How The West Coast has Failed at Safe Supply and Harm Reduction, Now the East Coast stupidly follows their footsteps.

If you’ve been following along with this series I hope you can also appreciate the fact that many of these situations have been tried and tested and failed.

Let’s take a look at out west and why they have been failing significantly and seem to finally be realizing whats wrong. Even in Ontario are they admitting that they have made some pretty messed up mistakes.

On January 31st of 2023 health Canada granted an exemption in British Columbia for the decriminalization of drugs. This was one of the ultimate social experiments that Health Canada wanted to see if it would actually curb the drug usage in the province. Because last I checked people really cared about doing drugs only when its decriminalized and not when it was fully illegal right?

As a report was released from Health Canada regarding the decriminalization of drugs, their findings appear to be some what slighted in my honest opinion. Let me break it down for you in case you are too curious.

One example is they report there is a decrease from March 2023 to March 2024 in opiate deaths. Still in March of this year 2024 there were 192 deaths related to opiates. What this doesn’t also break down is why the decrease, is it because of the fact that Narcan is being used to reverse the side effects as it is more readily available for the general public and among addicts? Or is it still the same amount of over dosing/etc that is being caught in time. Let’s also forget that 192 people died from an addiction and likely were preventable if the proper supports were in place such as treatment, rehabs, detox and therapy opportunities.

Another interesting chart posted is the use of opiate agonist treatment (OAT). Since decriminalization the amount of people deciding to use a “safer” alternative hasn’t really changed. Is this because the opportunity to use the higher strength, faster acting, and more deadly use drugs are available so why bother with the “cleaner” ones? Isn’t that the entire purpose? You know to provide the safer alternative. One that seemingly nobody wants. If you didn’t read my last blog, you can read it here which even states that based in Ontario there are people who regularly use opiate who take the cleaner drugs and trade them for the deadly ones. All they have been given is another type of currency to be able to afford their deadlier drugs. If these programs would have been efficiently working this number should have drastically increased, instead it hovers around the same people using the program while many many others are just taking advantage of it.

Another interesting and nearly laughable chart within the report showing how possession arrests have decreased. Now, I feel like this goes without saying, but I am nearly POSITIVE that when Weed was also legalized country wide, it likely also had a lot less arrests for possession etc. This chart in my honest personal opinion is all part of smoke and mirrors giving data that may seem to be supportive of the whole decriminalization of drugs however logically it just makes sense. People fail to remember the decriminalization was in part due to the opiate crisis. It was to hopefully shed some light some how. Which in the previous paragraphs it doesn’t really show anything more substantial. Since we also know now a days many people fail to have the ability to think critically and logically to someone who isn’t able to process this information correctly it may look like safe supply is actually a good thing, when in reality it is no better than before it was even implemented.

BBC did a report earlier in the year, you can find it here. Reporting that British Columbia has an estimated 225,000 users of illegal drugs. ” The BC programme, which runs on a pilot basis until 2026, allows adults to possess up to 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine or methamphetamine without being arrested, charged or having their drugs seized, except around schools and airports.” (Taken from article). Which explains why the arrests are down significantly.

This entire chaos unleashed on a province is being felt slowly but surely here on the east coast. While drugs are very much illegal and criminalized communities too are seeing needles, addicts, homeless and rough situations occurring. When reaching out to government officials a response given is “Maybe this is the new normal”. And I simply don’t accept that.

The entire premise of this was to decriminalize drug use for addicts who were using anyway. And along with safe supply provide the opportunity to take a prescribed medication as apposed to an unsafe, maybe laced, especially with deadly drugs like fentanyl, and hopefully choose the option that is the least likely route to an early death. However circling back to the chart provided by Health Canada, the people addicted to said street drugs, since the decriminalization really haven’t chosen the safer alternatives at all by the number of people using the OAT program still around the same as previously.

What’s totally wacked is people buy this. They buy this report at the very basis that it was created and doesn’t actually support that safe supply has done anything significant in the war against drugs that is waging on in Canada. In fact, in recent months they have even introduced vending machines as a one stop drug supply shop. Supplying everything hjt the drug itself. Really doing anything but discouraging the drug use and to keep addicts addicted. It’s truely only a matter of time before the rest of the country adapts this failing system as a means to end the crisis when it only is fast tracking people to a shorter life span, or even death.