Sask. group concerned new trafficking penalties will harm vulnerable drug users, not dealers

WATCH: A Saskatoon group is concerned new penalties designed to stop drug trafficking will hurt vulnerable users, not dealers.

The executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction is concerned the province’s plan to introduce new penalties for distributing meth and fentanyl will punish vulnerable drug users more than traffickers.

“To look at needles as weapons and, you know, possession charges and loss of your income assistance,” Kayla DeMong said.

“Those are things that will affect the people who are using substances in our community the most.”

On Tuesday, Minister of Justice Tim McLeod announced a series of provincial measures to curb the spread of illicit drug use, including the potential for fines of up to $1 million, seizing property used for drug sales and reclassifying drug use in semi-public spaces as trespassing.

Demong criticized other measures announced, like treating drug-related items such as needles as street weapons that police can seize without charges and waiving fines if a person chooses drug treatment programs instead.

Demong called the move a shift towards “forced treatment.”

“A number of beds that we were promised in January of 2024 — we don’t have them,” Demong said.

“So, when they look at forced treatment, where are they sending people? Does that mean that they’re detaining people while they are waiting for treatment? Does that mean that they are going to be, you know, putting people back on the street and picking them up later? Again, there’s not a lot of clarification.”

The province announced a shift in mental health and addictions treatment in October 2023, looking to address homelessness with 500 new addictions treatment spaces as part of a $90 million multi-year plan.

Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand says while he wants more addictions spaces to be made available, more action is needed now.

“We see the users that some of them don’t even want to tell us they don’t want help. They don’t. It’s real,” Arcand said Tuesday.

“We see the people that want help — not enough treatment spaces, right?"

On Tuesday, McLeod reaffirmed the province’s commitment to its goal of opening 500 treatment spaces, and maybe more.

“The premier has said when we hit 500, if we still need more, we will move to add more,” McLeod said.

Demong also wondered why the province would look at withholding provincial benefits for people facing trafficking charges.

“Income assistance isn’t usually something that is a threat to people that are trafficking substances,” she said.

“Who that affects is community members, which is, you know, a big red flag for us when we talk about who it’s going to affect most,” she said.

Demong would rather have the province provide more funding for healthcare, mental health and housing to prevent more people from being addicted to fentanyl and meth.

“To implement what they’re talking about, we’re talking about years,” she said.

Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck is looking for similar funding plans, and wonders why the province didn’t get tougher on illicit drug trafficking years ago.

“We support measures to get those drugs off the streets (and) we also need to have effective measures and an effective plan in this province to start to decrease those rates of addiction that we have seen spiral out of control over the last decade,” Beck said.