Montreal to ask for decriminalization of all drugs

A motion presented and voted on by Montreal's city council will prompt the city's mayor, Valérie Plante, to join other Canadian cities in asking the Canadian federal government to decriminalize simple possession of drugs for personal use.

New: Montreal city council has just voted 47-13 in favor of asking Ottawa to decriminalize drug possession.

Joins a number of other cities, including Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto; medical health officers in Vancouver and Toronto; Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, etc.

- Andrea Woo | 鄔瑞楓 (@AndreaWoo) January 26, 2021

Canadian data shows that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in more overdose deaths in the first eight months of 2020 than in all of 2019. Some cities like Vancouver and Toronto also voted to intervene with Health Minister Patty Hajdu to stop the criminalization of simple drug possession. The exemption would fall under an existing provision of the Cannabis Act, which regulates certain drugs and allows, for example, the operation of low-risk consumption sites or of psilocybin prescription.

«With the double crisis of COVID-19 and overdoses, all organizations in the region, whether working in prevention or harm reduction, are affected. On behalf of all these groups, we are asking the City of Montreal to act quickly. It's not a legal issue, it's a health and human rights issue, it's a matter of life and death,» said Sandhia Vadlamudy, Executive Director of the Association des intervenants en dépendance du Québec.

The motion also called on the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) to join the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), which has also called for the decriminalization of personal possession of illegal drugs. Last July, the CACP declared that this was the best way to combat drug addiction and use.

Rotrand, independent councillor for the Côte-des-Neiges - Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough, added that the CCPA's position cannot be underestimated.

«Our current approach is a waste of police resources, is ineffective, doesn't save lives or solve drug trafficking problems, clogs up the courts and costs an enormous amount of money,» a declared Marvin Rotrand, town councillor and motion sponsor.

«Perhaps one of the best questions to ask in order to really grasp the paradigm shift is whether we want to judge and criminalize people who have what essentially amounts to a health problem, a health problem that is often the consequence, a symptom of other factors like poverty or trauma,» said Christian Arsenault the other mover of the motion. «I think decriminalization is the first step towards a more compassionate approach to helping people.»