But the politicization over the program is over the top.
It was always meant as a medically based approach to rampant drug use of certain products. Drugs that can trigger immediate addiction, but more likely – death.
Death to the user, death to the healthcare worker trying to assist, death to innocent bystanders.
The project was seen as an alternative to the ‘same old’ approach, which is to say, doing nothing different.
It doesn’t mean that the safe(r) supply program is wrong; countering toxic supply with safer supply has absolutely proven to work – combined with other aspects of a fully funded and staffed recovery program.
But at the end of the day, the rights of the general public and innocent bystanders are to be protected in the same sense that anti-smoking rules protect the public against exposure to secondhand smoke.
Politically, its a setback for the NDP. They clearly desired to be the government doing something proactively on drug use and abuse…but the side effects of this policy were too much for a public running out of safe space of their own out in public.
There are rules – with significant penalties – for consuming liquor outside of designated spaces. Or smoking. Its not unreasonable to require drug consumption be contained to your own dwelling or designated safe consumption sites.
I realize the stakes are far higher; lighting up a smoke or drinking a beer are different than injecting a drug out in the open; its not a straight across fair comparison.
What we have here is a government who tried a different approach to drug policy because its out of control. It didn’t go according to plan. They had little option but to change course.
There are those politicians opposite of government who were exploiting the problem before, now demonizing the government after. We could do less with the partisan attacks and more with the ideas on how to divert those affected away from the dangerous and deadly path they’re on.
We could also use some federal help. Given that the Federal government has the jurisdiction on international borders and trade, returning the Port Police to the many ports of entry to Canada – and pipeline of drugs, a substantial improvement to this file would do wonders to limit access to the various harmful drugs flowing into our streets.
And it needs to be noted, the Oregon pilot project started in 2020 – was repealed on April 15, 2024. The BC pilot started in January 2023 and looks to be wound down in the next couple of weeks.
As things go, the NDP government tried something new, examined the data, talked to stakeholders involved, changed course to adapt to the reality of the situation.
The opposition political leaders will seek to exploit every angle of this issue, but that’s seemingly all they’re capable of. The NDP however, gets credit for trying.
In the coming provincial campaign, despite the shortcomings and imperfections of the NDP, they have proven to be the only adults in the room.
My2bits
The view from Pete 