Health authorities in British Columbia faced considerable political backlash when they tried to set up a regulated compassion club for heroin. The BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) and its executive director, Cheyenne Johnson, led an important initiative. They wanted to provide a safer, more accessible option for high-risk drug users as the province’s opioid crisis deepened.
In 2019, the BCCSU wrote a white paper in favor of the regulated retail sale of pharmaceutical-grade heroin. The primary objective was to keep high-risk drug addicts away from lethal street drugs. Doing so would greatly reduce the shocking rate of toxic-drug fatalities. Johnson, who co-authored the white paper, stressed that we’re at a critical juncture where innovative solutions are needed to tackle the continued public health emergency.
Over the past four years, the BCCSU committee has collaborated extensively with regional, provincial, and federal health authorities. They took the idea of a heroin compassion club and created a real, viable operating model. This unique collaborative effort was made possible through partnerships with the BC Centre for Disease Control. The full proposed project was estimated to cost around $13 million a year while only projecting a revenue of $4.6 million.
Easy access to federal funding through Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program was considered essential for the project’s viability. Yet, even with the initiative’s clear ability to advance public health, it suffered deep political opposition from elected leaders.
Yet in her testimony before British Columbia’s Supreme Court, Johnson emphasized the confusing maze that the project creates. She suggested that the conversation around drug policy was magnified, adding pressure on provincial leaders.
“I could see the mounting pressure on the province, in terms of us bringing a proposal to them at that time, when all that discourse was very, very heated,” – Cheyenne Johnson
Johnson also said that this political climate was probably responsible for the absence of support from provincial authorities. She shared that health authority partners struggled to make the case for continued funding. This is particularly the case for programs that only served a limited number of participants.
“It was quite difficult, in our conversations with our health authority partners, for them to justify continuing the costs of an $8-million program that serves 100 participants,” – Cheyenne Johnson
Opposition leaders were united in their criticism of the proposal for a heroin compassion club. Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre decried the use of tax dollars to buy what he called illegal and dangerous drugs. He contended that no safe supply of these drugs exists. He cautioned them that flooding the market with more substances would not cure addiction, it would deepen it.
“Stop using tax dollars to fund dangerous drugs under the so-called and ironically named idea of safe supply,” – Mr. Poilievre
“There is no safe supply of these drugs. They are deadly, they are lethal and they are relentlessly addictive. Giving people more of these drugs will not free them from their addiction, it will only lead to their ultimate deaths,” – Mr. Poilievre
Political backlash crashed the BCCSU’s plans to start the compassion club. At first, there was a lot of motivation to push the project through from senior leadership at both the BC Centre for Disease Control and Health Canada.
