On January 14, the Government of British Columbia announced it would end its decriminalization pilot project, choosing to not renew the federal exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
The decision reverses a core policy approach to the toxic drug crisis sweeping BC and all of North America that, since 2023, removed criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of illicit substances for personal use. The provincial government’s stated rationale, as expressed through Health Minister Josie Osborne, was that the pilot “has not delivered the results we hoped for,” specifically citing a lack of measurable decrease in stigma and an insufficient increase in people seeking treatment.
Minister Osborne and Dwayne McDonald of the BC RCMP emphasized that addiction remains a health issue. The Ministry of Health stated that the provincial government will shift focus to strengthening other parts of the care continuum, including treatment and harm reduction services. The BC RCMP supported the move, noting that “police officers can fully enforce and focus on the most serious offences within the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act” and that, “police will continue to apply a measured approach to our enforcement efforts.”
The province’s decision not to seek a renewal of the pilot project is a culmination of a process that was systematically undermined from its inception.
While the pilot began on January 31, 2023, its core purpose was gutted just over a year later when, on May 7, 2024, the federal government approved the province’s request to exempt public spaces from the decriminalization exemption. This amendment effectively restricted decriminalization to private residences, further marginalizing unhoused people who use drugs and increasing the risk of isolated, fatal overdoses as they were pushed away from safer, public overdose prevention services.
Furthermore, the province’s failure to mount an effective public education campaign set decriminalization up for misinterpretation and failure, paving the way for the predatory media narratives and right-wing political campaigns that ultimately sealed its fate.
A closer examination reveals this formal end of decriminalization to be a profound step backwards for people living with addiction, prioritizing a political moment over the evidence of public health authorities and collective well-being. The rhetoric used by Minister Osborne highlights the true shift in the subject of enforcement, stating “in 2023, we launched a pilot program to decriminalize people who use drugs.”
Withdrawing the exemption from the decriminalization program is the province taking steps to re-criminalize people who live with addictions and who need the support of a holistic system to reduce toxic-drug deaths. By withdrawing the exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the province is actively choosing to re-criminalize individuals living with addiction, contradicting its and the RCMP’s assertion that substance use is a health matter.
Ending decriminalization is a return to a failed model where enforcement is misapplied to a medical need, undermining the pilot project’s original intent to reduce the deadly stigma that drives people to use alone.
As the First Nations Health Authority rightly stated in their response to this announcement, “decriminalization was meant to address the stigma and discrimination that surrounds those who use substances.” This goal of decriminalization is a goal the government has now abandoned in favor of political narrative management.
This reversal is not grounded in the pilot project’s outcomes. Advocates like the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition found that data reported by the government to Health Canada showed that the pilot had promising early signs: offences and seizures had decreased, core health service utilization was stable or increasing, and there was no spike in substance use disorders. The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition argued that the government is ignoring their own evidence, capitulating to a moral panic fueled by right-wing politicians and sensationalized media.
The end of decriminalization is an attempt to deflect from the government’s failure to address the root systemic drivers of the crisis such as poverty and unaffordable housing, a lack of access to mental health supports, non-existent low-barrier on-demand treatment, and unrealistic treatment and detox wait times. The end of decriminalization scapegoats a necessary pillar of public health addictions policy for broader austerity measures.
The impact of this decision will fall most heavily on people who use drugs, and “disproportionately [so] on First Nations people, communities and families” as the First Nations Health Authority identified. The FNHA, a health system partner to the provincial government, stated that they were not consulted on this decision.
People living with addiction will once again face the immediate harms of being the subject of re-criminalization, including the fear of police interaction, increased barriers to housing and employment, greater aversion to accessing life-saving resources such as overdose prevention sites, and elevated risk as they and their addictions are pushed into hiding.
This change betrays the trust of advocates, service providers, health partners, and communities who supported decriminalization as a primary pillar of a compassionate, evidence-based response to toxic drug deaths. As per the BC Coroners Service announcement in 2024, “for British Columbians between 10 and 59, unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined.”
To move forward, we must forcefully reject this return to the criminalization of individuals and reaffirm that substance use is a health issue.
The Communist Party of British Columbia demands and fights for policies centred on saving lives, including significant investment in a regulated and accessible safe supply program, on-demand and low-barrier treatment, deep investment in education, and true harm reduction. We must challenge the stigma that the end of decriminalization so dangerously reinforces.
Communist Party of British Columbia
Support working-class media!
If you found this article useful, please consider donating to People’s Voice or purchasing a subscription so that you get every issue of Canada’s leading socialist publication delivered to your door or inbox!
For over 100 years, we have been 100% reader-supported, with no corporate or government funding.
