100 years after the end of alcohol prohibition, advocates push for drug decriminalization

An advocate for the decriminalization of drugs says a century of legal liquor consumption is evidence that regulated substances save lives.

Tuesday marks 100 years since the Liquor Control Board of British Columbia opened the first of nine government liquor stores on June 15, 1921, officially marking an end to prohibition.

Karen Ward, a long time advocate for people who use drugs, says the anniversary makes her hopeful that other illegal substances won't always be so heavily restricted.

"They ended alcohol prohibition at the end of the 1918 to 1921 epidemic — which is a remarkable parallel — after realizing how much harm prohibition does to society at large."

"And it doesn't end like flipping a switch. It wasn't perfect right away. But it's possible."

In B.C., more than 7,000 people have died from overdoses after using toxic drugs in the last five years. During the prohibition era, thousands also died from drinking denatured alcohol or moonshine.

The B.C. government announced in April that it will make an official request with Ottawa to become the first province in the country to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs.

End of prohibition was gradual

Vancouver historian Aaron Chapman says the end of alcohol prohibition was nothing like flipping a switch.

"The reality of it was that while we did have prohibition, you could still get a drink in Vancouver, in B.C. at the time because there were medical prescriptions," said the author of two books on the history of prohibition. 

"You could go to your doctor and for about 50 cents you can get basically all the alcohol you wanted."

Chapman says there were over 300,000 prescriptions written for alcohol in 1919.

And while alcohol wasn't fully prohibited during prohibition, the end of prohibition didn't mean it was, or is, allowed anywhere and any time. Bars and restaurants still have to obtain liquor licenses to serve alcoholic beverages and some establishments are required to serve food with liquor.

Chapman points out that regulations were introduced gradually.

"It wasn't until the 1950s that we had a cocktail lounge legalized in Vancouver after the prohibition," he explained. 

"They basically allowed drinking to happen in beer halls and sort of taverns and really sort of connected to hotels with the idea that, God forbid, you get drunk, you can get off the street and get a room where you won't be seen by anybody because the act of being seen being drunk was really the problem."

He says restrictions were first lifted on beer before spirits, rum, whiskey, gin and vodka were legalized.

Ward says a similar gradual approach could be taken with drugs that are currently not legalized.

"Maybe you could buy something cocaine, or a cocaine derivative, over the counter from a pharmacist," she suggested.

"There's all kinds of ways it would be easier to become a prescriber for people who have chronic problems with a substance in particular, just like we do actually with alcohol."

She says there's a hypocrisy in criminalizing certain drugs when the use of other substances, like alcohol and coffee, has become commonplace.

"Humans have always used all kinds of drugs to mess with their minds, to relax them," Ward said. "What's not normal is that they are dying from it."