B.C. substance use treatment investment ignores toxic supply issue: advocates
Posted October 14, 2021 12:20 pm.
VANCOUVER (CityNews) — Local advocates say a recent $132-million investment into substance use treatment programs over the next three years in B.C. fails to address the daily deaths from a toxic, illicit drug supply.
Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson says it’s a good investment, but it ignores the lives lost daily due to toxic drugs, adding many of those at risk are casual users.
“They’re talking about more treatment, which is fine, that’s good, but the problem is it’s not going to save people who are dying from poisoned drugs,” she told CityNews. “A lot of the people that are dying aren’t addicted. They’re occasional users. They need to either not do the drugs or get safe drugs.”
Sheila Malcolmson, B.C.’s minister of mental health and addictions, says the investment will add more than 65 new or enhanced services throughout B.C. including withdrawal management, transition and assessment, treatment, and aftercare services. It will also add 195 beds for patients seeking help for substance abuse and hire 130 more full-time drug treatment staff.
Malcolmson calls this move part of a historic investment in mental health and addictions, adding “year over year, people will experience real improvements.”
However, for Karen Ward, a drug policy consultant for the City of Vancouver, the announcement indicates “that they’re going to let this continue.”
She says the B.C. government is missing the real solution by focusing on addiction.
“Focusing on addiction makes it about individuals, but when you’ve got 2,000 people dying a year because of policy choices, that’s political. And that’s what they’re avoiding doing,” she said.
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Advocates for people who use drugs say what will ultimately help save lives every day is safe supply.
Last week, Vancouver City Council unanimously endorsed a local drug advocacy group’s application to be exempt from the controlled substances act. If the government gives them the pass, this group would be able to legally acquire, test, and give out drugs.
“Right now, we use the dark web to purchase drugs because it’s the safest market for us to do so. But we don’t even want to be purchasing the drugs illegally,” Eris Nyx, co-founder of the Drug User Liberation Front said. “We want to go through licit pathways.”
The DULF calls its approach to the toxic drug crisis the “community club” model, which Vancouver has endorsed.
Compared to the province’s current safe supply model, you would not need a prescription to get tested drugs.
“Here’s the thing. We don’t want to break the law. To not break the law, you have to prove the project that you want to do works. So we have to break the law to show them that the project works. Of the 100 grams of drugs we’ve given out, there have been zero overdoses, fatal or non-fatal,” she said.
Last year, Vancouver was the first jurisdiction in Canada to apply for federal decriminalization of simple drug possession and Councillor Swanson says the city has created a lot of momentum for this movement.
“I hope the feds respond in a positive way. It’s what needs to happen in order to save lives.”
In its most recent monthly report on toxic drug deaths, the Coroners Service indicated 184 people died due to toxic drugs, which is equal to about 5.9 lives lost per day in July alone.
– With files from Nikitha Martins, Martin MacMahon and Claire Fenton
