Opinion: Vancouver's urban decay in overdrive from misguided policies

Opinion: What could go wrong? Misguided policies push Vancouver's urban decay into overdrive

Mr. Nikon/Shutterstock

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Adrian Crook, the author of the 5Kids1Condo.com blog and a co-founder of the Abundant Housing Vancouver and Abundant Transit BC advocacy groups.

In 2021, facing twin crises of homelessness and addiction, the state of Oregon decriminalized the possession of hard drugs. In 2024, just three years later, they backtracked. This past April, Governor Tina Kotek signed into law a measure to restore criminal penalties for drug possession.

“There’s no question what Oregon did was a bold experiment, and it failed. Let’s just be honest about that,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told the New York Times earlier this spring.

A politician speaking honestly about the failed policy known as decriminalization? He must not be from British Columbia, where even when reversing course, as Premier David Eby did on April 26, our elected leaders still twist themselves into pretzels to deny a reality we can all see with our own eyes: the chaos and violence that we now must endure on a daily basis.

You might also like:

Last year, I wrote in this space about the fatal stabbing of a young father on Granville Street in broad daylight. His crime? Asking an individual not to vape near his daughter. I thought at that time that, surely, we were at rock bottom. Surely, our leaders will see what devastation they have wrought and restore some order to our streets.

I hate being wrong.

Things have escalated considerably in the intervening months. We now have not just weekly random stabbings but gang shootouts just blocks from the downtown condo where I am raising my kids. And the shootout was anything but “targeted,” with gang members spraying bullets everywhere and even dropping one of their guns. It is only a matter of time before more innocent lives are lost.

We are also learning that the “safe supply” of drugs meant to reduce overdose deaths is being diverted into the illegal market. Together, safe supply and decriminalization were going to turn the tide of this tragic crisis, we were told. But things have only gotten worse.

Of course, Premier Eby continues to defend these policies as “evidence-based” and saving lives, but his government can’t even be bothered to gather that evidence. A recent review found that no data was tracked or analyzed with regard to the province’s safe supply program. We are left to rely on anecdotal evidence, which clearly shows that far from improving, things are getting worse. It is no wonder that deaths attributed to toxic drugs hit another record high in 2023, increasing to an average of seven people a day. That is 2,511 more lives lost in just one year.

This is what happens when we let ideology run roughshod over common sense. If life-saving detox and addiction treatment supports and services are widely available, then maybe there is a role for decriminalization. But that is very big if. Because, quite simply, they are not. The waitlist for detox and treatment programs in BC is long, and the system’s capacity is nowhere near where it needs to be.

Asked what his advice would be for other jurisdictions considering the decriminalization route, Wheeler had a clear warning: “The treatment infrastructure has to be in place first. To decriminalize the use of drugs before you actually had the treatment services in place was obviously a huge mistake.” But since 2017, the BC government has only added 600 treatment beds. While the government boasts about this figure in press releases, the truth is it is just a drop in an ocean of despair.

So, how has our province’s position on decriminalization changed in the face of the objective fact that the policy has been an ill-conceived disaster? On April 26, bowing to intense public and political pressure, Premier Eby announced that he had asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use in BC at the federal level. A partial climb down, as possession is still allowed — just not use.

In characteristic Eby style, he did it without admitting an ounce of fault. He said he was “frustrated” and looked to blame the “technical challenges” of implementation. Not once did he look in the mirror and offer an honest apology for more than a year of chaos and violence and lawlessness in neighbourhoods across BC.

But then again, maybe he genuinely still believes in decriminalization, evidence be damned. Essentially, Eby is sticking with his decriminalization pet project because he still believes it to be the right call. He’s just trying to excise the part that has caused the most political blowback.

As of press time, the BC government’s website still describes the decriminalization of people who possess illegal drugs as a critical step in the fight against the toxic drugs crisis because “it will help reduce the barriers and stigma that prevent people from accessing life-saving supports and services.”

After 14 months of a terrible policy that shook our communities to their core, how is that stigma coming along?

I get it. Admitting you are wrong is hard. But we in BC are forgiving people. The thing is, we can only forgive these mistakes if our leaders have the courage to admit to them. Friday was a step in the right direction, but will Eby ever show the courage and candour to admit that he is wrong?

You might also like: