[chemgear]

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/b-c...rugs-a-mistake

B.C. premier admits that decriminalizing drugs was a mistake

As recently as last year, Eby was still dismissing critics who said decriminalization would only make everything worse

“I was wrong … it was not the right policy,”

Starting on Jan. 31, 2023, drug users in B.C. no longer faced arrest or criminal consequences if they were carrying less than 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, meth or any of the other illicit drugs covered by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Police were not even allowed to seize the drugs of anybody injecting or smoking illicit drugs in a public place.

On Friday, however, Eby said that decriminalization became “a permissive structure” that taught drug users that “it was OK to use drugs anywhere.”

This is not the first time that Eby has said drug decriminalization did not go as planned. During the B.C. provincial election last October, Eby said at a campaign stop that decriminalization “didn’t have the results we wanted to see, just the opposite.”

“It resulted in some real problems,” he said.

Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, said decriminalization had gutted her department’s ability to deal with open-air drug use. “We have been raising this issue since before decriminalization. What has happened is exactly what we predicted would happen,” Wilson told parliamentarians.

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