A former B.C. health minister says a stigma still exists around people who use drugs in the province for a variety of reasons.
Terry Lake says there is an implicit, unconscious bias among decision makers – including himself when he was in office – and other people, when it comes to taking bolder action to help addicts.
“I don’t know anybody who wakes up in the morning and says, I think I’d like to be addicted. It’s made for them because of their life circumstances,” he said. “You know, its not going to increase the amount of drug use if you give people that are addicted to opioids for instance, a safe supply.”
“People use opioids primarily to stave off dope sickness.”
Lake says he believes there is very little downside in providing a safe supply of drugs for people in the province who need it.
“So lets give them a safe supply and more outreach to try to get people on a better path,” he added.
“But even if people use a safe supply of opioids for the rest of their lives, what difference does that make to me? The only difference perhaps is that it will see property crime go down because people won’t be needing to find money to get their supply.”
He says people need to keep pressuring the government to make changes to combat the overdose crisis as Dr. Bonnie Henry won’t be able to make changes on her own.
“You need the Premier to make those kinds of decisions to give her the opportunity to do the things that she thinks she needs to do,” Lake said.
“You know we have a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, a minister dedicated. When I had those two ministries, there was a lot on the table, but there’s no excuse for having a dedicated minister, a dedicated ministry to not focus on this issue and do more.”
Lake also questioned why there were unprecedented steps taken to combat the COVID-19 public health emergency, but not B.C.’s other public health emergency. Its after May 2020 marked three straight months of overdose deaths into the triple digits – 113 in March, 118 in April, and then a record 170 in May.
Officials also believe the ongoing pandemic could be to blame noting things like access to more income through the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit, physical distancing requirements, increased levels of stress and anxiety, as well as impacts in access to overdose prevention sites and the drug checking services.
