It's not so simple

In Canada, there is a growing body of evidence that indicates criminalizing simple drug possession (i.e. possessing drugs for personal use) and other activities related to drug use (e.g. activities captured by the trafficking prohibition) do not protect public health or public safety. Rather, these prohibitions have been ineffective in reducing the use and availability of criminalized drugs while contributing to profoundly negative health outcomes for people who use drugs. At the same time, criminalizing these activities has legally entrenched stigma, racism, and other forms of discrimination against people who use drugs, particularly those who are Indigenous, Black, unhoused, and poor. Acknowledging the harms of drug prohibition policymakers and other criminal legal system actors in Canada and globally have focused on the potential impacts of decriminalizing simple drug possession. Numerous United Nations bodies, for example, recommend “alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use,”1 and countries across Europe and the Americas have implemented reforms regarding how simple possession and/or personal drug use is legally defined and regulated.2 These changes have been implemented for diverse reasons, including to align laws and policies with public health principles and to alleviate demand on strained criminal legal systems.3 Yet, there has been little to no corresponding momentum to reform laws and policies when it comes to offences related to the supply and distribution of drugs (e.g. drug “trafficking”). A series of law and policy developments in Canada over the past decade have sought to mitigate some of the harms of the simple drug possession offence while directing focus towards people who supply drugs.4 This focus has manifested in an increase in sentences for drug trafficking across multiple jurisdictions, an approach that has been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.5 As the Court recently held, drug trafficking should be “understood as an offence of violence, even beyond the ruinous consequences it has for those who abuse drugs and in the process, destroy themselves and others” — thus warranting heavy punishment.6 Yet, research suggests that a narrow focus on decriminalizing simple drug possession and the shift towards pursuing and more severely punishing drug trafficking may exacerbate the structural vulnerability of people who use drugs while actually contributing to health and social harms, such as violence, racism, and poverty, that can push people into conflict with the law in the first place.7