Drugs

Victoria B.C.’s Pandora Avenue is living up to its name. Greek mythology tells the story of Pandora’s Box being opened, unleashing untold misery on the world. Only one thing remained in the Box.

A recent Globe and Mail article illustrates the rapid downward spiral of Pandora’s street-level chaos, juxtaposing addiction and other forms of mental illness and the surrounding neighbourhood’s despair over lawlessness, crime, violence and the frustration of their, so far, failed efforts to help to strengthen the community. The article dubbed the area one of the “largest open-air drug markets in Western Canada.”

“A lot more people are going to die.”

This was the dire prediction oft-repeated back in March by a busload of lawyers who supported a legal challenge filed by an injection site in Toronto that claimed recent Ontario legislation forcing the closure of sites within 200 metres of schools and daycare facilities violates the Charter rights of drug users.

Canada’s nightmarish opioid crisis has renewed calls for involuntary drug treatment. Does the government have a right to force users to get help?

As a teenager in Los Angeles, Marshall Smith earned a reputation as a party boy. He moved to British Columbia after high school and continued to drink throughout his twenties while working in the provincial corrections system, first as a guard and later in administrative roles. In 2001, he took a job doing municipal affairs with the provincial government, contributing to Vancouver’s bid for the 2010 Olympics. Then, one night in a club, he tried cocaine for the first time. He quickly grew addicted and also began using methamphetamine, a drug that provides raging, frenetic highs. Within months, his life and career crumbled. “I hung up my suit and tie and vanished into the streets,” he says.

Sweden, the U.K., and Canada all experimented with providing opioids to addicts. The results were disastrous.

Last August, Denver’s city council passed a proclamation endorsing radical “harm reduction” strategies to address the drug crisis. Among these was “safer supply,” the idea that the government should give drug users their drug of choice, for free. Safer supply is a popular idea among drug-reform activists. But other countries have already tested this experiment and seen disastrous results, including more addiction, crime, and overdose deaths. It would be foolish to follow their example.

The number of British Columbians hospitalized due to opioid overdoses increased after B.C. launched its drug decriminalization and “safer supply” policy, a new study shows.

B.C. received Health Canada’s permission to allow possession of small amounts of illicit drugs in a three-year pilot project, which started in January 2023.