TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) — Despite record-breaking overdose deaths in recent years, Toronto is looking to decriminalize all drugs for personal use.
On November 29, Toronto Public Health announced its plans to decriminalize all street drugs as a part of its “comprehensive approach” in combatting the drug overdose crisis occurring in the city, which has seen a drastic surge in deaths since the start of the coronavirus crisis.
“Given an 81 per cent increase in reported overdose deaths in Toronto over the past year and concern about the increasing role of ultra-potent opioids, Toronto Public Health (TPH) is presenting a report to its Board for new and expanded measures to address the increase suffering caused by this public health crisis,” TPH stated in a press release.
Included in the proposed measures is an increase in “federal and provincial investments in critical health and social supports including, prevention, harm reduction and treatment services,” a “national framework to decriminalize the simple possession of all drugs for personal use,” as well as “an approach towards decriminalization within the city’s boundaries.”
According to the release, a report will be made for December 6, where the issue will be discussed further by the board prior to making their appeal to Health Canada for approval.
Noticeably absent from TPH’s statement is an explanation as to why drug overdoses have increased so staggeringly in the last year, while also failing to mention that the disturbing trend is not confined to 2021, but also something that was noticed early in 2020.
Despite TPH’s silence, Statistics Canada did release a report in July attempting to explain, at least in part, why young Canadians are dying at record numbers during the pandemic, from issues not related to the COVID-19 virus.
Addressing the excess mortality, specifically from drug and alcohol-related causes, Statistics Canada stated, “Many factors may have contributed to this increase, including Ontario’s declaring a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 17, 2020. During the emergency period, facilities and services related to substance use harm reduction, in-person counselling and supports such as treatment clinics and supervised consumption sites were required to reduce capacity or close. A similar pattern of increase is observed in Alberta.”
Further, the “economic, social, and psychological impacts of the pandemic as well as the public health measures in place may have played a role in increasing alcohol use among some individuals.”
Contrasting the opinion of TPH, Attorney Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, previously gave an interview with the Epoch Times, rebuking the practice of drug decriminalization.
Such use [of illicit drugs] has enormous external effects on society. … The more stoned a society, the less it will be able to function for the good of its most vulnerable members, above all children. By decriminalizing drug possession, the authorities send the message that mind-altering drugs, which are ingested solely for such mental effects, are innocuous and expected in their use.
Mac Donald went on to explain that “virtually no one is in prison for a possession of a user’s amount of drugs,” but the illegal nature of the drugs allows law enforcement access to high-level drug dealers. The criminalization of drugs, she explained, is actually a very “valuable tool … to protect the public from clear harm.”