Kelowna, B.C. mayor calls for playgrounds to be exempt from drug decriminalization | 24CA News
Kelowna, B.C.’s mayor is hoping to see adjustments to the principles for drug decriminalization in B.C.
Since the tip of January, adults within the province have been capable of carry as much as 2.5 grams of opioids, cocaine, meth and ecstasy with out concern of legal penalty.
Now, Mayor Tom Dyas is in search of modifications to additional shield youngsters.
He needs so as to add playgrounds and areas of parks frequented by youngsters to the checklist of places the place drug possession continues to be banned.
“There are areas that were already put into place [where drugs remain criminalized] with regards to elementary schools and daycares and airports,” mentioned Dyas.
“All we are doing is just broadening the scope a little bit of areas that we feel like could potentially put children at risk or young families at risk.”
For Dyas it’s a security difficulty.
“There [are] concerns with respect to community areas where syringes or foils or things can still be left on the ground which could potentially hurt members of our community,” mentioned Dyas.
“It is safety for some of our most vulnerable which are the children within our community.”
Dyas mentioned he doesn’t wish to handle the difficulty by a metropolis bylaw as he needs to the principles to be the identical province-wide to stop the uncertainly created if every municipality makes its personal regulation.
Interior Health didn’t have anybody obtainable Tuesday to talk on to the Kelowna mayor’s proposed adjustments.
However, the well being authority has beforehand argued that bylaws prohibiting public drug use and fining folks may undermine decriminalization by reinforcing stigma.
“Remember that people who use drugs are not inherently dangerous,” mentioned Medical Health Officer Dr. Carol Fenton in a March 10 interview.
“If people are concerned about visible drug use or drug paraphernalia it is really important to check in and say does my community have a safe place for drug users to go and do their drugs?”
Kelowna does have overdose prevention websites.
In a press release, the provincial Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction mentioned it’s working “to support municipalities in adopting a public health approach to substance use,” which suggests the province might not be contemplating increasing the checklist of web sites the place medicine are nonetheless criminalized.
“The Government of BC is mindful that aggressive enforcement activities such as ticketing may drive people to use drugs alone. With the increasingly toxic drug supply, using alone can be fatal,” the provincial assertion mentioned.
Meanwhile, because the mayor argues for extra limits on public drug use, the town can be investigating the potential of permitting alcohol consumption on seashores.
“What we wish to be sure that we don’t do is take a look at taking our common residents who resolve that they might…doubtlessly like to simply sit down and watch a solar set and have a beverage and have them fined, mentioned Dyas.
Fenton has argued that enforcement round guidelines about alcohol use in public can have related unfavourable impacts to drug enforcement.
“From a public health perspective we definitely do not want to encourage visible alcohol consumption on any public space, but at the same time we recognize the harms from the enforcement of those types of policies. They usually disproportionally impact our vulnerable community members and don’t actually solve the underlying reasons or problems which are usually a lack of a better or safer place to do that,” mentioned Fenton.
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