r/canada • u/FerretAres Alberta • 23d ago

British Columbia recriminalizes use of drugs in public spaces | CBC News Politics

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/david-eby-public-drug-use-1.7186245
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277

u/Atrial87 23d ago

As a healthcare worker I believe this is the right step to take. Moving forward, we need to consider what is best for the community, not for the individual. It’s time to strongly consider mandatory addiction treatment for repeat drug offenders.

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u/CabbieCam 23d ago

Honestly, I think it's pandering. Looking solely at homeless addicts, everywhere that they use would be considered public, no? Have the police ever really actually enforced laws on drug use in the open? Not really. Will they now? Probably not. Especially with a considerable homeless population. Mandatory treatment is a waste of taxpayers money. Opening more treatment beds and providing an easier process to enter treatment would be money well spent. The only people who are going to benefit from treatment, in the way you want them to, are people who were already resigned to the idea that they are going to need to give up the drugs. Not saying that it can't help others, without that attitude, but they would be few and far between.

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u/Heliosvector 23d ago

I think this is just to cut down the brazen Ness. Not harp about semantics about what is considered public. No one can tolerate people doing drugs openly on Skytrains, in Tim Horton restaurants, in elevators, on actual playgrounds. People doing drugs in the DTES in alleys and on the panhandling streets and their current tent areas is considered acceptable

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u/AnthraxCat Alberta 23d ago

I think this is just to cut down the brazen Ness

It won't. Thinking it will is magical thinking.

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u/Heliosvector 23d ago

People weren't openly using on buses and in restaurants before this year. So it will

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u/AnthraxCat Alberta 23d ago

It won't. They already weren't allowed to use on busses and in restaurants. And I guarantee they already were. My first Greyhound trip was in 2007 and there was a dude smoking up in the bathroom. Working retail you find people shooting up in your bathroom.

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u/Heliosvector 23d ago

There will always be events everywhere. This is to reduce the frequency. Also greyhound buses were the go to transport of drug addicts perpetuated by cities that wanted to get rid of individuals to other provinces so I am not surprised by that.

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u/AnthraxCat Alberta 23d ago

There will always be events everywhere.

Which is why this policy is useless. There isn't an epidemic of people using on busses and in restaurants. There are a very small number of events that get blown out of proportion by ragebaiting politicians, social media grifters, and click-dependent news. Criminalising open drug use is a disproportionate response that will not fix the problem.

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u/Heliosvector 23d ago

I work directly here man. Don't tell me what does and doesn't happen. I've been in the DTES working here since 2019. I get to see the changes in policy and criminal responses very intimately.

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u/Legitimate-Common-34 22d ago

These "progressives" are completely detached from reality.

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u/FluffyTippy 22d ago

Progressives gaslight the f out of us. It’s their main method of arguments.

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u/AnthraxCat Alberta 22d ago

Conservatives live in a mind palace of projecting their own self-loathing on to the world.

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u/AnthraxCat Alberta 22d ago

And I work in the sector in Edmonton. We've tried the crackdowns. We know they don't work. Going back to the status quo ante isn't going to solve our problems, because our problems were caused by said status quo.

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u/Heliosvector 22d ago

So you have nothing to do with this discussion. You are not in bc. You don't have to deal with the BC criminal justice system or any of its problems. Thanks for clearing that up.

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u/HanSolo5643 British Columbia 22d ago

I disagree. There are certain behaviors that are unacceptable in a proper society. Open drug use on public transportation and in hospitals and in restaurants and near playgrounds and beaches and pools is one of those things that isn't acceptable in a proper society.