The Canadian province of British Columbia has become the latest government to legalise the possession of small quantities of hard drugs in an attempt to wean addicts off narcotics.
It follows the likes of Portugal, which decriminalised all drug use in 2001, as well as the US state of Oregon and the Australian capital of Canberra.
Drug addiction is a global problem and nowhere is immune.
In the Middle East, the highly addictive amphetamine Captagon is sweeping the region. Now popular among students, it was also used by ISIS fighters, who reported that the drugs made them more energetic.
The main source of Captagon is Syria, where criminal groups have created a flourishing industry. The drug has become a primary funding source for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's regime.
The most common approach to tackling hard drug use is to try to staunch the supply, and customs officials globally intercept vast quantities of drugs before they hit the street. In December 2021, Dubai Police seized a million Captagon pills stashed inside plastic lemons.
But critics have said that trying to win a war against drugs is impossible. Some instead encourage governments to give doctors the power to prescribe safer versions of street drugs and remove penalties on anyone possessing them.
Captagon smuggling — in pictures
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The Captagon pills were hidden inside plastic lemons. Photo: Dubai Police -
The shipment was then concealed in a consignment of real lemons. Photo: Dubai Police -
The shipment had an estimated street value of $15.8 million. Photo: Dubai Police -
Dubai Customs at the Hatta border foiled an attempt to smuggle 14.5kg of Captagon into the emirate. Photo: Dubai Customs
British Columbia initiated a “safe supply” policy in July 2019 allowing addicts to get opioids on prescription as an alternative to buying them from street dealers.
Controlled by the left-of-centre New Democratic Party, the province went even further last month when it permitted people to carry up to 2.5g of opioids, crack and powder cocaine, methamphetamine or MDMA without facing criminal charges.
The aim was to “reduce the barriers and stigma” that prevent people from gaining access to life-saving support and services.
“Substance use is a public health matter, not a criminal justice issue,” the government said.
However, recent statistics from the province have raised questions over the effectiveness of the policy of providing opioids on prescription.
In 2015, 529 deaths in British Columbia were attributed to toxic drug overdoses. In the first eight months of last year, the figure soared to 1,644.
Some experts fear that the permissive strategy has backfired and is exacerbating the crisis.
“British Columbia’s approach to the opiate crisis isn’t really working,” addiction specialist Andy Bhatti told The National.
“It’s basically a short-term fix to try to get people off of fentanyl. The issue is 90 per cent of opiate addicts use other stimulants.”
He noted that in the province's most populous city of Vancouver, “there are so many harm-reduction doctors and clinics are [prescribing] high doses of opioid replacement therapy, but they’re not offering the clients any way to come off of it”.
British Columbia’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions defended the policy and attributed the increase in deaths to the higher proportion of fentanyl in the drugs sold by street dealers.
“Despite the province’s best efforts, the street drug supply has become increasingly toxic and lethal,” the ministry said.
In the first months of 2020, the concentration of fentanyl detected in illicit drug deaths was between 4 and 8 per cent. In July 2022, it had increased to 23 per cent.
But the British Columbia Coroners Service “prescribed safer supply is not contributing to illicit drug poisonings”, the ministry said.
Doubts have also been voiced in Oregon, where voters backed the decriminalisation of the possession of small quantities of hard drugs in 2020.
Keith Humphreys, a psychology professor at Stanford University, told a state senate hearing that liberalisation had not had the desired impact.
“On the one hand, we have highly rewarding drugs which are widely available, and on the other, little or no pressure to stop using them,” he said.
“Under those conditions, we should expect to see exactly what Oregon is experiencing: extensive drug use, extensive addiction and not much treatment seeking.”
US bill targets Syrian regime-linked Captagon drug trade — video
Supporters of the liberal strategy point to what has happened in Portugal, where opioid overdose deaths fell after the decriminalisation of possession.
But at the same time, murders in the country rose by 41 per cent in the first five years after decriminalisation, as traffickers fought a bloody turf war.
Inevitably, the debate over drug policy has been politicised, especially in Canada, where Pierre Poilievre, the country’s new Conservative leader, condemned what he described as the “woke, liberal initiative”.
“We need to stop using tax dollars to fund dangerous drugs under the so-called and ironically named idea of safe supply,” Mr Poilievre said.
“There is no safe supply of these drugs. They are deadly. They are lethal and they are relentlessly addictive.”
The soaring death toll was a result of a failed experiment, he added.
“This is a deliberate policy by woke liberal and NDP [New Democratic Party] governments to provide taxpayer-funded drugs, to flood our streets with easy access to these poisons,” Mr Poilievre continued.
“This has been tried not just in Vancouver, but in places like Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and always with the same results: major increases in overdoses and a massive increase in crime.”
Latin America's war on drugs — in pictures
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US Customs and US Coast Guard have foiled several major attempts to smuggle drugs from Mexico and Colombia to the United States. Among the biggest was a $194 million cocaine haul in March, 2016. Courtesy: US Customs and Border Patrol -
Members of the Marines stand guard in a street of southern Guayaquil, Ecuador on October 19, 2021. AFP -
Soldiers stand guard outside the Guayas 1 prison on the outskirts of Guayaquil, Ecuador, on October 1, 2021. AFP -
Police officers walk among packages of seized cocaine at the Pacific port of Buenaventura, Colombia. AP Photo -
A police officer stands on a coca field during a manual eradication operation in Tumaco, southwestern Colombia. AP Photo -
Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka "El Chapo" Guzman, is escorted by marines as he is presented to the press in Mexico City. AFP
