Following court challenges, the British Columbia government has repealed a law aimed at restricting drug use in public areas. The federal government's decision to exempt public spaces from the province's decriminalization pilot project grants police the authority to seize illegal drugs in public.
The British Columbia government has repealed a law passed last year to restrict drug use in some public areas because successful court challenges prevented it from being brought into force. Garry Begg, B.C.'s solicitor general and public safety minister, says the government has revoked the Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, passed in November 2023. Nothing consequential will change on the ground after the federal government approved the B.C.
government's request in May to exempt public spaces from the province's decriminalization pilot project, meaning police now have the authority to seize illegal drugs possessed in public, even without the provincial law. The law was tabled in the B.C. legislature to tighten rules around the use of illicit drugs in public places after widespread criticism from municipal leaders and citizens who said drug consumption in community parks and other areas faced fewer restrictions than cigarette smoking. But the Harm Reduction Nurses Association and other substance-use reform advocates launched a court challenge of the B.C. law and won, saying restricting drug use in public spaces would result in more drug users dying alone. B.C.'s Court of Appeal upheld a three-month temporary injunction in March put in place by a lower court that stopped the law that was intended to restrict public drug use in certain areas. But with the federal changes, police now have the discretion to consider taking action, warning the individual or referring the person, with consent, to services. Possession of substances under 2.5 grams for personal use by adults, in private residences, addiction health facilities, places where people are lawfully sheltering and overdose prevention and drug-check sites remain decriminalized. 'These changes to the decriminalization pilot restrict the use of drugs in all of the places that had been intended to be covered by the act,' says Begg in a statement
DRUG POLICY DECRIMINALIZATION PUBLIC HEALTH COURT CHALLENGES BRITISH COLUMBIA
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