Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit joins call for decriminalization of substances
As opioid overdoses continue to reach crisis levels, the Simcoe Muskoka District Board of Health has endorsed the recommendations of the Canadian Public Health Association for decriminalization of personal use of psychoactive substances.
Criminalizing personal use amounts, historically, hasn’t worked, Janice Greco, manager of injury and substance misuse prevention program for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, said.
“We’ve had a criminal approach: that person is left with a criminal record and that’s quite damaging,” Greco said. “It hasn’t decreased use. If anything, we have increasing use.”
The choice to use illicit substances often transcend deterrents and are rooted in social, cultural, and economic factors.
Decriminalizing illegal substances wouldn’t be a cure-all for the opioid epidemic, but part of a larger support system.
Problematic use and addiction, according to a briefing note by the SMDHU, accounts for only 11.6 per cent of illicit drug use.
“If a person is found with illicit substances on them, they won’t be given a criminal record, but instead will be offered health and social support to help them move forward,” Greco said.
A criminal record and incarceration can affect a person’s ability to get a job, impact their risk of overdose, HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.
In Portugal and other European countries where decriminalization has been introduced, overdose cases and drug-related crimes have decreased.
In the current system, Greco said, a conservative estimate of the cost of enforcement, the judicial system, and incarcerations, cost $2-billion, with a large number of offences in Canada being possession.
Diverting that money into health and social services could lead to governmental savings.
But Greco said decriminalization in Canada still has a long way to go.
“It’s a conceptual drug policy,” Greco said. “We’re suggesting the federal and provincial government move this way. In terms of operationalizing it that would take a fair bit of work.”
For decriminalization to be successful, public health policy would incorporate a broader range of treatment options, improve harm reduction methods such as safe-injection sites and drug purity testing services.
In relation to the Simcoe Muskoka Opioid Strategy, the enforcement strategy is choosing to focus on drug trafficking rather than possession.