IT WILL SAVE LIVES –
Jan. 31, 2023 – Sellers and traffickers of hard drugs, however, will continue to face criminal prosecution during the three-year pilot project.
“The situation has never been more urgent,” Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett told a news conference on the eve of the new rules taking effect.
“The effects of this public health crisis have devastated communities across British Columbia and across Canada,” she said. When the measure was announced last May, she’d suggested it could be expanded to other provinces.
British Columbia is the epicenter of a crisis that has seen more than 10,000 overdose deaths since it declared a public health emergency in 2016. That represents about six people dying each day from toxic drug poisoning in the province of five million people, topping Covid-19 deaths at the onset of the pandemic.
Nationwide the number of fatalities has surpassed 30,000.
