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20.500.12592/x2hxfk

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26 Jul 2023

In 2020, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) Special Purpose Committee on the Decriminalization of Illicit Drugs conceded that, “the application of the law is inconsistent across communities,”XII echoing positions taken by the municipalities of Vancouver and Toronto and the province of British Columbia who have pursued, successfully in the latter case, the decriminalization of simp. [...] Mission To protect and advance the health, human rights, and dignity of people who use drugs by: ∙ abolishing criminal and other laws, policies, and practices that control, stigmatize, pathologize, and punish people who use drugs; and ∙ securing the redistribution of resources into programs and services, including those that are community-led, that uphold and promote people’s health and human righ. [...] At the heart of these reforms must be efforts focused on reducing poverty; ensuring access to housing; and combatting violence, sexism, racism, discrimination, and implementing the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and the Calls to Justice in the report of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, and other commitments. [...] This requires the removal of criminal sanctions and all other penalties (administrative or otherwise) as follows: ∙ A full repeal of section 4 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and section 8 of the Cannabis Act; ∙ Amendments to section 5 of the CDSA, which criminalizes trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking, to permit the sharing and selling of drugs for subsiste. [...] As with the prohibition on selling and sharing of a controlled substance for subsistence, to support personal drug use costs, and to provide a safe supply, criminalizing the import and production of controlled substances is a poor use of public resources, which should instead be invested in programs to address the root causes of poverty.
Pages
71
Published in
Canada