Seven years after the province of British Columbia declared the drug epidemic a public health emergency, and just one month after the decriminalization of all drugs, overdoses continue to skyrocket.
According to the Canadian Press, B.C. tragically set three new overdose records this March, just the second month after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal government allowed the province to decriminalize all drugs starting February 1, 2023, in an effort to combat the crisis.
The 2016 emergency was invoked after statistics showed that 474 British Columbians had died from drug overdoses in 2015.
While the current approach by B.C. and many other liberal governments is to increase the so-called "Safe supply" of drugs, to erect "Supervised consumption sites" where those addicted can legally use drugs in the presence of medical personnel, or to outright decriminalize the possession of drugs, statistics indicate that this strategy has led to the problem getting worse, not better.
The American state of Oregon - separated from B.C. by Washington state - decriminalized all drugs in late 2020.
Similar trends have been observed in other jurisdictions that have opted for a soft-on-crime approach to drugs by law enforcement, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
Speaking about the danger of drug decriminalization, attorney Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research previously told the Epoch Times that "Virtually no one is in prison for a possession of a user's amount of drugs," but because drugs are illegal, being able to detain and question those in possession of small amounts allows law enforcement access to high-level drug dealers.
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