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‘Support a health-based approach to drug use’

Letter to the Editor from Diana Daghofer, co-chair Trail Community Action Team
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The war on drugs continues and so far, the drugs are winning.

Measures taken to date to address the drug poisoning crisis have failed.

Over 25,000 Canadians have fallen as casualties of this war since 2016, and for every person who has died, there are many others struggling, along with family and friends who suffer the heartbreak of seeing their loved ones grapple with the harms of drug use.

MP Gord Johns, representing Courtenay-Alberni, has introduced a Private Member’s Bill, C-216: An Act to Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, that would decriminalize personal drug possession and take a number of other important steps towards ending our country’s cruel and unsuccessful war on drugs.

Bill C-216 is designed to treat substance use and addiction as health issues by taking various measures, including decriminalizing personal drug possession, providing for record expungement, ensuring low-barrier access to safe supply, and expanding access to harm reduction, treatment and recovery services.

This key legislation would, if implemented, allow the country to shift needed resources from the justice system to health and social services.

This approach is supported by BC’s Chief Coroner and the 28 non-partisan experts from the fields of public health, health services, substance use and addiction, medicine, mental health, Indigenous health, education, income assistance, oversight and regulation, and policing, who prepared the recent the report to BC’s coroner on drug deaths.

Groups such as the Canadian and BC Associations of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Association of Social Workers and numerous city councils also support decriminalization.

Moms Stop the Harm and the Trail CAT endorse this proposed legislation as well. We know that we need to support people who use drugs, rather than lock them up.

Those of us who have seen this crisis firsthand know the devastation caused by the criminalization of substance use.

Individuals, families and communities are harmed and too many die when the stigma of criminalization causes them to use drugs alone.

While Mr. Johns is a member of the NDP, the drug crisis knows no political boundaries.

This is not a partisan issue and Bill C-216 deserves support from all sides of the House of Commons.

This legislation will save lives. It will be remembered for decades to come as an extraordinary example of parties working together to do the right thing.

If you agree that substance use and addiction need to be addressed as health issues, please contact the Prime Minister and your MP.

Your support can help change the devastating situation affecting our communities and those we love.

Please go to the MomsStoptheHarm.com to sign a petition in support of this effort or for a draft letter you can adapt and send to our decision-makers in Ottawa.

We need bold action to end these preventable deaths. Bill C-216 is the action required.

Diana Daghofer, co-chair

Trail Community Action Team