Richmond North Centre MLA Teresa Wat told the legislature this week she’s concerned about “open drug use” in public parks after the province decriminalized possession of small amounts of illicit drugs.
While consuming a beer is tightly regulated, she said “lethal drugs” like crystal meth, crack cocaine and fentanyl “are consumed unchecked.”
Wat, who belongs to the newly named BC United party, criticized the BC NDP government’s implementation of the decriminalization of small amounts of drugs - 2.5 grams - “without the right supports in place” for municipalities.
Kelowna’s mayor Tom Dyas has asked the province to enact B.C.-wide legislation to exclude parks and playgrounds from the drug decriminalization rules. Some municipalities are looking at tackling the issue by enacting bylaws.
Dyas noted airports, schools and licensed child-care facilities are already excluded from the new rules.
As for needles found in parks in Richmond, city spokesperson Clay Adams said there were 13 complaints of needles in the parks in 2022, and those were largely in the city centre area.
Public works crews, however, also pick up needles that they find on their regular rounds, again largely in the city centre and in Minoru Park, Adams added, but the city doesn’t have statistics on how many are collected.
The Canadian Paediatric Society notes the risk of infection from needles is “extremely low” and there are no known cases of HIV being transmitted via needles.
There were two known cases of Hepatitis B and three of Hepatitis C being transmitted by discarded needles. These appear to be statistics from across North America and Europe and date back over the past two decades.
The author of the report, Dorothy Moore, notes in a position paper on the Canadian Paediatric Society’s website that, while the risk of infection is extremely low from being poked by a discarded needle, “the perception of risk by parents results in much anxiety. Evaluation, counselling, and follow-up with parents and the child are needed.”
Many illicit drugs have become lethal because they are unregulated and have been cut with other dangerous chemicals that are causing drug users to go into respiratory arrest.
Twenty-nine people died in Richmond in 2022 because of toxic drugs, and, six more people died between January and March of this, according to the BC Coroner.
Five of these deaths occurred in indoor residences, two in private residences, three in other residences and one death occurred outside.
- with files from Castanet
