Opposition leader wants crack and opioids banned from B.C. beaches and parks
While 4/20 is the day many people take to public beaches to smoke pot — B.C. United is calling on the governing NDP to bring in a province-wide ban on using recently decriminalized drugs at beaches, parks, and playgrounds.
Municipalities are responsible for making rules about how public places are used. Yet the opposition thinks the province can bring in B.C.-wide legislation to ban opioid and crack use from the same places.
From January 31, 2023 to January 31, 2026 Health Canada is allowing adults 18 and older to avoid arrest and charges for possessing up to 2.5 grams combined of opioids, crack and powder cocaine, meth and ecstasy.
Vancouver's Police Chief Adam Palmer said he supports the idea of a ban because "it's just common sense."
Kevin Falcon, the leader of the party formerly known as the B.C. Liberals, said he's hearing from police officers who are concerned about people using hard drugs in places families hang out.
"The problem is, you've taken a tool away from the police that now don't have the ability to go to someone that's say at Spanish Banks, or a local park or playground that's doing whatever drug of choice they're doing, to be able to take that away now, because it's decriminalized," added Falcon.
The ministry of mental health and addictions rejects that. In a statement to CTV News it said, only possession is decriminalized and it's still illegal to be intoxicated.
B.C. United also said some municipal councils are encountering pushback from local health officials about putting in city-wide bans.
On Wednesday, Jennifer Whiteside, the mental health and addictions minister, said it was appropriate for councils to get information from local health officers.
"I understand that the Sicamous municipality bylaw has been passed. There has been engagement with the medical health officer, and that's what municipalities are doing. They are engaging appropriately with their medical health officers to determine what the local conditions are," Whiteside said.
There is a ban on using these drugs at schools and daycares but not other public places.
The ministry's statement went on to say, "... implementing blanket bylaws does not address the underlying causes related to addiction and may undermine the goals of decriminalization."
That's because it may encourage people to use alone, and increase the risk the user may die of an overdose due to the toxic drug supply.
B.C. declared a public health emergency in April of 2016 and continues to set records for illicit drug overdose deaths.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.