Will Canada’s ruling on drug sentences set the stage for further reforms?

Imagine this: You’re a person living with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), and you’re arrested for selling a small amount of heroin to support your drug dependence. Before your sentencing, you enter a drug treatment program and take steps to address your dependence.

The judge applauds your progress and acknowledges the negative health impacts incarceration will have. But his hands are tied, because there’s another drug-related conviction on your record from nearly a decade ago. Against all reason, you receive an automatic one-year prison sentence.

In Canada, these are the sorts of irrational sentencing rules that compromise access to treatment or scientifically proven harm reduction measures for people who use drugs.

But sentences like these may soon be a thing of the past in Canada. On April 15, in its 6–3 decision in R. v. Lloyd, the Supreme Court struck down mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses, calling them a “constitutional infirmity” that violates the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment in section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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