Is decriminalizing drugs the answer to Toronto’s drug toxicity crisis?

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Since their initial submission in January 2022, the City of Toronto has spent over a year convening experts, listening to people with lived and living experience of drug use, and hearing personal stories from family, friends, first responders, and frontline harm reduction workers – many of whom have experienced significant loss and grief due to preventable overdose deaths.

The evidence drawn from the different levels of engagement demonstrated to the city that criminalizing the possession of drugs for personal use leads to discrimination and stigma and contributes to people hiding their drug use from their: physicians, friends, family, colleagues, and community. Being criminalized has negative mental and physical health impacts, and a criminal record can prevent access to meaningful employment, secure housing, and full access to the social determinants of health, including fair treatment in healthcare settings.

Due to these findings, there is now support for a made-in-Toronto model of decriminalization.

According to the release titled “Toronto’s Model of Decriminalizing Drugs for Personal Use,” decriminalization is an upstream population health response to the drug toxicity crisis that will be accompanied by a full continuum of downstream mental health, harm reduction, and treatment services. In partnership with community providers, Toronto is taking a data-driven approach to providing critical health services in hotspot areas – places in the city where overdoses are most likely to occur, and where services are needed to save lives.

This model was a collaboration between:

Dr. Eileen de Villa (Medical Officer of Health)

Paul Johnson (City Manager)

Myron Demkiw (Chief of Police)

In the release they note their understanding that policing and justice system resources may be more effective when targeted at preventing the production and trafficking of illicit substances, rather than possession for personal use. After a year of extensive community engagement and partnership building, they recommend the following model, designed to balance the public health and public safety needs of all Torontonians.

As outlined in the initial submission to Health Canada on January 4^th, 2022, the goal of decriminalization is to reduce the mental, physical, and social harms associated with criminalizing people for possessing drugs for their personal use, and it has the potential to meaningfully improve the health and well-being of all Torontonians.

Toronto Public Health is now recommending a Toronto model of decriminalization that includes voluntary referrals to services and creates an exemption to Section 4(1) of the

• Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (i.e., simple possession) for
• All controlled drugs and substances in possession for personal use
• The whole City of Toronto, with specific exclusions; and
• All people in Toronto, including youth

According to the City of Toronto, decriminalizing the possession of drugs for personal use requires a cultural transformation in our thinking: shifting drug use from an issue of criminal behaviour to an opportunity to advance health and human rights. Decades of stigma about drug use has led to an assumption that decriminalization might have a negative impact on community safety. However, possessing drugs for personal use does not directly cause harm to others.

In the release, the present evidence on the impact of decriminalization on drug use patterns. In 2020 systematic review of evaluations of decriminalization and legalization in other jurisdictions found that in the majority of jurisdictions that have implemented decriminalization, or legalization, drug use trends did not change, and drug use did not increase.

Okay, I am going to have to stop this right here…

There are some items in this release that need to be highlighted, and readers, we really want your input on this. Remember one thing; YOU run this city. Political parties are here to work for YOUR BEST INTEREST. Is this really the best thing to do, decriminalize drugs?

They say for themselves that studies do show that decriminalization really does not have an effect, so why would we go ahead and implement something that has proven not really to have an effect? What else was discussed at these community outreach sessions? Did they discuss the fact that it could be extremely dangerous giving controlled drugs to youth? How about the fact that what these youth need is mentoring, counselling, not access to drugs. Drugs numb, they do not deal with the core issues, which include violence in the homes, little access to community support.

Then there is another significant point that must be identified; what about all our young African/Caribbean men and women who are in prison right now for drug charges? I am not talking about individuals who were caught with keys of cocaine, no not them. I am talking about the ones caught with a joint, or an amount that was obviously for personal use.

I don’t know community; let us know what you think, and more importantly, let our political heads know what you think. Will this work for our community? If not, what will?