BC Quashes Controversial Bill Limiting Public Drug Use

Drug policy and harm reduction organizations are celebrating a small victory after the province repealed Bill 34 last week.

Bill 34, the Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, would have rolled back the freedoms granted under British Columbia’s decriminalization pilot project.

Decriminalization lets people 18 and older carry a combined total of 2.5 grams of opioids, crack and powder cocaine, meth and MDMA for personal use. The pilot project does not allow people to use drugs near children, for example schools or child-care facilities, or in airports or cars.

Following public outcry to a perceived increase in public drug use, the province introduced Bill 34 in November 2023, which further limited where people could publicly use drugs and gave police additional powers to police people using drugs, or who they suspected of having done so in the past.

But the bill was never implemented.

The non-profit Harm Reduction Nurses Association fought Bill 34, arguing it would push people to use drugs alone thereby increasing their risk of dying of overdose.

Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, with more people dying from drug poisoning than from homicide, suicide, accidents and natural disease combined.

In late December 2023 a Supreme Court of BC justice granted an injunction, agreeing with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association that the bill would cause “irreparable harms,” by isolating people who use drugs and saying it needed to assess whether the bill violated Charter rights.

Before the Supreme Court of BC could complete its assessment, the province repealed the bill.

The Tyee reached out to the province for comment about the court case, the repeal of the bill, and to respond to criticism from advocates late Friday, but did not hear back by press time Monday, given holiday hours and the tight turnaround.

In an April press release, then-minister of public safety and solicitor general Mike Farnworth said the province was balancing the rolling back of decriminalization of public drug use with expanding access to treatment.

In a Dec. 19 press release, the new Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Garry Begg said, “Decriminalizing the possession of a small amount of certain illegal drugs for personal use is a life-saving measure and one action the province is taking to address the toxic-drug crisis. This must be balanced with the needs of people who want to enjoy community spaces, parks and local businesses without encountering open drug use.”

Only a small victory

Repealing the legislation is only a “small” victory because the province found another way to introduce some its policies, says DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Larkin says these polices are harmful to people who use drugs.

In April 2024 the B.C. government asked Health Canada to amend the decriminalization pilot project, banning public drug use so that the only places it is allowed is overdose prevention sites, private residences and legal tenting spaces for unhoused folks.

Sarah Lovegrove, vice-president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, dubs this “recriminalization.” The only difference between the decriminalization amendment and Bill 34 is that it didn’t give police enhanced powers to arrest people for drug use or suspected drug use, she said.

“It represents a small victory over laws and policies that are disproportionately harming people and targeting specific communities at risk of toxic drug poisoning,” she added.

Lovegrove characterizes the amendment as an “egregious side stepping of court proceedings.”

The province was able to take the drug policies the courts said would cause irreparable harm and ask Health Canada to implement them instead of doing it through its own legislation, she said.

“From a public policy perspective, it is very concerning that government would avoid [the courts] by recreating those harms through another means,” said Larkin.

Larkin, who is also a lawyer, says this move by the province was “quite unique” and compared it to enacting the notwithstanding clause.

“Going around a court decision like this is a real sign the government is acting in a way that is not respectful of the court’s decision and not respectful of the evidence of the harms this policy creates,” they said.

“When a court says this law could do irreparable harm, that is not an activist statement. It is merely the court saying, ‘this is what the evidence shows me,'” they said. “Governments need to take heed of that.”

Pop-up OPS returning to Nanaimo Regional General Hospital

It’s good that discretionary police powers weren’t expanded further because people who use drugs already have to navigate widely varying responses between police officers or police forces, said Dr. Ryan Herriot, a spokesperson for Doctors for Safer Drug Policy and a family and addictions medicine doctor in Victoria.

In November the organization set up two unsanctioned overdose prevention sites near Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.

The responses to these two unsanctioned sites are illustrative in terms of the varying responses between police forces. While an unsanctioned overdose prevention site was able to run as planned in Nanaimo, it hit a snag in Victoria, where volunteers were told to take down a tent and said people were not allowed to use drugs in the area.

Ultimately what is driving toxic drug deaths is a toxic drug supply, stigma and isolation, Lovegrove said. “None of these factors are solved by criminalization and the emergency is being made infinitely worse by these colliding housing and affordability crises.”

“We need real solutions that are driven by evidence and not politics,” she added.

Lovegrove says that a group of 13 non-profits, including the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, have applied for a judicial review on the province’s decision to amend its decriminalization project.

Herriot says Doctors for Safer Drug Policy will also be back with more pop-up overdose prevention sites near the Nanaimo Hospital on Dec. 28, and from Jan. 4 to 7.

More pop-up overdose prevention sites might be coming to other hospitals across B.C. and Canada. Herriot says they’ve had around 20 groups reach out and ask how they could set up their own local overdose prevention site.