BC Conservatives announce involuntary treatment for those with substance use disorders

The BC Conservatives are promising to support people who “pose a risk to themselves and others” through involuntary treatment for substance use disorders.

A release posted by the Leader of the party John Rustad on Wednesday says he is committed to involuntary treatment for individuals, especially children who are “suffering from severe addictions.”

Rustad says that the current system is failing not only youth but also adults.

“People of all ages are being abandoned to their addictions, left to suffer and die while this government hands out drug supplies instead of real help,” the party leader said.

The party is making three key promises: Compassionate Intervention Legislation that introduces laws to allow involuntary treatment to make sure those at risk receive the right care “even when they cannot seek it themselves,” building low secure units by designing secure facilities for treatment to ensure care is received in safe environments, and crisis response and stabilization units to establish units providing targeted care in order to reduce emergency room pressures.

“The BC NDP’s refusal to act has cost lives and left families devastated,” Rustad said.

In response to the party’s announcement, an elected member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and host of the Crackdown podcast Garth Mullins tells 1130 NewsRadio that involuntary treatment does not work.

“What we don’t need, what drug users do not need, is to get locked up,” he said. “It is not an evidence-based solution,” he said.

Mullins says he’s heard this idea being brought up “again and again, particularly around election time,” and thinks there should be a voluntary treatment system before rushing into an involuntary one.

“Maybe it sounds good to voters if we could just lock up the problem. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been a drug user for most of my life, and I would run away from something like that,” he said.

“I’m on the methadone program right now. That’s treated me very well because it’s voluntary. If it was involuntary, I never would have gone there to begin with, because I would have been worried about getting locked up.”

Mullins says the plan would just make those using drugs reticent to try and get help.

“We’ve all had way too much experience with cops and jails and locked rooms already. It’s not the answer. It’s going to make things worse.”

He says the Conservative party has been “scaremongering and scapegoating drug users.”

“They’ve been using fear and disinformation to scare and wind up voters. They’re trying to stampede people to the ballot box with this moral panic … But I have been around Vancouver long enough to have seen cycles of this … All it does is frighten voters,” he said.

Between January and July, the BC Coroners Service says 1,365 lives were lost to unregulated drug toxicity.

-With files from Charles Brockman and Srushti Gangdev.