More than decriminalization needed to help with overdose deaths, say Penticton recovery centres

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The province of British Columbia has formally asked the federal government to remove criminal penalties for people who possess small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use, but a Penticton substance-recovery centre believes it will do little to change the overdose rates.

“I mean, it's great that they're taking a step towards not criminalizing people who are using substances. However, I don't think a lot is going to change as far as the overdose rates and the black market of drugs and people accessing services,” Jerome Abraham, executive director for Discovery House, explained.

“If you look at places where that's been successful, like Portugal, not only do you need to have the decriminalization, you need to have a safe supply on the other side that's readily available. And then you also have to have treatment resources available, because really, it's not going to stop the toxic drug supplier, which is what really needs to be dealt with.”

Abraham pointed to programs in Europe that have implemented full solutions, like Portugal, where decriminalization policies and harm reduction programmes have proven to lower drug use and deaths. When an individual wants to go to treatment, a bed is available that day for them to be helped.

Discovery House currently has between 50-60 people on their waitlist for their 22 recovery housing beds.

Pathways Addictions Resource Centre had a similar response to the news.

As their executive directive Daryl Myers explained, it’s a small step forward, but there needs to be other components of the whole continuum of care.

We just think there's a whole continuum of care that needs to be provided and decriminalization is one small component of that. We have a toxic supply so we need to have a safe supply, we need to have people who can prescribe that safe supply,” she explained.

BC is the first province in Canada to seek an exemption from Health Canada under Section 56(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions released a statement on how this important step forward is to prevent drug poisoning deaths.

The release added that if approved by the federal government, the exemption would help reduce the fear and shame associated with substance use that prevents people from seeking care.

“Every small step will help with stigma, for sure, and de-stigmatizing that population, it will help. But everybody needs to be educated that there's a visible majority of people out there who are ashamed to come forward. And they're not usually the ones that are getting busted for small amounts of drugs,” Meyers said.

Abraham explained that over time, this could help with stigma, but the deeper problems perpetuate.

“What is challenging is that if we can't move people out of the cycle, the stigma is still there, because people are looked at as 'Oh, they're still living homeless, they're still committing crimes to get drugs that could be cheap and readily available, and they're still dying,'” he said.

“All the behaviours that people stigmatize, are still going to be there.”

Meyers agreed this won't help many of the local problems.

“I don't believe in Penticton that the police here run around arresting people for small possession of drugs. I think we have way bigger things going on here than worrying about people possessing drugs.”

According to the Province, since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, 7,700 British Columbians have died because of a toxic drug supply.

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, B.C. saw a decrease in death due to toxic drugs. However, the COVID-19 public health emergency reversed this trend, causing toxic drug poisoning deaths to reach an all-time high.

“It's a small step in the right direction, but it's kind of the same as a lot of the stuff that's done. It always seems to be implemented not as a system, but just as a stopgap kind of measure,” Abraham added. “Just because you can have 4.5 grams of fentanyl, how is that going to change anything?

“I just wonder how much longer it will take to do the rest of the full continuum of services.”