The Canadian province of British Columbia begins a three-year pilot program to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy or crack cocaine.
Canada's western province of British Columbia has begun a three-year pilot program to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy or crack cocaine, as part of an effort to fight the country's drug overdose crisis.Exemption from arrest is only for possession of up to 2.5 grams for personal useBC accounts for about a third of the 32,000 deaths due to overdose and trafficking nationally since 2016, according to official data.
Preliminary data released on Tuesday by the province showed there were 2,272 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2022, the second-largest annual number ever recorded, only behind 2021, which had 34 more deaths. By not prosecuting people carrying small amounts of drugs, the BC government hopes to tackle the issue as a health problem rather than through the criminal justice system.
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