Decriminalization, safe supply already saving lives in B.C., contrary to backlash claims: addictions minister

Canada's addictions minister says she is disturbed by "damaging" backlash and "misinformation" about British Columbia's safer supply program and drug decriminalization pilot, efforts she says are already showing encouraging evidence of saving lives.

In January, B.C. decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of some hard drugs for adults in an effort to reduce drug-related arrests and charges that Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett says discourage people from seeking support.

Health Canada approved the three-year pilot, which ends in January 2026.

Safe supply, which is different from decriminalization, is a harm reduction strategy that aims to separate people from the increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply by providing regulated versions of some criminalized drugs.

B.C.'s chief coroner, provincial health officer and representative for children and youth have attempted to debunk concerns raised by federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, local elected officials and some addiction specialists in recent months that safe supply is "flooding" B.C. with drugs and worsening the toxic drug crisis.

Bennett said Thursday she fears the "anecdotal" attacks, like Poilievre's defeated motion in the House of Commons to pull funding from harm reduction like safe supply, discourage people from accessing life-saving harm reduction.

Close to seven people die of toxic drugs in B.C. each day, and more than 12,000 have died since B.C.'s overdose public health emergency was declared in 2016, according to data from the B.C. Coroners Service.

"The politics in this is very disturbing, that people are raising the stigma of people using drugs and using misinformation to stigmatize and get in the way of what it will take to save lives," Bennett told CBC News in an interview.

"The politicization has been very, very damaging."

Bennett was in Squamish Thursday announcing more than $22 million in funding for several community-led harm reduction, treatment and overdose prevention programs across western Canada, with $11.2 million going to new and ongoing programs in B.C.

When asked about recent moves by several municipalities, including Port Coquitlam, to ban drug use in certain public areas in the wake of B.C.'s decriminalization pilot project, Bennett said communities should be focusing on ensuring there are supervised places for people to use drugs in order to reduce deaths alone and concerns about public use.

The first analysis of the impact of the pilot, conducted by independent researchers in concert with Health Canada, is coming shortly, she added.

"And then we will stop hearing these anecdotes that are being pulled out to disparage some of the most vulnerable people in our communities," said Bennett.

CBC reached out to Port Coquitlam's Mayor Brad West for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

Emerging evidence for safe supply

Separate from decriminalization, what B.C. calls "safer supply" is already showing positive impacts on participants, according to two recent studies.

Safer supply helps people have better relationships, reconnect with family, gain employment, enjoy various pastimes and reduces anxiety, said Erica Schoen, a registered nurse and community researcher with the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Schoen co-authored the centre's first-of-its-kind qualitative study on the impacts of safe supply programs, released last week, which echoed benefits observed in two earlier studies of injectable prescription heroin programs in Vancouver.

"People talked about improved health and a reduction in infection and really just less need to take high risks."

B.C. has provided mostly prescribed alternatives, rather than direct replacements, to substances like heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine to about 14,000 people since March 2020, according to the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. Its program recently expanded to provide fentanyl patches and some prescription heroin, as well.

Smaller, federally funded pilot projects also provide prescription-grade heroin and some fentanyl to about 500 people in the Lower Mainland and in Victoria. 

But contrary to what some critics, including Alberta's UCP government, say of safer supply programs, Schoen and several other public health researchers and advocates say the programs are still too narrow and inaccessible to meaningfully address the toxic drug crisis.

Only about five per cent of the estimated 100,000 people who are diagnosed with opioid use disorder in B.C. have accessed alternatives, and most of them are in the Lower Mainland, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

And while a 2022 death review panel found the majority of people dying in B.C. did not have a diagnosed substance use disorder, a diagnosis is still required to access any of the safe supply programs.

"They're highly medicalized, there's limited access, [it's] very challenging for rural and remote settings," said Schoen.

"It's not meeting the needs of most of the people."

Some community-led safe supply efforts, including one run by the Drug User Liberation Front in Vancouver, have popped up to fill the gaps, but were denied permission and funding by Health Canada last summer.

Bennett said non-medical safe supply models are likely part of future "bold, creative" solutions she says responding to the toxic drug crisis requires, alongside expanding treatment, recovery, mental health services and housing.

Schoen says safe supply needs to be expanded rapidly across Canada to address the increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply while other supports are implemented.

"People are telling us what they need," she said. "There is an urgency, people don't have months to wait to get into treatment."