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Addictions

British Columbia Supreme Court rules province’s constitution protects hard drug use on playgrounds

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Hinkson even admitted that playgrounds would be exposed to having bio-hazardous drug paraphernalia but claimed that these issues take a back seat to the province’s drug overdose problems.

In light of the federal government relaxed stance on hard drug use in British Columbia, the province’s Supreme Court ruled that preventing drug users from going near playgrounds would violate their constitutional right and cause “irreparable harm.”

The NDP provincial government was considering amendments to a federal government hard drug use allowance pilot that allowed hard drugs to be consumed in small quantities by banning hard drug use near areas where kids gather, such as playgrounds.

NDP British Columbia Premier David Eby had said of his government’s amendment in May 2023 that “nobody wants this activity affecting our kids, and we will do something.”

Many municipalities had complained that parks and playgrounds should be off-limits to drug users and stay protected, per the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The government’s amendment was encoded after a bill was passed last November that directed police to ensure illegal drugs in playgrounds were not allowed, and those doing so should be told to leave or face arrest if they did not comply.

The province’s playground amendment was put in place on September 18, 2023, which in effect barred hard drug use near playgrounds. It should be noted that the original decriminalization law included an exception banning drug use near “childcare facility premises.”

However, the province’s Supreme Court responded with an injunction that struck down this amendment in December 2023. The court’s injunction to the province’s law, which banned hard drug use near playgrounds, ruled that this amendment was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

According to provincial Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson, banning hard drug use in areas where kids congregate would cause “harm” to drug users.

Hinkson even admitted that playgrounds would be exposed to having bio-hazardous drug paraphernalia but claimed that these issues take a back seat to the province’s drug overdose problems.

Ruling ‘outrageous,’ says Conservative MP

Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay for South Surrey-White Rock, British Columbia, blasted the court’s ruling.

“Crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. An outrageous decision by the BC Supreme Court that only advances Trudeau’s radical agenda and puts our children at risk,” Findlay posted December 30 on X (formerly Twitter).

“Instead of normalizing open drug use, Conservatives will bring home safe communities & ensure our loved ones suffering from addiction are treated with compassion and on a path to recovery.”

The court injunction stemmed from the Harm Reduction Nurses Association arguing in court that restricting hard drug use near playgrounds would result in “lone drug use” that would lead to more overdoses.

“It is apparent that public consumption and consuming drugs in the company of others is oftentimes the safest, healthiest, and/or only available option for an individual,” Hinkson ruled.

Provincial government lawyers argued in court that the Harm Reduction Nurses Association was trying to use “anecdotal evidence, unsubstantiated conclusory statements” by claiming its amendment would cause harm.

Hinkson disagreed. “Given the evidence before me, I find that there is a high degree of probability that at least some of the harm set out by the plaintiff will in fact occur,” he said.

He also said the provincial amendment would violate one’s “right to life, liberty and security of the person” guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“I am satisfied that the suspension of the Act  can be properly characterized as a substantial public benefit,” he ruled.

His injunction will stay in place until March 31, 2024.

Deaths from drug overdoses in Canada have gone through the roof, notably after the Trudeau government relaxed the nation’s hard drug rules in British Columbia on a trial basis.

Trudeau’s federal policy put in place in May 2022 in effect decriminalized hard drugs, including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, meth and MDMA on a trial-run basis in British Columbia. While the policy was approved in 2022, it did not come into effect until February 2023.

Under the policy, the federal government began allowing people within the province to possess up to 2.5 grams of hard drugs without criminal penalty, but selling drugs remained a crime.

The policy has been widely criticized, especially after it was found that the province broke three different drug-related overdose records in the first month the new law was in effect.

Despite the policy, deaths from drug overdoses in Canada continue to skyrocket. The most recent statistics from 2021 show that they went up 33%.

Addictions

Ontario to restrict Canadian government’s supervised drug sites, shift focus to helping addicts

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is making good on a promise to close so-called drug “supervision” sites in his province and says his government will focus on helping addicts get better instead of giving them free drugs.

Ford’s Progressive Conservative government on Monday tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.

Specifically, the new bill will ban “supervised” drug consumption sites from being close to schools or childcare centers. Ten sites will close for now, including five in Toronto.

The new law would prohibit the “establishment and operation of a supervised consumption site at a location that is less than 200 meters from certain types of schools, private schools, childcare centers, Early child and family centers and such other premises as may be prescribed by the regulations.”

It would also in effect ban municipalities and local boards from applying for an “exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) for the purpose of decriminalizing the personal possession of a controlled substance or precursor.”

Lastly, the new law would put strict “limits” on the power municipalities and local boards have concerning “applications respecting supervised consumption sites and safer supply services.”

“Municipalities and local boards may only make such applications or support such applications if they have obtained the approval of the provincial Minister of Health,” the bill reads.

The new bill is part of a larger omnibus bill that makes changes relating to sex offenders as well as auto theft, which has exploded in the province in recent months.

In September, Ford had called the federal government’s lax drug policies tantamount to being the “biggest drug dealer in the entire country” and had vowed to act.

In speaking about the new bill, Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones said the Ford government does not plan to allow municipal requests to the government regarding supervised consumption sites.

“Municipalities and organizations like public health units have to first come to the province because we don’t want them bypassing and getting any federal approval for something that we vehemently disagree with,” Jones told the media on Monday.

She also clarified that “there will be no further safe injection sites in the province of Ontario under our government.”

Ontario will instead create 19 new intensive addiction recovery to help those addicted to deadly drugs.

Alberta and other provinces have had success helping addicts instead of giving them free drugs.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, deaths related to opioid and other drug overdoses in Alberta fell to their lowest levels in years after the Conservative government began to focus on helping addicts via a recovery-based approach instead of the Liberal-minded, so-called “safe-supply” method.

Despite public backlash with respect to supervised drug consumption sites, Health Canada recently approved 16 more drug consumption sites in Ontario. Ford mentioned in the press conference that each day he gets “endless phone calls about needles being in the parks, needles being by the schools and the daycares,” calling the situation “unacceptable.”

The Liberals claim their “safer supply” program is good because it is “providing prescribed medications as a safer alternative to the toxic illegal drug supply to people who are at high risk of overdose.”

However, studies have shown that these programs often lead an excess of deaths from overdose in areas where they are allowed.

While many of the government’s lax drug policies continue, they have been forced to backpedal on some of their most extreme actions.

After the federal government allowed British Columbia to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, meth and MDMA beginning January 1, 2023, reports of overdoses and chaos began skyrocketing, leading the province to request that Trudeau re-criminalize drugs in public spaces.

A week later, the federal government relented and accepted British Columbia’s request.

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Addictions

BC Addictions Expert Questions Ties Between Safer Supply Advocates and For-Profit Companies

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By Liam Hunt

Canada’s safer supply programs are “selling people down the river,” says a leading medical expert in British Columbia. Dr. Julian Somers, director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University, says that despite the thin evidence in support of these experimental programs, the BC government has aggressively expanded them—and retaliated against dissenting researchers.

Somers also, controversially, raises questions about doctors and former health officials who appear to have gravitated toward businesses involved in these programs. He notes that these connections warrant closer scrutiny to ensure public policies remain free from undue industry influence.

Safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free addictive drugs—typically 8-milligram tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin—to dissuade addicts from accessing riskier street substances. Yet, a growing number of doctors say these programs are deeply misguided—and widely defrauded.

Ultimately, Somers argues, safer supply is exacerbating the country’s addiction crisis.

Somers opposed safer supply at its inception and openly criticized its nationwide expansion in 2020. He believes these programs perpetuate drug use and societal disconnection and fail to encourage users to make the mental and social changes needed to beat addiction. Worse yet, the safer supply movement seems rife with double standards that devalue the lives of poorer drug users. While working professionals are provided generous supports that prioritize recovery, disadvantaged Canadians are given “ineffective yet profitable” interventions, such as safer supply, that “convey no expectation that stopping substance use or overcoming addiction is a desirable or important goal.”

To better understand addiction, Somers created the Inter-Ministry Evaluation Database (IMED) in 2004, which, for the first time in BC’s history, connected disparate information—i.e. hospitalizations, incarceration rates—about vulnerable populations.

Throughout its existence, health experts used IMED’s data to create dozens of research projects and papers. It allowed Somers to conduct a multi-million-dollar randomized control trial (the “Vancouver at Home” study) that showed that scattering vulnerable people into regular apartments throughout the city, rather than warehousing them in a few buildings, leads to better outcomes at no additional cost.

In early 2021, Somers presented recommendations drawn from his analysis of the IMED to several leading officials in the B.C. government. He says that these officials gave a frosty reception to his ideas, which prioritized employment, rehabilitation, and social integration over easy access to drugs. Shortly afterwards, the government ordered him to immediately and permanently delete the IMED’s ministerial data.

Somers describes the order as a “devastating act of retaliation” and says that losing access to the IMED effectively ended his career as a researcher. “My lab can no longer do the research we were doing,” he noted, adding that public funding now goes exclusively toward projects sympathetic to safer supply. The B.C. government has since denied that its order was politically motivated.

In early 2022, the government of Alberta commissioned a team of researchers, led by Somers, to investigate the evidence base behind safer supply. They found that there was no empirical proof that the experiment works, and that harm reduction researchers often advocated for safer supply within their studies even if their data did not support such recommendations.

Somers says that, after these findings were published, his team was subjected to a smear campaign that was partially organized by the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), a powerful pro-safer supply research organization with close ties to the B.C. government. The BCCSU has been instrumental in the expansion of safer supply and has produced studies and protocols in support of it, sometimes at the behest of the provincial government.

Somers is also concerned about the connections between some of safer supply’s key proponents and for-profit drug companies.

He notes that the BCCSU’s founding executive director, Dr. Evan Wood, became Chief Medical Officer at Numinus Wellness, a publicly traded psychedelic company, in 2020. Similarly, Dr. Perry Kendall, who also served as a BCCSU executive director, went on to found Fair Price Pharma, a now-defunct for-profit company that specializes in providing pharmaceutical heroin to high-risk drug users, the following year.

While these connections are not necessarily unethical, they do raise important questions about whether there is enough industry regulation to minimize potential conflicts of interest, whether they be real or perceived.

The BCCSU was also recently criticized in an editorial by Canadian Affairs, which noted that the organization had received funding from companies such as Shoppers Drug Mart and Tilray (a cannabis company). The editorial argued that influential addiction research organizations should not receive drug industry funding and reported that Alberta founded its own counterpart to the BCCSU in August, known as the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, which is legally prohibited from accepting such sponsorships.

Already, private interests are betting on the likely expansion of safer supply programs. For instance, Safe Supply Streaming Co., a publicly traded venture capital firm, has advertised to potential investors that B.C.’s safer supply system could create a multi-billion-dollar annual market.

Somers believes that Canada needs more transparency regarding how for-profit companies may be directly or indirectly influencing policy makers: “We need to know exactly, to the dollar, how much of [harm reduction researchers’] operating budget is flowing from industry sources.”

Editor’s note: This story is published in syndication with Break The Needle and Western Standard.

The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dr. Julian M. Somers is director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University. He was Director of the UBC Psychology Clinic, and past president of the BC Psychological Association. Liam Hunt is a contributing author to the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy in partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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