Alberta drug deaths plummet as it shuns decriminalisation

The Canadian province of Alberta has witnessed a dramatic fall in deaths by overdose after shunning the nation’s liberal drug policy experiment.

In November, province Health Minister Dan Williams said he was “cautiously optimistic” that “compassionate intervention legislation”, which requires addicts to undergo treatment, is saving lives.

Williams reported that neighbouring province British Columbia (BC) — which is pursuing the federal government’s controversial policy – is experiencing far higher opioid drug death rates.

Recovery model

Speaking to Canada’s CTV News, Williams said: “Happily, what we’ve seen over the last five months is a continued and precipitous decrease in overdose deaths.”

He explained: “If we look at just August, we see a 42 per cent decrease. If we look at the month before, in July, we saw 42 per cent decrease year over year. The two months before, that was a 52 per cent decrease”.

Explaining why drug death rates were much higher in BC, he said: “the Alberta recovery model is not facilitating addiction, it’s not continuing with unsafe supply, it’s not putting drug consumption sites in every corner”.

He added: “We have a different assumption than the BC model does, and it’s proving results.”

Decriminalisation

Last year, journalist Sarah Green highlighted the devastating effects of BC’s decision to decriminalise the possession of certain drugs for “personal use” – such as heroin, fentanyl and cocaine – on Vancouver, its largest city.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, she said that in 2023 the “province recorded 2,511 drug-related overdoses, 87 per cent of them down to fentanyl. The death rate in Vancouver itself now stands at 56 per 100,000 people – nearly three times the national average”.

However, she explained that in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – home to 5,000 drug users – “the rate is nearly 30 times higher than the rest of the country”.

Walking through the district, Green said it is “profoundly shocking”, with the bodies of drug users lining the streets, some barely breathing. She added: “Discarded needles are everywhere”.

Scotland

Drug users can now inject without being challenged by police at the UK’s first drug consumption room in Glasgow, which opened on 13 January.

The Thistle, a Scottish Government-funded facility, is open seven days a week and has effectively been declared a ‘prosecution-free drug zone’ by the Lord Advocate.

During a visit to the Thistle, First Minister John Swinney claimed it would enable users to inject in a “safer” environment, although centre manager Lynn MacDonald admitted that “people will overdose in this building”.

Latest figures from the National Records of Scotland show that 1,172 people died of drug misuse in 2023, a rise of 121 deaths on the previous year. More than 1,500 babies in Scotland have been born dependent on drugs since 2017.

Wrong answer

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) recently called for a halt to the slide towards decriminalisation, citing alarming death figures.

The think-tank’s new report, ‘Still ambitious for recovery: How to address illegal drug addiction and strengthen law enforcement’s role’, revealed that three times as many people die from drug-related reasons as road accidents.

The report also highlighted that a record 5,448 people died from drug poisoning in 2023, an 84 per cent increase since 2013. Almost ten per cent of adults aged 15-59 reported using illegal drugs in the past year, although the think-tank noted that this is likely to underestimate the scale of the problem.

Sophia Worringer, the CSJ’s Deputy Policy Director, said: “Pretending liberalisation is the answer is plainly wrong. Everywhere you look, it has not stamped out the illegal drug market or acted as a silver bullet to reduce drug deaths or drug use.”