Decriminalization yet another 'half measure' as B.C. confronts full-sized drug crisis, advocates say

More than six years and 10,000 deaths since the declaration of a public health emergency over the tainted illicit drug supply, B.C. remains a land of pilot projects and what many describe as "half measures."

Safer supply is still only available to a small fraction of people who use drugs. Most supervised consumption sites still don't allow smoking, even though inhalation is responsible for the majority of deaths.

Meanwhile, wait times for treatment and recovery beds are long, and there's still no provincial regulation ensuring facilities are using evidence-based methods and employing qualified staff.

On Tuesday, British Columbia adds decriminalization to that list, with the launch of a three-year pilot project allowing personal possession of very small amounts of certain drugs — much less than what the province and advocates had recommended.

Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, one of B.C.'s most uncompromising voices for bold measures to end the crisis, describes the decriminalization pilot as "a really important first step."

But she said if we really want to save lives, what's needed is a complete ideological shift away from seeing police, the courts and punitive treatments as the solution.

"For decades, the goal has been to deter people from using drugs by harming them — let's harm them as much as we can, and that will stop them from using," Lapointe told CBC News.

That approach, she said, has clearly failed.

"What we have now are thousands of hurt people and thousands of people who have died."

The goal needs to shift to helping people who use drugs, she said.

That's a point of view shared by drug users and advocates, who say they're sick of watching as governments in Victoria and Ottawa take baby steps to fight a monster of a problem.

"Drug policy … is politicized and used as a way to score political points across political parties, and the people who are struggling and suffering and dying from this drug supply are really being abandoned," B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau said.

In her mind, decriminalization is emblematic of this problem — "not even a half measure."

That language was echoed by the HIV Legal Network, which issued a press release Monday warning "half measures and stop-gap fixes will not end the crisis that drug prohibition has created."