This experiment will make strides toward treating addiction as the health issue it is rather than solely as a criminal situation. Although there is a ways to go – such as creating a regulated and safe supply – this is a step in the right direction to reducing the stigma associated with drug use, and it could help save lives in the province.
As Canada's nanny state — which usually employs stigmatization as a tool to regulate the middle class — continues its anti-stigma drug paradox, the very people the government claims to be helping are the ones who will suffer. The policy normalizes drug addicts as nothing more than a population with an incurable health condition to be pitied rather than fixed, denying them agency over their lives and thus making rehabilitation inaccessible.