There’s a lot of guesswork around the implications of decriminalizing hard drugs, so B.C.’s formal request to Ottawa for that this week has some supposition in it.
But the one certainty that gives the request a lot of validity is how useless the current enforcement regime is when it comes to making the slightest difference on illicit drug use.
It will be hard for many people to get their heads around the idea of the state just throwing up its hands and walking away from one of the fronts in the “war on drugs” — simple possession arising from street-level dealing. There will be some objections, but no one can seriously say “stay the course.” The status quo doesn’t work. It’s an utter failure, which turns out to be the main selling point of the decriminalization proposal.
The province’s 44-page submission dwells on that aspect. Destructive drug use all by itself can lead to everything you’d expect — unemployment, family breakup, loss of home and driver’s licence. (And don’t forget death, as in 7,500 in the past five years.) When an arrest and conviction are piled on, there isn’t much evidence of any benefit. B.C. says that stigma is a harm in its own right.
“There is evidence that criminalization does little to deter illicit substance use,” B.C. says. It cites a 2008 study in Vancouver that the majority of people whose drugs were seized by police purchased a new supply within 10 minutes.
Despite de facto decriminalization attempts in Vancouver and a solicitor general’s request that police lay off on simple possession charges, the criminal charging carousel continues. There were almost 50,000 simple possession charges from 2008 to 2017, and RCMP data show a 49 per cent hike in total drug seizures from 2018 to 2020, most of them small amounts.
Most of those force the addicts into the justice system’s mill, where they are processed at huge expense and then turned back onto the street with even more baggage than they had going in.
Those high numbers of charges come despite a standing federal directive to avoid laying simple possession charges except in serious cases. Some police explain those busts as just holding charges to detain suspects involved in other criminal activity.But using personal possession charges that way muddies the water. Counting them no matter why they were laid is one thing. Counting the good they did is another, and it’s a much shorter count.
B.C. includes some expected outcomes that would flow from the request. That’s where the guesswork comes in. All the beneficial long-term outcomes come with an asterisk: “Long term objectives are unlikely to be achieved through decriminalization alone. Progress … is expected to take years and relies on other complementary system changes.”
The shorter-term outcomes look to be a bit more definite. “Reduced police and court time spent on enforcement and prosecution. Reduction in criminal records for simple possession.”
At first glance, the alternative to charging people for small amounts looks absurd. Instead of arresting and charging them, police will give them a … pamphlet?
They are expected to provide information about how to access local health and social supports. It would come in “the form of a pamphlet or card with a standardized preamble as well as “information on available treatment, safer supply options, harm reduction and supervised consumption sites.”
But when compared to the status quo, a pamphlet looks less silly. It would do less harm.
As a measure of how far B.C. wants to move away from the coercive approach now in force, even the idea of making referrals to treatment or other services mandatory is discounted.
Stakeholders were almost unanimously opposed, saying they don’t work.
The provincial submission says: “B.C. has taken a nuanced approach to defining voluntary referrals.” Police won’t proactively refer users, because they may feel obligated to accept a referral from an officer. But they’ll help people who might want one.
The two most obvious downsides to decriminalization are the prospects of increases in impaired driving and public use. The B.C. paper plays down both possibilities. The province doesn’t expect more impaired driving, but will watch for it. And there’s no evidence of more public use in other countries that decriminalized. (Portugal).
Overall, it’s worth a try, based mostly on the lack of any better ideas.
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