The announcement, citing concerns about public safety, follows much the same script as that of the British Columbia government, which – after decriminalizing in 2023 – recently retreated to ban its use in public places due to complaints of rampant drug use and persistently high rates of overdose. .
In early April, the state of Oregon went further, recriminalizing drug possession, replacing small fines with probation and up to six months in prison. The state was forced to backtrack on decriminalization measures passed in 2020 due to backlash over the rise in overdoses during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Continued deaths from drug use are all the evidence needed to hold back reform, despite the fact that these spikes have mostly occurred during the pandemic.
Research shows that the pandemic has exacerbated many of the factors underlying the drug crisis. Health disparities and lack of resources in underserved communities, social isolation, economic burden, stress, lack of access to treatment, and barriers to care all contribute to the acute health effects of drug addiction.
Regardless of these facts, drug policy reform is blamed for these results.
Of course it’s still all about politics
In Ontario, as expected, the Ford government’s position on the Toronto proposal is one of firm opposition. Yet there is a sense of new momentum in the same old rhetoric: as addicts continue to die and use drugs in public places, presumably this means that the pundits and soft-hearted liberals who advocated reform have been clearly proven wrong.
Most worryingly, while conservatives and liberals may differ in their emphasis on punishment or treatment as solutions to drug problems, neither government appears prepared to fully implement a public health approach to substance use. This would mean addressing health disparities and the deeper causes of substance use disorders, such as social inequality and social dislocation in Canadian society.
No North American jurisdiction has been able to achieve this goal, despite the depth of knowledge and increasingly articulate demonstration of progressive public officials. Bureaucrats and politicians speak the language used by experts and other knowledgeable observers, who in turn inform the public about the need for more comprehensive and meaningful harm reduction and social policy reform. Logically, this requires a commitment to decriminalization to shift the emphasis from punishing drug addicts to their rehabilitation.
The conversation has increasingly gone further, establishing the need for more coherent public health policies that address the root causes of addiction. To this end, important progress has been undermined by apparent dismay that drug addicts are still dying in large numbers, despite (and now because of) decriminalization measures that have never been claimed to solve the problem of addiction, but rather to reduce the known harms of drug criminalization. .
The decriminalization of drugs is not intended to be a solution to drug-related problems. Rather, it is a fundamental first step, necessary but not sufficient to replace prohibition with a public health-based approach.
While Canada has done this work to regulate cannabis, it still has a long way to go to implement a more progressive public health approach to other drugs. The dangers of drug use arise not so much from the psychoactive substances themselves, but from the supply of toxic and unsafe drugs that is the result of criminalisation. But most of these substances continue to be considered dangerous enough to be banned.
Yet there is little consideration of the social and legal circumstances and conditions that make drugs dangerous because they are used in harmful ways by certain people. While opioids, like alcohol, may pose a greater risk of overdose and adverse health effects due to physical dependence, all medications can be misused with risks to public health and safety.
Addiction and public health
Decriminalizing drugs can make them safer, but not always, and reduce some harm from their use. What cannot be resolved entirely by decriminalization are the social conditions that make substance use attractive enough to override considerations of concern for oneself or others.
This year the diction thrives on hopelessness and feelings of hopelessness, abandonment and disconnection, caused by homelessness, unemployment and discrimination, among other social problems. Despite the range of local addiction support services and treatment options required to support decriminalization proposals, decriminalization efforts have thus far failed to go beyond half-measures to implement a full range of integrated resources.
Even further off course, there has been little indication of a significant effort to address the root and structural causes of addiction in North American society. Canada’s supposed commitment to a public health approach has fared no better than Oregon’s.
None of these jurisdictions have gone far enough to remedy the real causes of drug problems. The fate of Portugal’s success as a global leader in fighting addiction, rather than punishing drug addicts, helps illuminate new lessons learned in North America.
Adopted over 20 years ago, decriminalization measures in Portugal have been implemented more successfully because its social safety net is much more comprehensive and better integrated with the criminal justice system. In recent years, as funding cuts decimated rehabilitation programs, rising overdose rates soon followed, demonstrating that decriminalization is no silver bullet; if you do this and nothing else, things will get worse.
In other words, half measures are ineffective. Until we are ready to do our best to solve the problem, people who use drugs will continue to die needlessly because we have not offered them real hope.
Unfortunately this is nothing new to anyone. Not just experts. Years ago the Liberal government openly stated that decriminalizing drug use is not a panacea. Instead of committing to the next step, then as now, the necessary first step was taken off the table.
How about we try giving it more time?
Another lesson learned in Portugal, which evidently has not resonated here in North American society, is that the kind of change required takes time. Now that decriminalization has been attempted (and considered a failure) in BC and Oregon, the dominant logic seems to be that going back to doing nothing makes more sense than doing something.
Despite great patience during a century of misery inflicted on drug addicts in Canadian society, trying something new is scary. Cue the same old moral panic that scapegoats drug addicts as dangerous people who those in charge would rather not be seen.
Decriminalizing drugs cannot eliminate people’s struggle with addiction. To work well, it requires a considerable level of investment, similar to that historically devoted to policing and the incarceration of drug users. Redistribution of resources to support the integration of services, housing and employment for more people is not, and has never been, a priority over punishing drug users.
Until this change occurs, we will continue to fall back on failed policies consistent with a war on drugs mentality that has prevailed against all logic for 50 years. In the meantime, prepare for a new wave of antiquated arguments proclaiming the failure of more liberal policies.
A commitment to half measures creates more problems than it solves.
(Andrew Hathaway – Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph -, on The Conversation of 05/26/2024)
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