A clinician researcher with the BC Centre on Substance Use is pulling no punches over the Public Safety Minister’s remarks yesterday.

In response to Dr. Bonnie Henry’s call to decriminalize street drugs to lower the stigma for users, Mike Farnworth said that is not a decision for B.C. to make.

But Dr. Keith Ahamad says Farnworth sounded like the minister was passing the buck.

“From the Ministry of Health, we hear nothing and it’s a health issue,” he said on NL Newsday. “And from others in ministries, like Farnworth’s, we just hear a sound bite and it really has to stop.”

“If you listen to Bonnie Henry, she has looked at this with a laser focus and she’s come up with solutions for which we can implement provincially.”

Ahamad says the province can’t wait for the federal government to make a decision because people are dying.

“They have articulated publicly that they are not going to make a move on this right now, and it’s under the jurisdiction of our provincial government so we need our Premier to bring his team together and really come up with a solution,” Ahamad added.

“That’s because every expert in public health and addiction knows that decriminalizing drug use for people that are using drugs needs to be done right away so we stop wasting money and we look after our neighbours.”

He went on to say the delays in acting on the issue is wasting money.

“Money being wasted in policing, the criminal justice system, the healthcare system and it goes well beyond that into years of lost life,” Ahamad noted. “It’s just an unbelievable situation right now.”

“People are dying in their thirties. We’re losing major productivity. The inter-generational trauma and the fall out here for generation to come is really going to be staggering.”

Former Medical Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall earlier told Radio NL that decriminalizing drugs for personal use has to be done carefully.