Introduction

Chances are that you know someone who has been in trouble related to drug use, whether it is in your family, neighbourhood, work or school.  It could be someone who lost a driver’s license, lost a job, or went to jail.  As a society, we try to protect people from self-harm and harming others.  We also want to have safe medication, protect children, and make it easier for people to get help for drug-related problems.  All these efforts require laws, regulations and social policy.  We decide when something is a crime and when we should send offenders to jail or prison.  The use of valuable drugs becomes illegal to curb spreading abuse, while other drugs are reevaluated and made more readily available.  We create tobacco-free environments, require drug tests for jobs, and make it possible for people to get help for problem drug use and addiction.  In this chapter, we will examine laws and policies and explore some of the debates around incarceration and legalizing drugs. 

Substance Use Laws in Canada

Take a moment and reflect on the laws in Canada.  Whether you realize it or not, laws in Canada impact citizens on a daily basis, from paying for groceries to driving on the right-hand side of the road, to education and health care.

There are also laws that control the access, use, and distribution of substances. The Controlled Drug and Substances Act (CDSA) is the law responsible for overseeing Schedule I-VIII substances, which include stimulants, opioids, depressants, benzodiazepines, and steroids as well as their derivatives ⁽¹⁾.   The Director General’s Office manages the CDSA and its Regulations and the Office of Controlled Substances develops legislation, regulations, policies and operations that support the control of illicit drugs and other substances ⁽²⁾.

Who decides what substances belong to illicit or licit categories?  Who decides when something is a crime and when people are sent to prison?  Who creates and passes these laws?  Employees of Health Canada, experts in the field, members of RCMP, and elected officials and their staff form committees to review substances and the laws associated with them.  Canada is also a member of the UN Office of Drug and Crime (UNODC), which guides Canadian laws and policies ⁽³⁾.  To pass a law, the House of Commons (elected, lower Chamber), the Senate (appointed, upper Chamber), and the Monarch (Head of State, who is represented by the Governor-General in Canada) work together.

There are advocacy groups across Canada trying to make changes in the laws regarding substance use.  From the larger groups like the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) who have a long history in advocacy for supervised consumption sites and prescription opioid programs to smaller advocacy groups like the Halifax Substance Users Network (HalifaxSUN) and HaliFIX in Nova Scotia who have been working to promote overdose prevention through substance testing campaigns and sharing first-person stories of their substance use.  There are grassroots efforts to move towards substance use laws and policies that reflect a harm reduction approach in Canada.

Some groups have had success in pilot projects.  Please review the first opioid prescription models in Canada by clicking on the NAOMI and SALOME projects in Vancouver.  While the evidence was clear that opioid prescription changed lives, these programs had a limited shelf-life.

Today, Canada’s policies that support a national harm reduction approach are piecemeal, and while there have been positive changes since 2015, including the legalization of cannabis and Health Canada approved supervised consumption sites ⁽⁴⁾, one of the issues facing people who use substances continues to be a punitive legal system that criminalizes substance use.

Drug Policy and the War on Drugs

We will start this module with a short video from the Municipal Alcohol Project and the Nova Scotia Community College.

Municipal Alcohol Project PSA. by Key Studios. An underage drinking awareness public service announcement created in partnership between Nova Scotia Community College Truro Campus and Mental Health and Addiction Services.⁽⁵⁾

Transcript

Videos like this suggest abstinence is best; however, abstinence does not work for everyone. Abstinence-based programs and policies are not evidence-based, and yet are still being used to address substance use and substance use disorders. They are the remnants of the “war on drugs,” which began in the Reagan era (1981-1989) of the United States and were generally seen as failed policy ⁽⁶⁾. The term “war on drugs” began with Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States in 1984.  His wife Nancy began a popular, yet ineffective campaign, “Just Say No”.  This campaign was based on abstinence and spawned other abstinence-based programs like DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)⁽⁷⁾.

Many people believe the war on drugs was an American phenomenon; however, Canada was a willing ally and created laws that targeted marginalized groups⁽⁸⁾.  In the 1980s, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney invested in Canada’s war on drugs based on the false belief that communities were being ravaged by drugs, though evidence on use suggested otherwise⁽⁹⁾.  The war on drugs has been a worldwide phenomenon that resulted in the criminalization and incarceration of people who use substances; “historically, the principal response to illegal drug use has been enforcement and incarceration”⁽¹⁰⁾.

The war on drugs was not successful, yet it continues to have impacts on Canada’s laws, correctional facilities, RCMP and Police, healthcare, and economy.  Data from Canada and elsewhere show “this approach fails to meaningfully reduce the supply of – or demand for – drugs and results in many unintended negative consequences”⁽¹¹⁾; for example, “overdose is a leading cause of premature mortality in North America”⁽¹²⁾.  Consequences of the war on drugs also include incarceration and the myriad of challenges associated with having a criminal record.  Yet Canada and other countries have continued to engage in a political war on drugs though according to Mallea⁽¹³⁾, “it has not reduced the drug trade, eliminated production, or decreased the number of users”⁽¹⁴⁾.  Gordon ⁽¹⁵⁾ suggests the criminalization of substances and people who use substances has not occurred in a vacuum; it has been a “state policy that intersects profoundly with the racialized class relations of Canadian capitalist society” ⁽¹⁶⁾.

Robyn Maynard – Policing Black Lives. By Fernwood Publishing. Author Robyn Maynard speaks about her book, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, available in stores and online: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/po… ⁽¹⁷⁾

The transcript for this event can be found here: https://bit.ly/3d65F7b

This racialized focus in the war on drugs has resulted in an over-representation of incarceration for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities.  “Racialization strengthens systemic racism and reinforces structural violence” ⁽¹⁸⁾.  To understand how racialization has played a role in Canada’s war on drugs one must simply look to the correctional system.  For example, 80% of people who have been incarcerated have substance use disorders ⁽¹⁹⁾ and 54% of offenders were under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of the offence for which they were currently serving a sentence ⁽²⁰⁾.  If we look at the correctional system we can see in 2016, Indigenous Canadians accounted for 24.4% of the federal prison population, though they make up just 4.3% of the general population ⁽²¹⁾.  In 2010–2011, Black Canadians accounted for 10% of the federal prison population although Black Canadians only comprised 2.5% of the overall population ⁽²²⁾.  We are incarcerating people for their substance use and this racialization of the war on drugs has resulted in blackness associated with criminality ^(23).

The war on drugs has been a catastrophic failure that has directly impacted BIPOC communities and indirectly impacted all Canadians; “war always destroys lives, produces a maximum of collateral damage, denies basic human and civil rights, and has little to do with justice” ⁽²⁴⁾.  Many advocates who work in the field of substance use disorders believe it is time to end the war on drugs and focus efforts on the intersectionality of the systemic issues that perpetuate substance use disorders ⁽²⁵⁾.

Angel Gates: Insight from community on the devastating toll of Canada’s drug policies. by Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. At the heart of Canada’s overdose crisis are people with lived and living experience with substance use who have the clearest understanding of the systemic flaws inherent in our drug policies, along with the devastating human toll wrought by them. Their insight must guide and inform new policies if they are to have any positive impact on the lived realities of communities most deeply affected. They are the “experts to the experts,” and their contributions must be privileged for policies to succeed.

Transcript

Advocating for Change

Can we change Substance Use Laws in Canada?  The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition is advocating revising Canada’s Drug Safety Act and focusing on a public health and human rights approach⁽²⁷⁾. This means sharing information to help Canadians understand how/when/where policies were created and change policy based on evidence. Watch this short film by the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition⁽²⁸⁾ to help understand the impacts of the war on drugs and the community agencies that are working towards ending current substance use policies.

Getting to Tomorrow: Ending the Overdose Crisis.

Getting to Tomorrow: Ending the Overdose Crisis. by Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Realizing solutions to the overdose crisis by bringing communities together to find shared meaning, understanding, and purpose, with the goal of advancing a public health and human rights approach to drug policy. www.gettingtotomorrow.ca⁽²⁹⁾

Transcript

Food For Thought

• Reflect on the concept of prohibition.  How could quality control be changed if substance/use policies were built on a public health approach?

There are other advocacy groups across Canada that are speaking up to say the current approach is not working.

Click on the members of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition members website⁽³⁰⁾. (Interactive Map)

 

Activities

1. Please click on the “Moms Stop the Harm”⁽³¹⁾ website.
2. What was the most significant learning for you?  Why?
3. Do you think websites or programs like this are effective?  Why or why not?
4. How could someone get involved in supporting policy changes?

Does this mean that Canadian lawmakers and policy makers have not made changes in the last thirty years to reflect a more evidence-based approach?  No, there have been significant changes to policies.

Please review the following timeline ⁽³²⁾for CBC/KIDS … shows history of How Marijuana became legal in Canada.

 

Food For Thought

• Do you see other changes in policy between the 1990’s and today?
• What is the biggest change you see?
• What areas do you think need further policies?  Who would be responsible?

As we have explored in this chapter changes are happening.  The current challenge, suggested by groups like the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, is a dichotomy between the funding and support to harm reduction programs and making the legal changes that could make piecemeal harm reduction programs obsolete. What role does a Social Service worker play in this arena?

Please note that as of May, 2022, the British Columbia Government will be implementing a new law that sees small amounts of certain substances decriminalized.  This is an exciting step and the rest of the country will be watching closely to see what the result may be.  Read below about the exemption from Health Canada: B.C. receives exemption to decriminalize possession of some illegal drugs for personal use^[33]

Attribution:

This Chapter is an adaptation of Exploring Substance Use in Canada by Julie Crouse is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.