Colonial Power, Displacement, and Drug War Propaganda

Politics of British Columbia’s 2023 Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act

Abstract

The unregulated drug supply, along with the international and localized conventions, law and policies that surround it, have collectively generated a public health crisis across much of the world. In Canada, 42,000 people died between April 2016 and September 2023, and British Columbia (BC) has been particularly affected. Despite this, the provincial New Democratic Party government passed the Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, or Bill 34, which expands police powers of displacement, arrest and other carceral punishment against people. Bill 34 allows police to target people under the suspicion of drug use under a formal title of regulating public consumption of unregulated substances. A BC Supreme Court injunction ruling highlights concerns over exacerbating drug-related harm, and has blocked Bill 34 temporarily; Bill 34 grants police broad discretion in displacing individuals that individual police suspect of using drugs, who are then likely to experience drug poisoning events in private or secluded places. We argue that the legislation is not supported by available public health evidence pertinent to the drug poisoning crisis and is more accurately understood as a continuation of the intersecting social relations of settler colonialism and racial capitalism that make up Canada and BC. With no apparent public health value, this commentary suggests that Bill 34 is a violent expansion of law enforcement discretion, contributing to ongoing violence against the public.