It’s been less than a week since the provincial government announced its plan to re-criminalize public drug use in BC.
This will give police more power to enforce the ban within hospitals, on transit, and at parks and beaches.
Reaction continues to pour in from local organizations such as the Pounds Project in Prince George, an overdose prevention site located on 3rd Avenue.
Operations Manager, Allie Pichette told MyPGNow.com the quick about-face by the NDP is a huge step backwards.
“Arresting people who are using substances is not going to change public drug use. It’s going to push people into unsafe situations and is going to cause fear in calling 9-1-1 when someone is overdosing and it’s going to cause them to hide their drug use, which could lead to overdose or death.”
Pichette added the province’s decision to re-criminalize is short-sighted given the fact we already have a lack of key resources available to help put a dent into the illicit drug crisis, which has claimed 14-thousand lives over the past eight years.
“There is a simple solution. If there are more smoking inhalation sites and overdose prevention sites in places for people to go that would help immensely.”
Earlier this week, the Prince George RCMP reminded the public of the non-emergency line following a recent incident at the Aquatic Centre where a person setting fires outside the pool and supposedly doing drugs inside the changeroom.
While this was happening, multiple 9-1-1 calls were made. Eventually, the dispatcher asked the caller to stop phoning and instead contact the non-emergency line.
The local detachment stated the response was in line with their Operations Control Centre policy, as there are “a small number of 9-1-1 emergency phone lines available for the entire northern region and is standard practice to keep those phone lines open for priority life or death calls.”
“Our police officers attended this location twice in a two-hour time span to respond to the complaints made about the person loitering inside and outside the facility,” Cpl. Jennifer Cooper said. “In between these particular calls for service, the same police officer responded to two separate reports of assaults-in-progress, while the other on-duty police officers were similarly busy.”
The federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions says B-Cs request to roll back its drug decriminalization plan is under consideration.
Ya’ara Saks believes says the drug overdose problem is a health issue, not a criminal one.
– with files from Will Peters, MyPGNow.com staff