Canadian province tries decriminalizing drugs to fight overdose crisis - Reuters Canada

VANCOUVER, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The occidental Canadian state of British Columbia connected Tuesday began a three-year aviator programme to halt prosecuting radical for carrying tiny amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy, oregon ace cocaine, arsenic portion of an effort to combat a cause overdose crisis.

B.C. accounts for astir a 3rd of the 32,000 deaths owed to overdose and trafficking nationally since 2016, according to authoritative data. The state declared cause overdose a nationalist wellness exigency that year.

The occupation worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted illicit cause proviso chains arsenic good enactment services, leaving radical with much toxic drugs that they utilized alone.

Preliminary information released Tuesday by the state showed determination were 2,272 suspected illicit cause toxicity deaths successful 2022, the 2nd largest yearly fig ever recorded, down 2021, which had 34 much deaths.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's authorities said successful May it would fto B.C. decriminalize the drugs successful a first-of-its-kind exemption successful Canada. By not prosecuting radical carrying tiny amounts of drugs, the B.C. authorities hopes to tackle the contented arsenic a wellness occupation alternatively than done the transgression justness system.

The state says the exemption is intended to trim the stigma associated with substance usage and to marque it easier for radical to attack authorities for guidance.

Robert Schwartz, a prof astatine the University of Toronto, said the measurement was commendable arsenic a archetypal step, but that much needed to beryllium done to tackle the cause problem.

"The occupation that we person with these substances is that we person a huge, illicit proviso that's causing large harm," Schwartz said. "To truly woody with this, we request a broad nationalist wellness approach. This decriminalization, it's a archetypal step."

The drugs connected the exemption list, which besides includes fentanyl and different opioids, stay amerciable and the exemption from apprehension is lone for possession of up to 2.5 grams for idiosyncratic use.

"For galore years we person had a de facto argumentation not to apprehension radical for idiosyncratic cause possession" but this alteration volition mean less seizures of tiny amounts of drugs, a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department said.

Other Canadian communities are intimately watching the pilot. They besides look a emergence successful cause overdose deaths.

Many wellness experts reason decriminalization would promote cause users to usage them successful safer spaces wherever they tin entree aesculapian care.

Reporting by Ismail Shakil successful Ottawa and Anna Mehler Paperny successful Toronto Editing by Deepa Babington

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.