EDITORIAL – Coroner is wrong; we shouldn’t live with public drug use
Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe. (Image: Govt of BC)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
BC CORONER LISA LAPOINTE effectively though unintentionally articulates pretty much everything that’s wrong with allowing the consumption of illicit drugs in public.
According to the retiring coroner, we should accept seeing drug addicts — she apparently dislikes the use of that term — using their illicit drugs in places such as parks or near bus stops or playgrounds.
Sure, she says, it’s “not comfortable” for the rest of us but we all get to “return to our warm homes and beds and showers” while drug users are left to deal with their addictions.
On behalf of all of us taxpayers who are not addicted and are fortunate enough to have warm homes and beds and showers, I want to say that I’m tired of being made to feel guilty about that.
Lapointe should consider the concerns of those who object to losing their enjoyment of the public amenities and services they’ve paid for because of David Eby’s decriminalization pilot project.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
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Some interesting data from Oregon for those insisting that we can’t compel treatment and must meet drug addicts where they’re at:
“Those caught with small amounts can have the citation dismissed by calling a 24-hour hotline to complete an addiction screening within 45 days, but those who don’t do a screening are not penalized for failing to pay the fine.
In the year after the law took effect in February 2021, only 1% of people who received citations for possession sought help via the hotline, state auditors found. As of last June, the hotline received an average of 10 calls per month that were related to citations.”
If you leave addicts to their vices, they will do as addicts do. If we wait until addicts are ready to be treated, you may as well keep waiting because it’s not going to happen for 99% of them.
BC follows the same path tried and failed before elsewhere and expects a different outcome.
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Stick would be compulsory treatment by a number of methods. Community courts for all offences with forgiveness of jail for successful treatment. Make it criminal possess small amounts so that police can begin funnelling addicts into compulsory treatment or jail.
Stick would be making it uncomfortable to maintain your addiction. Stick would mean a 3 strikes system, with less and less pathways to treatment, and more pathways to jail with forced treatment or severe lack of access to drugs to force a withdrawal.
Stick would be dismantling of camps and arrest if one refuses shelter if they set up camp again.
Jail is expensive. But so is this open air asylum we have. I would argue it’s cheaper to jail them than have 800 calls with fire trucks, the damage and theft, and all the rest of it. We are already paying dearly for this. Why shouldn’t taxpayers get something from it?
If an addict isn’t ready, willing and able to get treatment, it’s not for us to put up with the chaos on the streets that they’re inflicting on us.
There is no empirical evidence that decriminalization improves outcomes. No one in the world doing what we’re doing has seen an improvement. The counties that have, have a swift and severe method to compel individuals into treatment, and they don’t tolerate public consumption that disrupts the community.
The carrot paradigm is what is currently going on. If you are an addict, you are able to maintain your addiction, directly or indirectly via easy access, no charges for possession, use wherever you want, and services abound to assist you in addition to this idea of we can’t possibly force you into treatment. Enough with the BS.
I can support safe supply, decrim, free opioids, all of it, but only if it begins to reduce the chaos on the streets. It’s not, it won’t (see Oregon, SF, etc.) and never will.
It’s time to prioritize the health of the community, the taxpayers that fund this misguided experiment, and take back our streets.
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Mac, take a peek at the stats for US states. Oregon, a “pioneer” in open drug use has overdose rates magnitudes higher than the national average. Higher than comparable sized cities that haven’t liberalized drug laws.
The Dems control the state, and they have recently announced a big pullback in their decriminalization. To the point they are again making it illegal to possess small amounts. And this is coming from a bleeding heart Democratic state. I believe their overdose rates are at 17%, whereas most other cities are at 1%. Teen overdoses are much much higher in Oregon. Crime and the flight of businesses is also higher.
Community courts with an option to forgive jail and fines for treatment is a good start. But decriminalization does not work, and BC politicians have no magic spells up their wizard sleeves to change the outcomes we have seen everywhere else.
Is the expectation here that society perpetually puts up with this chaos? Because decriminalization has been in effect far longer than a single year as you claim. Enforcement was negligible for years prior. Inviting dope heads to use anywhere will do just that.
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“Certainly, the fact that there are more overdose deaths now than there were before decriminalization is research enough that the program isn’t working”, pretty lazy writing here, overdose deaths are up overall, not just in BC. With this logic one could argue that since overdose deaths are rising in nine other provinces which don’t allow personal consumption that “certainly, the fact that there are more overdose deaths now” is proof that the illegalization for personal use program isn’t working.
It’s been one year, it’s far too early to discard this program, we’ve started it and we have to have the stomach to follow thru to prove or disprove if it really works or not. I have no idea if legalization will work or not, sure tweaks need to be made but we ought not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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Another consideration. It’s happening here too, but other places have seen infiltration of benzo and tranq dope. These drugs literally rot people from the inside out.
At some stage a policy that allows for drug use will run into a drug that is so immediately harmful, that no amount of “safe supply” or checking for potency or supervised consumption can do anything other than lead to a death sentence.
Show me a point in history where the potency of street drugs has decreased rather than increased overall. I’ll wait…
So now that you have an open consumption policy, people are used to being able to use, will do anything to get the hit they want (those free pills we give out won’t cut it, so I’ll sell those to high school kids to get what I really want) and along comes this drug that is worse than fentanyl, how do you cope with it?
You can’t facilitate its use because of how much more harmful it is. You can’t stop people from using it because it’s not illegal to use or possess, and you can’t compel anyone into treatment or arrest them/confine them.
Show me a person who supports benzo and tranq use through the current paradigm, and I will show you a reaper disguised as an angel of compassion.
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I’ve done a little reading and watched a couple of short news docs on benzo and tranq which is mainly in the eastern US and traveling westward, and it is multiple times worse as you’ve pointed out. But again, I suggest we see thru what we started, if for no other reason than to rule it out if it doesn’t work not only for ourselves but for other jurisdictions. Yes, we are the guinea pigs. The personal use program is new and tweaks need to be initiated as in most new programs, for example the fear mongering that drug users are selling safe supply pills to pay for their more potent street drugs has been overblown but still a valid concern. A tweak may be that stronger but safer (no fentanyl for example) drugs be provided for free but must be consumed on site. Will this create a 21st century ‘opium den’, maybe but at least they’ll have medical aid on site and less open drug use in public. Again this is just one tweak, others can be made as well.
Let us also remember the majority of overdoses are in homes and many of these by the casual user, by providing drugs to addicts in theory this will reduce the market to sell street drugs bc addicts are getting drugs free and a safe place to use thereby reducing the size of the market. Will this work, I have no idea but I think we have to think outside the box to curtail this dilemma, I have no illusions that we can solve this societal tragedy but we ought not idly stand by and do the same old same and watch things get worse as we have been.
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Let’s remember though that those roamers are the visible symptoms of overall societal failings. Too much spent on failed drug policing too little for early intervention? Too much leniency and yet too little help and empathy when needed?
Our leaders have fumbled and resolutions are very elusive.
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To that I would say there have been already quite a few guinea pig cities and states, and the consequences have been a disaster for both addicts and taxpayers, businesses, citizens etc. If we agree that we should be making data-driven decisions on such radical and critical issues, there is already plenty of data to arrive at a conclusion. I am all for experimenting when you’re one of the first but this isn’t the case in BC. Plenty have come before, and almost all have failed. The ones that have succeeded are not open drug use panaceas, rather they are fast to police disruptive and unwanted abuse on streets, strongly move people into treatment through a number of channels, voluntary or otherwise, fight crime and pressure organized crime with substantial penalties.
There is no such thing as a right to use, and a right to camp anywhere. Things have become so ridiculously skewed with policy and now Supreme Court decisions that we no longer see the forest for the trees.
The argument put forward that the majority of overdoses occur in private homes is valid. But then if that is true (with the purported purpose of decriminalization being to bring this out of the shadows), and there is an inherent danger in private use, shouldn’t that preclude any private accommodations for drug addicts? SROs and wet facilities? Shouldn’t then communal shelters and treatment facilities be the gold standard? Shouldn’t then encampments be dismantled, and anyone refusing shelter and setting up tent cities be punished? Tent cities seem quite private and ripe for the conditions that lead to overdose.
There’s a problem of hypocrisy on the support side for the arguments made. Is being alone a cause of overdose? If so, why let people be alone in tents and elsewhere? Many other examples.
Supervised use in designated facilities as the only method of condoned usage is something I could support. I cannot support open drug use on the streets in any capacity.
I appreciate your input on the topic. It’s vexing. My bottom line is I need to see things getting better for everyone. If they’re not (they’re not), then the priority must be given to the people bankrolling this experiment. I don’t really care how the streets are cleaned up and crime and disorder is addressed but this needs fixing now. If that’s a jail cell or a treatment facility, I don’t care. This will be a generational curse if major steps aren’t taken quickly to address this. Both for addicts and our right to enjoy our lives and community in peace.
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Okay DTES Street Sweep (wish people would use their names) now we are talking, there’s a great deal of overlap in our thinking. I don’t like open use but far too many have nowhere to go. I don’t like tent encampments, but far too many have nowhere to go. I like communal shelters and treatment facilities but we don’t have them, etc, etc. I could go on and on about what we agree on, what I see as the difference is that until we have the proper or at least better supports for the addict then it’s better out in the open then in the back alleys.
I could have written your last paragraph word for word as it’s exactly what I think, so we’ve got a great deal of common ground and I think it’s helpful to get discussions like this going. I appreciate what you’re saying and agree with the vast majority of it. I also hope we and others can continue to share like this. Isn’t it refreshing to have an adult conversation without adolescent name calling? Thank you, sincerely Mac Gordon.
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Entitled drug addicts enabled by official policy are destroying our communities. Our money and effort should be dedicated to helping those who are taking responsibility and making an effort to escape addiction. Money should not be spent to maintain addictions.
I am incensed when I read about addicts refusing to enter shelters and dismantle encampments. The sense of entitlement is rage inducing. We have catered to these people for too much and too long. We have put up with the constant BS for too long.
This needs to be the death knell of the party that sought an exemption, and paid no mind to guardrails that need to exist in any decriminalization experiment.
We are about a year into official decriminalization. It’s not working. It won’t work. It hasn’t worked. It’s time to wake up, throw the carrots in the fire and bring out the sticks and swing for the fences. The people who pay for the communtiy through taxes, who pay for all the damn services that are doing nothing but enabling addicts to live out their fantasies, deserve priority.
The data does not lie. Deaths are up. I will say it plainly: if you support safe supply, liberalization of drug laws and open drug use, you are increasing the likelihood of death for addicts, all the while thinking you’re being compassionate.
If you take drugs or opioids and become addicted, IT’S NO ONE ELSE’S FAULT BUT YOUR OWN. Taxpayers are being taken for billions of dollars Addicts owe a massive debt to society.
Drug addicts are destroying our homes and ruining our communities. That won’t stop until we start swinging sticks and swinging hard. Look around at any drug friendly state or city. It’s a filthy crime infested wasteland. Patience is over for all but the most fervent dogmatic activists. The experiment has failed. It was an incredible stupid and naive idea, and it’s time to pay the piper.
Give addicts a chance to “end the stigma” by getting clean and clearing the massive debt they’re placing on society.
And remember, this isn’t a “homeless” issue. It’s a drug and mental health issue.
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In many cases addiction is NOT a choice.
For example overprescribing opioids for pain control has been a huge medical failure. Another example and a more poignant one is of people born into material and intellectual poverty.
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It’s 2024. If you are taking opioids, prescription or otherwise, you can’t claim ignorance as to the dangers.
In any event, drug addiction should not excuse criminal, antisocial or other undesirable behaviours.
The current approach fails the addicts and fails the community. It’s the worst possible outcome for everyone. This isn’t working.
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Okay I’m with you on the carrot and the stick analogy but what do you mean by stick? Jail to all drug users, that would be very expensive since we don’t have enough jails or guards. Is it forced detox, okay maybe we try that, it’s worth a shot. It’s been a year and overdose deaths are down in Kamloops, but they’re up in the province and up in the country also the continent and globally as well. How do you rationalize that personal consumption laws in BC have influence the rising overdose rates in all these other jurisdictions?
Personally I’m for safe consumption sites, I’m for legalization for personal use, I’m for free distribution of opioids, I’m for far harsher sentences for drug dealers particularly smugglers, I’m for forced detox, I’m for whatever will work. I just don’t know what will work and until I do I’m for trying just about anything.
So tell me, what is the carrot?
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Is this an example of a paradox? On one hand, BC Coroner Lisa Lapointe gives the message that doing drugs in public is OK but on the other hand, a “used car salesman” suggests that folks who are homeless and face addiction issues should be rescued from their hopeless predicament and taken into treatment.
The message from the “used car salesman” was and still is so popular with common folk that the guy wins a civic election the first time he runs for Mayor. He is ridiculed, badgered, run down and bullied with every step he takes.
But, the hopeless position addicted people face day in, day out, night in and night out never changes and it never will. At least one person suggested such a treatment facility is like a concentration camp.
Pick a day, any day and take a few moments to evaluate what can be seen downtown, near some of the fast food places on the North Shore, along the banks of the Thompson River and in the walkways we used to call safe streets and parks. The hopelessness is everywhere.
Why and how can a “used car salesman” recognize that something has to change?
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👍
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IAs a tax payer who has worked over 60 years to earn a roof over my head and food on my table, I have every right to ask why the gov’t takes away my rights for the benefit of a few. I can’t walk my dog on the river’s edge because of all the literal crap and garbage there, I can’t take my grandkids to the park with out having to explain what the guy slumped over on the bench, babbling incoherently, is doing, I can’t walk into the grocery store without somebody asking for my hard earned cash, I can’t leave anything unguarded in my yard because it will end up in a homeless camp along the river and there is no way I can walk in the evening without worrying for my safety. No I don’t feel guilty that I earned what I have. The only thing I am guilty of is letting our gov’t convince me that we should give others a free ride.
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Amen. No more free rides. Accountability. Expected behaviours for all. Enforcement and consequence. You know, the things that have existed since biblical times.
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