Vancouver’s drug decriminalisation trial has opened a debate over how to stop drug deaths

published on February 20, 2025 by Michael Dulaney and Catherine Zengerer in ABC News

Canada has long had a progressive drug reform policy that has broadly been applauded by liberals everywhere.

The government opened the first safe injecting room in North America in 2003, and there are now 39 across the country.

Australia has just two.

In 2018, Canada legalised cannabis, and in 2023 its western province of British Columbia (BC) did what drug reformers all over the world have been campaigning for governments to do: it stopped prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA.

The three-year pilot program was introduced amidst the region’s drug overdose crisis; in the six years leading up to the reforms, BC accounted for about a third of Canada’s drug overdose and trafficking deaths…