NDP lawmaker tables bill to decriminalize drug use as overdose deaths soar - Canada News castanet.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from castanet.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The act also calls on the minister of health to establish a federal safe supply strategy to make regulated pharmaceutical alternatives to street drugs more widely available, in order to reduce people’s dependence on the poisoned illicit drug supply.
More than 20,000 people have died of poisoned drug overdoses in Canada since January 2016. And 2020, B.C.’s most deadly year on record, also saw a near doubling in deaths between April and September nationwide compared to the year before.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly rejected decriminalization because it is not a “silver bullet” solution and has favoured a focus on safe supply efforts.
Christopher Reynolds
A man injects hydromorphone at the Providence Health Care Crosstown Clinic in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday April 6, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck April 15, 2021 - 12:58 PM
OTTAWA - An NDP lawmaker is tabling legislation to decriminalize drug use in Canada, seeking to treat it as a health issue amid a lethal opioid crisis.
New Democrat health critic Don Daviesintroduced a private member s bill Thursday that would scrap Criminal Code provisions on drug possession, expunge criminal records for the same offence and mandate low-barrier access to a safe supply of medically regulated substances.
The legislation is unlikely to reach the debate stage, but Davies says current federal policy is causing unneeded deaths, despite moving in the right direction recently.
NDP MP proposes decriminalizing drug use brandonsun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from brandonsun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Coun. Leigh Bursey last week introduced the second motion, calling on the federal government to “declare the overdose crisis a national public health emergency so that it is taken seriously and funded appropriately.”
At last week’s committee meeting, however, the resolution met with resistance because of language calling on Ottawa to consider decriminalizing illicit drugs for personal use.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Bursey opened by proposing an amendment removing the language on decriminalization.
Getting this resolution passed is more urgent, at the moment, than the broader debate on decriminalization, he said.
“Since this discussion has started, I’ve known two people who’ve overdosed in this community and died,” said Bursey.