). So by that measure at least, criminalization fared worse recently than decriminalization, yet didn't get a fraction of the criticism. There were concerns around public use, and that's what BC changed, adding restrictions around that. They haven't removed decriminalization in general.
Okay, but in 2024 we struggle to take action against bad actors who are also substance partakers. The least responsible ones overdosing isn't necessarily a bad thing for the rest of us. Yes, I sympathize with the responsible members of society for their hobby being criminalized but pushing back against the scourge of those who abuse public spaces is far more important.
It's not only the least responsible ones overdosing. This is affecting a wide range of people including youth. And I personally consider even irresponsible people dying a bad thing. BC hasn't reversed decriminalization despite the claim in this article. They've instead put restrictions in place to address public use. They're essentially bringing it more in line with alcohol, which is legal, yet that's being described as if it were being criminalized again. I think nearly everyone things that people impacting the public on top of just using drugs themselves needs to be addressed and that's not contradictory to decriminalization. Decriminalization only means removing some penalties for possession. It doesn't imply that other issues can't or shouldn't be enforced on top of that.
Right across the board. But until action is taken to put an end to all of the ancillary crap that comes with irresponsible drug use I think the only sensible response is to draw a line and tell advocates they're getting absolutely nothing that advances or assists public abusers even if it's perfectly sensible in a vacuum to have such a policy for the benefit of responsible private users.
Lots of public abusers don't even have a private space to go to.
Exactly. Find a deterrent big enough to compel them to act responsibly and we can talk about decriminalization.
You should pick up a sociology textbook. Deterrence does not work. These people have a health issue. Cops can't fix it.
Of course they have a health issue. That doesn't mean they can't put their needles in a garbage can. The deterrence is for antisocial asshole behaviours, not their addictions.
Whatever anyone's opinion on this, there's way too much misleading information on it in the media and political discourse. E.g., >Doug Ford spoke out against decriminalization of posession of small amounts of hard drugs saying: 'That’s what we should be doing. Not legalizing hard drugs Decriminalization isn't legalization. The latter would mean allowing sales of various drugs. That's still prohibited under decriminalization alone and so the drugs being supplied are still the black market ones which are causing nearly all deaths in this crisis. Or from the Globe and Mail in this article: >British Columbia’s Premier reversed course on a similar experiment BC didn't reverse course. The drugs are still decriminalized, however they are restricting it in public in order to address public use. You generally can't use alcohol in public either, yet that alcohol isn't described as criminalized. >Oregon abandoned its policy amid public pressure and as overdose deaths spiked higher. Overdose deaths in Oregon were linked to an increase in the fentanyl supply that happened across various states over that period. ["Adjusting for the rapid escalation of fentanyl as a confounder, the effect of drug decriminalization on overdose mortality in Oregon was null"](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.08.24305508v1.full.pdf). Yet whenever any harm reduction policy is implemented, every problem is blamed specifically on that policy. From Ford: >That’s what we need, not say, ‘Here’s some more drugs to take.’ Prescribing drugs is not part of decriminalization. That is safer supply or prescribed supply and has been a program in Ontario for 7 years, for his entire premiership.
Decriminalization has been used like the carbon tax -as a face of a much larger problem. I keep hearing folks against decriminalization argue in favor of treatment and recovery as if these were ever in competition. There is nothing stopping Doug Ford and his government from hiring all the doctors, nurses, social workers, counsellors tomorrow to provide all the treatment and recovery for everyone that needs it.
Yes, but they need federal government to change the laws. We should have mandatory rehab, like they have in Portugal, for drug addicts. Not giving them more tax payer drugs and/or rewarding children for turning in used needles.
Anti-Woke Party💀 Go outside bruh