Quote:
Originally Posted by savemedrzaius
Like you said it's very shocking to see these hard drugs being used so openly in the city centre.
I guess my question is...Why?
Why is it allowed?
If I remember correctly I'm not even allowed to walk down the street with a beer in my hand but you've got people in the middle of the day openly shooting up.
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Using drugs and being high isn't a crime, just possession/distribution. So the police officers could theoretically arrest the addicts for possession of very small amounts of a drug, but that doesn't get anyone anywhere. The jail sentences wouldn't be anything substantial, and the amount of court resources you'd have to devout to that would be extensive. On top of that you would have an endless parade of human rights claims.
The only real way to tackle the problem would be to go full gestapo on the whole DTES community. That would be a logistical nightmare, and there is little political will to actually do that. Beyond drug addicts, the community in the DTES is also full of people with disability and mental health issues. Instead the plan has been to slowly gentrify the area and hope it goes away....it only seems to be getting worse though. An awful combination of the fentanyl epidemic, a lack of affordable housing, a stagnating economy, and rapidly increasing costs of living seem to be forcing more and more people onto the streets.
The police in Vancouver do, however, crack down quite heavily on drug dealers in the DTES. If you are not an addict yourself, and you're found distributing drugs in the DTES, it's an automatic jail sentence for a first offence these days. If you are caught dealing Fentanyl, even a first offence will result in a 1+ year sentence.
I defended a guy, via legal aid, who was caught selling under $10 worth of crack. Since being arrested, he'd gotten full time employment, got married, and had a child. The courts still gave him a multi-month sentence, and that was considered a very good result at the time.