One day during the last week of January, the Government of British Columbia announced it would decriminalize possession of (very) small amounts of hard drugs: Opioids (including heroin, morphine and fentanyl,) crack and powder cocaine, Meth and Ecstasy..The very next day, the the BC Coroner’s Office announced that during 2022, some 2,272 British Columbians died of suspected ‘illicit drug toxicity deaths.’ It was almost as many as the year before, when 2,306 died — an all-time high in the province. The majority were men in the prime of life, aged between 30 and 59..And the drugs responsible in both years (and for several years before) for what we might otherwise call accidental overdoses were the very same ones that had been decriminalised the day before: In other words then, opioids (including heroin and fentanyl,) cocaine, Meth and Ecstasy..What kind of madness is this? For madness it is. Drug overdoses now kill considerably more British Columbians than murders, suicides and motor vehicle accidents together. Yet, their government smiles upon vulnerable people possessing the very means of their own accidental death..That is because the official government goal is to ‘destigmatize’ the use of these hard drugs..People do tell me that the war on drugs hasn’t worked. Hard to argue with that..However, the fruit of all BC’s efforts to destigmatize hard-drug use is rising annual deaths from drug use. That is, ten years ago is it was 270, five years ago it was 1,495 and now it’s 50% more again. So, it doesn’t look like that’s working either, and the supervised injection sites with clean needles provided by the government, the safe alternative drugs provided also by the same compassionate government and now decriminalization, have all proved to be a policy dead-end..Actually, it looks as though it's killing people..The problem of weaning addicted people off their addictions is of course, not amenable to flip, off-the-cuff prescriptions. Manifestly, telling people to pull themselves together is not enough..But, it does matter what we do tell them..After all, notwithstanding the old saw about not being able to legislate morality, we do it all the time..BC doesn’t approve of tobacco smoking and would happily banish smokers to the middle of a field, as long as it’s not publicly owned, in which case not there either. It has successfully stigmatized tobacco use and the message has got through. Fewer people smoke and those who do, get no consideration..So maybe the first step is to go back to stigmatization: To make people feel about hard drugs the way they feel about tobacco, impaired driving, wearing seat belts and crash helmets and telling racist jokes..The second might be to take a leaf out of Alberta’s book and instead of making it easier and safer for people to stumble along in their addictions, to offer a helping hand to those who want to recover..Whether 9,000 new publicly funded addiction treatment spaces will be enough, is hard to say: In 2021, more than 1,600 Albertans died of mostly accidental overdoses, but many more than 1,600 need help. The end of non-pharmaceutical interventions will help: As in BC, mortality spiked in Alberta during the COVID years and the social isolation engendered by the governments' supposedly scientific regimen of lockdowns may yet be acknowledged as the cause of higher accidental drug deaths in both provinces..Meanwhile, the Alberta program is costing $120 million this year. That's not cheap. .But, for those who swallow hard at the thought of that much money, $120 million is only a downpayment on what addiction costs taxpayers in ambulance services, hospital treatment and crime committed by desperate people..Conclusively however, it is the more moral choice..We do not suppose that the many people who make their living from treating addicted people in BC have anything but the highest and most compassionate motives..Nevertheless, enabling people to continue in a bad habit is not the pinnacle of compassion. At best, it will always be ultimately self-defeating, and therefore the road to failure, heartbreak and disillusion for the addicted and those caring for them alike..Treatment centres might not solve the crisis either. But healthier it is by far to place somebody on the road to recovery and help them stay there living drug-free, than it is to facilitate their living in addiction and dependency, no matter how safely..One leads to life, perhaps even life abundant..The other doesn't, does it?
