Covid, Covid, Covid. We hear it at nauseam and are constantly being bombarded with numbers as to how we are doing, hospitalizations, icu patients, deaths. Yes it is very serious but it is not the only medical crisis this country is facing. We all seem to have forgotten about the Opioid crisis and the number of people who die from overdoses each year. Sadly to say, it is greater than Covid, but I suppose it is not so grabby of a headline.
By 2016, Portugal had reduced its overdose deaths to 26 in a population of over 10 million. Canada in 2018 had roughly 4,400 deaths in a population of 37 million. You might think reading this that maybe Portugal is so successful because they don’t have a drug problem like here. You would be wrong, in fact in the mid 1980’s nearly 1% of the population of Portugal was addicted to Heroin. Drug use was a huge problem and like us, Portugal to fight the war on drugs brought in harsher and harsher penalties for possession and use. In fact nearly half of all prisoners were in prison for drug offenses many for simple possession.
Like us Portugal spent billions on policing and incarceration but the problem was not going away, in fact it seemed to keep getting worse. So how did they turn the tide on drug addiction? They actually looked at the problem as not one of criminality but one of public health. Portugal got scientists, researchers, doctors, and other health care professionals to look at the problem and advise on a course of action. They did not rely on a bunch of bureaucratic political hacks to look at the problem and develop a plan based on the next election cycle. Portugal wanted a solution.
In 2001 Portugal became the first country to decriminalize possession of all illicit drugs. It was no longer a crime to have or use drugs but it was not legal, you just were not going to get criminally charged if you had drugs for personal use, typically no more than a 10 day supply.
Portugal’s approach is that if you are caught with any drugs, be it marijuana or heroin, you appear before a commission, which is made up of a social worker, psychiatrist and an attorney. They evaluate your use to determine if it is just recreational or an addiction. If it is recreational you might have to pay a fine for possession but if they deem you have an addiction, they offer treatment and programs. They cannot force treatment they merely offer it to those who are addicts.
By decriminalizing the drugs and referring to it now as a public health problem not one of criminality, people became more and more receptive to seeking help and subsequently Portugal has seen a drop in incarcerations, usage, policing and prison costs, as well as lower rates of property crime and of course fewer deaths.
Portugal brought in decriminalization in 2001 and there has been plenty of data that shows their success like only 26 deaths nation wide from drug overdoses in a year. So why am I so angry about this subject?
I am pissed that as usual our Canadian government and all our politicians have sat on their hands more concerned about the optics of policy than being practical and accept that the way we have been approaching this problem does not work. More policing and more incarcerations is not the way to deal with it. This is a public health problem and it should be noted that it is not just about reducing the number of deaths. This is also about reducing overdoses and the strain on our medical and first responders for being called upon over and over again daily to deal with overdoses. In BC in 2019 first responders attended nearly 25,000 overdose calls or an average of 66 per day with nearly 6 deaths per day. That is a lot of resources being devoted to a problem that is not getting any better.
In Canada of moneys spent on drug related problems, 70% was too law enforcement and police. In Portugal, only 10% of money spent on drug related problems goes to law enforcement, 90% goes to public health and rehabilitation programs.
So it is now 2021, twenty years since Portugal started what I would call a successful drug policy and BC Premier John Horgan is lobbying Ottawa to follow Portugal and decriminalize all drugs. However, that is only part of the success in Portugal and Decriminalization is only the first step. Dr. Joao Gaulo who pioneered the change in Portugal’s approach, has noted that through proper support and rehabilitation those who recover from their addictions tend to return as hardworking contributors to society. This means we need to have in place all the proper housing, physical and mental health programs to help people overcome their addictions. Right now it is a ‘hodge podge’ of government, private, and non-profits trying to provide services in a very uncoordinated system that needs to be fixed. It is a huge undertaking, but if we really want to fix the drug crisis in this country, we need to quit trying to break trail and learn from those who were brave enough to think outside the box and have developed a successful approach to battling this problem.
Right now Horgan’s Decriminalization plan is stuck at the Federal level where it has to get approval first. With PM Photo OP and with his focus on Covid, we might be years from this coming to fruition. To be honest, I don’t have any confidence that PM Photo OP can deal with Covid and chew gum at the same time, let alone deal with both Covid and the Opioid crisis.
Remember what Albert Einstein said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Do we want to keep dealing with this problem for the next 20 years? Do we want to keep dumping billions of dollars fighting a drug war with no end in sight? Or do we want to get serious and get on the path to fix it?
Write your MP and MLA and get them to do something other than just suck up oxygen. I also encourage you to seek more information about Portugal’s approach to the problem and see for yourself their success.
www.AngryBob.ca 