Canada: B.C. Experiments with Decriminalizing Hard Drugs

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The Spin

Progressive narrative

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.

Conservative narrative

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.


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