Abbotsford Police Chief Mike Serr: “As you can imagine, it’s a seismic shift.”
A man smokes fentanyl in a park.
One of his pockets is full of more doses of the drug.
The police approach and ask him to move because there are children playing nearby.
The man refuses.
The police have the ability to arrest him and confiscate his drugs, which he says are for personal use.
What happens next?
Nothing, because the scenario is fictional, which Abbotsford Police Chief Mike Serr used to explain how such a potential interaction should be handled differently by officers after BC’s new drug decriminalization law comes into force on 31 January.
People who possess 2.5 grams or less of fentanyl, heroin, morphine, crack and powder cocaine, methamphetamine or MDMA cannot be arrested or have their drugs confiscated.
Instead, the British Columbia government says drug users will be offered an information card by health and social support workers, including local treatment and recovery services, if requested.
“When it comes to fentanyl or any of the [other] drugs by name, we don’t have a tool — we can’t seize a drug and there are no options to pay tickets,” Serr told Glacier Media about the law’s limitations on police.
“Really, unless a community can come up with a technical bylaw, our police officers are really challenged as to how they can ask for compliance and ask the person to move forward.”
The new law, which applies to people 18 and older, is the result of a successful push by the British Columbia government to get Health Canada to grant the province an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA).
The exemption begins on January 31 and expires on January 31, 2026.
The British Columbia government officially says decriminalization is a critical step in the fight against the toxic drug crisis that killed more than 10,000 people between January 2016 and October 2022.
The government believes the new law will help reduce the barriers and stigma that prevent people from accessing life-saving support and services, saying substance use is a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue.
Overdoses and overdose deaths continue to rise in British Columbia, with 1,827 people dying between January and October 2022. Photo by Mike Howell
“Impacting Individuals and Families in Our Communities”
Despite some of the law’s challenges, Serr said he fully supports the government’s direction, which he says will reduce the demand for illegal drugs and potentially reduce the number of overdose deaths.
But that optimism comes with a caveat.
There needs to be government support for health services and treatment for people who use drugs, he said, noting the Fraser Valley has only 25 detox beds. After the British Columbia Coroner’s Office releases its final report on the number of overdose deaths for 2022, Serr estimates Abbotsford will have lost more than 100 people last year.
“A lot of people look at this crisis as the marginalized people they see on the street, but there’s a whole wave of people using quietly in their homes and dying – it’s devastating,” he said.
“We say to [health authorities], “On you” when it comes to drug use. You have the ball and now please run with it and make this a top priority because it is impacting individuals and families in our communities.”
Serr was a member of the provincial government committee that established 2.5 grams as the threshold and provided guidelines for the application to Health Canada. He and other police chiefs have been involved in the introduction of the new law and training.
The 2.5 gram threshold was controversial, with the Vancouver Drug Users Network and other groups saying it should have been higher. Serr said research done at the time showed the average weight of drugs seized from individuals in Vancouver was 1.9 grams and Victoria was 1.3 grams.
“At the end of the day, we made our recommendation, other groups made theirs, and the government settled on 2.5 grams, which I think was kind of a happy medium,” he said, explaining that 2.5 grams is usually 25 doses.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Canada
All 240 Abbotsford police officers will receive government-led training on the new law by Jan. 31, Serr said, noting the course is the equivalent of a 45-minute webinar and explains the reason for the federal exemption, the purpose of the information cards and restrictions on officers.
Liability is also discussed in the training, with Serr saying officers have concerns about returning drugs to a person who could then overdose and potentially trigger an investigation of the officer by the Independent Investigations Office.
There are also fears that organized crime will take advantage of the law, with dealers keeping just 2.5 grams of the drug on them while dealing, with the rest of their stash hidden elsewhere.
“Somebody can have 25 packets and say it’s for personal use, but if we have evidence through surveillance and scorecards that they’re dealing drugs … we can still confiscate those drugs and charge the person with possession for the purposes of traffic,’ Sir I said.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Canada issued a directive in August 2020 to federal prosecutors to avoid prosecuting ordinary drug possession cases unless there are extenuating circumstances.
The police services of Abbotsford, Vancouver and other police forces have gone on record for years as adopting a de facto decriminalization approach to personal drug use, with Serr saying the number of arrests for simple possession in the province “has dropped significantly to almost zero.”
“Fewer smaller seizures” of drugs
Sergeant Steve Addison, Vancouver police media relations officer, echoed that point in an email to Glacier Media, saying “in that sense, decriminalizing small amounts of drugs for personal use will not affect the way we operate.”
Instead, Addison said, officers in Vancouver will continue to target violent and organized crime groups “that manufacture and traffic the harmful street drugs that continue to fuel the overdose crisis.”
The latest statistics from the British Columbia Coroners Service show that 484 people died in Vancouver between January and October 2022. In 2021, a total of 623 deaths were recorded in Vancouver, with another 463 in 2020.
“Although we do not currently arrest people for possession and have not for years without aggravating circumstances, there are times when our officers do find small quantities of drugs in the course of their duties and are required by law to seize them for destruction Addison said.
“The exemption from the CDSA will undoubtedly lead to fewer small seizures as our officers will no longer be required to seize and destroy drugs weighing less than 2.5 grams.”
Staff Sergeant Chris Clark, RCMP E Division media relations officer, said in an email that the national force is working closely with other law enforcement agencies, the ministries of mental health and addictions and public safety and the attorney general to develop a set of training resources for employees.
“We need to ensure that police officers from all law enforcement agencies in British Columbia have clear and consistent guidance, training and the support they need to carry out their decriminalization duties,” Clark said, noting that the second phase of training in the spring.
Clark said the training includes understanding how release intersects with existing laws and guidelines, including the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, bail conditions for dealing with overdoses, the prosecution of drug possession offenses and the introduction of a new evidence diversion measure (Bill C-5). last year.
“As a police agency, our role is to divert people who are in possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs away from the criminal justice system and into health and social services,” Clark said.
More than 10,000 people in British Columbia died from an overdose between January 2016 and October 2022. File photo Dan Toulgoet
“It’s a Seismic Shift”
For Serr, who noted that the BC Association of Chiefs of Police supports decriminalization, the coming days under the new law will be new and unpredictable ground for the police force, with his officers having mixed feelings about how it will play out.
“As you can imagine, it’s a seismic shift,” he said. “Our members, on the one hand, are very sympathetic to seeing the devastation of drug overdoses and deaths. But they’re also very sympathetic to the community, which is really frustrated with the open drug use, with the discarded drug paraphernalia. We get a lot of complaints about these issues.”
Added Serr: “Police officers in my agency are watching this unfold carefully, concerned about the impact on our community, concerned that they may not be able to address some of the community’s concerns.” But at the same time, they want to try to help support the people who are dying in our community in unprecedented numbers.
Does he think the Serr release will matter?
“I do. But I think it’s going to take a few years for this system to be managed effectively and appropriately. But what we’ve been doing, frankly, hasn’t made a difference. I mean, 23,000 people in Canada have died [between January 2016 and March 2021]. The numbers are staggering, so we have to try something different.”
mhowell@glaciermedia.ca
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