Drug deaths vs. Wuhan Virus and making drugs legal?

With the steady stream of information daily on the Wuhan Virus it surprises one when you hear that illicit drug deaths last year surpassed Wuhan Virus deaths in British Columbia. 

For many people in British Columbia I am sure that they thought the numbers must be wrong and that there were more Wuhan Virus deaths. Then we know that the actual counting of Wuhan Virus deaths is suspect, how many died “with” the virus and not “from” the virus.  

Of course, we all are aware that before the Wuhan Virus arrived the Government was spending a lot of money on the so called “drug” problem. It was this Province that had the first “Safe Injection” site in North America. They are now called “Supervised Consumption Sites.”  

Now there are 18 such places across the Province, according to the websites of the five Heath Authorities. 

I have lived here 27 years and with each new Vancouver Mayor and each new Provincial Government we hear that they will spend millions of dollars more; because they now have the answers! 

Yet with all the concern, all the sympathy, all the many so-called answers, and with all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent we see deaths from illicit drugs continuing to climb.  

How Come? Surely something must not be right. Methinks a rethink of what the Province is doing is in order.  

The Province’s answer so far is the to ask Ottawa to relax Federal law as it relates to using illicit drugs . Global News reports  

“The province has asked the federal government for an exemption that would allow B.C. to make possession of small amounts of illicit drugs not a criminal offence. If granted, British Columbia would be the first jurisdiction in the country with the exemption.”

There is no indication of what constitutes “small amounts” nor how and where such illicit drugs would be bought and sold. Would it be the government managing all this extra drug assembly and distribution. Or would the many cannabis shops that now proliferate be used? Given the government’s track record it is hard to be hopeful that such a move is the correct one. 

Has there been a debate about this new policy in the legislature? Should not the peoples’ representatives be involved extensively in such a new policy? Perhaps even a select committee of the Legislature to better ascertain the views of the voters?