Our drug laws hurt the very people we want to help, and they are in urgent need of reform.

Here's my opening speech in support of Bill C-236. I hope it gets to committee and moves us towards a serious conversation about drug policy reform.

From January 2016 to March 2020 there have been:

- 16,364 Apparent opioid-related deaths, or nearly 11 per day

- 20,523 Opioid-related poisoning hospitalizations, or 13 per day

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/problematic-prescription-drug-use/opioids/federal-actions/overview.html

Before the pandemic, Stats Can told us:

“Life expectancy at birth did not increase from 2016-2017 for either males or females, a first in over four decades. This was largely attributable to the opioid crisis.”

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190530/dq190530d-eng.htm

We know that the opioid crisis has only been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

As Health Canada puts it: “at the intersection of these public health crises, people who use substances are likely to experience a number of increased risks.”

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/helping-people-who-use-substances-covid-19.html

As we see our government listen to public health experts and respond with emergency measures to address the COVID pandemic, it stands in stark contrast to the way in which we’ve handled these opioid-related deaths.

Theresa Tam has called for a "societal discussion on decriminalization.

Bonnie Henry explicitly called for decriminalization in her report Stopping the Harm: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/health/about-bc-s-health-care-system/office-of-the-provincial-health-officer/reports-publications/special-reports/stopping-the-harm-report.pdf

Eileen de Villa has called for a new public health approach and decriminalization.

The UN and WHO have called for “reviewing and repealing laws that have been proven to have negative health outcomes and counter established public health evidence.”

These include laws “that criminalize drug use or possession of drugs for personal use.” https://www.who.int/news/item/27-06-2017-joint-united-nations-statement-on-ending-discrimination-in-health-care-settings

The Canadian Mental Health Association has called for decriminalization: https://cmha.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/CMHA-Opioid-Policy-Full-Report_Final_EN.pdf

So has the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction: https://www.ccsa.ca/decriminalization-options-and-evidence-policy-brief

Let's turn to Chief Justice Strathy: "There is increasing recognition that we, as a society, need to re-consider how we define "crime" and whether some offences, labelled criminal, should be regarded as health-related matters and addressed therapeutically. https://www.ontariocourts.ca/coa/en/ps/ocs/ocs.htm

Or the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police: “Merely arresting individuals for simple possession of illicit drugs has proven to be ineffective."

https://www.cacp.ca/index.html?asst_id=2189

We also need to address the racial injustice in our drug laws.

We fear different drugs today because we used to fear different people. And while we’ve shifted the law’s purpose beyond explicit racism and xenophobia, its application continues to represent a racial injustice.

The @HIVlegal has written:

"From 2014-2019, police in Canada made more than 540,000 arrests for drug offences; 69% of those were for simple possession. Troublingly, Black and other racialized communities in Canada are disproportionately charged, prosecuted and incarcerated."

And: "As the Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System concluded more than two decades ago, “persons described as black are most over-represented among prisoners charged with drug offences.””