Toronto Board of Health urges Canada govt to decriminalize all drugs
Toronto, Jul 18 (IBNS): The Toronto Board of Health became the first in Canada to officially call on the federal government to decriminalize all drugs, according to Toronto's chief medical officer Dr Eileen de Villa, said media reports.
A motion was passed unanimously this week to remove penalties for personal drug use.
The federal government was also urged to add more harm-reduction and treatment services and set up a task force to examine the viability of legalizing and regulating all drugs the same way as alcohol.
“I am really grateful to this board for taking this bold step, which is going to save lives,” said Angie Hamilton, the executive director of Families for Addiction Recovery. “It’s going to save our kids.”
During the meeting on Monday Hamilton said that addiction was a common illness, and not a social taboo and children should receive treatment, not punishment, for being ill.
Other experts who supported the motion, included Matt Johnson of Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, Peter Leslie, Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force educator and Lynn Anne Mulrooney, senior policy analyst of Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO).
Mulrooney further pointed out that decriminalization of drugs did not address the problem of people dying from poisoned drug supply and added that there should be a fully regulated legalization in place.
303 opioid-overdose deaths occurred in Toronto in 2017, a 63 percent increase from 2016 more than double the number from 2015.
Between August and October, 2017, Fentanyl consumption accounted for three-quarters of overdose deaths in Ontario .
Supporting this move by the new Ontario Government is unlikely because Ontario Premier Doug Ford had already expressed his opnion against setting up harm-reduction efforts such as supervised drug-use sites.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Ford's office.
Mulrooney, in the mean time hoped to start a national conversation on harm reduction, especially if other nurses’ associations speak out as the RNAO has done.
“I think there’s a lot of nurses … that have already moved for a long time towards harm reduction and supervised injection services, so I think this is the next logical step,” she said.
Hamilton was also positive that the decision could eventually affect the law.
People who use drugs are less credible, she said, so it was important to have the weight of public health behind them.
“We’re guided by science and compassion,” she said. “And that’s what should guide all of these discussions. And I really think if we did that, we would be saving an awful lot of lives.”
(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
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