B.C. health officer Bonnie Henry is disappointed by reversal of decriminalization

B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry speaks during a news conference, in Vancouver, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Politicians and health experts are looking back at the successes and mistakes made during in the decade of a public health emergency into the toxic drug crisis in British Columbia.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday that the government’s decision to roll back the decriminalization trial this year was “disappointing.”

Henry told a roundtable discussion at the legislature on Monday that she “absolutely” believes that “there was political pressure” to stop the decriminalization trial, which removed criminal penalties for those caught with small amounts of certain illicit drugs for personal use.

“I was one of the most disappointed,” she said. “We didn’t have the degree of support and understanding in the community.”

Decriminalization, she added, was about people using drugs, not the drugs themselves.

“I think it got mixed up, because it’s very easy to say, ‘Oh, you legalize drugs, and that’s the cause of this problem,’ which is, of course, not true, and not the way it was meant to be,” she said.

Tuesday is the 10th anniversary of the government’s declaration of the health emergency, and since then toxic illicit drugs have killed 18,000 people.

B.C. Premier David Eby said in January that the province would not go “back to the old policy of decriminalized public drug use in British Columbia.”

He said “it didn’t work and we ended that.”

Henry said Monday that while decriminalization “was never going to be a silver bullet,” it “became a touchstone for people in a way that was causing harm.”

B.C. had applied for the exemption on the premise that it would lower the stigma around drug use.

Concerns about open drug use and public safety forced government to change the rules before it eventually pulled the plug on the project.

Health Minister Josie Osborne, who was also part of the roundtable, announced in January that B.C. would not apply for an extension to decriminalization because it had not delivered the results that government had hoped for.

“We, unfortunately, don’t work in a vacuum of social values and public perception, and it is clear there is more work to do around reducing stigma,” Osborne said.

Claire Rattee, the B.C. Conservative critic for Mental Health and Addictions, questioned past government policies.

“I don’t think there is any way in which we are better off today than we were 10 years ago,” she said.

For nearly a decade, the NDP government has been making the wrong choices, she said.

By championing safe supply and decriminalization, the NDP has supported “ideological projects” that have hurt, not helped, Rattee said.

It’s unclear what the path forward is, she said.

“They have not replaced it with any kind of strategy on how we are actually going to get ourselves out of this crisis.”

Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, who has been among the most vocal critics of the government’s drug policy, said the ballooning deficit gives her little confidence that David Eby’s government will have the finances to build programs to help.

“He is the one that has us driven to these record high debts and deficits that tie our hands … to provide social services, like addressing the overdose deaths that are happening on a daily basis,” Sturko said of Eby.

Dr. Bernie Pauly, professor in the school nursing at the University of Victoria, was also part of Monday’s roundtable and said that while B.C. has taken steps other provinces have not, the crisis persists because the stigma informs the government’s response.

“We have yet to reduce reliance on the unregulated drug supply for those who are at risk of unintentional overdose,” Pauly said.

“Interventions like overdose prevention sites and drug checking are not available in every community,” she said. “There are geographic disparities and gaps in implementation.”

Pauly said the government needs to change its approach.

“We need to move and shift from criminalization to a public health approach, which includes regulation of the drug supply, just as we regulate alcohol, food and water,” she said.

Osborne acknowledged that government needs to do more work.

“We aren’t going to take our foot off the gas with respect to all of the other interventions, harm reduction services, and expanding the treatment and recovery system that we are building so urgently,” she said.

The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition issued a statement on Monday saying it has watched a regression in the fight to prevent overdoses.

It says some “opportunistic public figures have peddled mis- and disinformation, driving the rollback of evidence-based harm-reduction measures that save lives, prevent unnecessary harms, and support safer, healthier communities.”

The group that works with more than 100 organizations and thousands of people in Canada said that government and policy-makers “caved to stigma,” alienated those who use drugs, while it veered away from evidence-based approaches and life-saving interventions.

Henry said in a statement released Monday that the increasingly toxic and unpredictable street-drug supply has turned an already serious situation into something far more dangerous, putting people at extreme and increased risk.

The emergency has been exacerbated by the pandemic, gaps in the health-care system, housing instability and homelessness, poverty, the impacts of colonialism and racism, she said.

“For these reasons, this crisis remains a public-health emergency that demands a continued response rooted in compassion, respect and evidence.”

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This report by Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press, was first published April 14, 2026.