TO END A CRISIS: VISION FOR BC DRUG POLICY

The government’s failure to meaningfully intervene in the unregulated drug crisis, and its use of criminal-legal or medical approaches, has roots in the founding of Canada as a nation state. [...] Specifically, Indigenous, Black and racialized, disabled, and poor and working-class communities are subjected to discretionary policing practices, discrimination within the housing, education, and employment sectors, and family separation under the guise of preventing and monitoring drug-related activities. [...] This Vision builds on the knowledge generated through decades of drug user organizing and activism, contextualized within a substantial body of evidence to meet the demands of the current moment. [...] It is from those principles that the authors have grounded the recommendations in the following understandings: • Drug use is morally neutral • Many harms that are commonly attributed to drug use are derived from prohibitionist drug policy environments • Types of personal drug use vary greatly • Medical institutions can create harms that parallel those of the criminal justice and legal systems • P. [...] We offer it as a tool for building our coalition across sectors, and we encourage you to contact members of the working group to collaboratively expand or refine sections of the platform to reflect our full breadth of experiences.