File Photo (Image Credit: The Canadian Press)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Lack of data doomed Eby government’s decriminalization project

May 3, 2024 | 12:30 PM

WHEN THE BC NDP government began its decriminalization pilot project at the beginning of 2023, it had planned to accompany it with a data dashboard.

The dashboard would have tracked a variety of metrics that measure the impacts of decriminalization, such as interactions between people who use drugs and police officers.

Dashboards have become very popular with this government — and for good reason.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dashboard government used to share case data had journalists and members of the public madly clicking ‘refresh’ every day at 3:00 p.m.

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Since then, the B.C. Wildfire Service has built its own dashboard to aggregate fire information during the busiest summer months.

A decriminalization dashboard never materialized, and less than 10 months after the pilot project began, the government announced one would not be coming.

In doing so, it became clear that the data government is using to measure the success of its drug policy is sorely lacking in both quantity and quality.

The government has now tapped out of its fight to keep up the experimental policy.

Police will be allowed to make arrests in public places, pushing drug use back into private, indoor spaces — back where criminalization had no effect anyway and back where overdoses are the most deadly.

Why is it important that David Eby’s government paid such short shrift to data collection and reporting?

Because decriminalization was always going to be a fight. It was always going to face strong opposition, especially from those who have no problem twisting anecdotal evidence to fit their ideologies.

With no data, Eby’s government showed up to that fight armed with little more than a wet noodle. It has compassion for people who use drugs but no numbers to back that up — numbers that might have shown the positive side of decriminalization.

The opposition has scores of emotional accounts — stories of frightened nurses and frustrated business owners — while the government has its compassion. Neither side has data.

That was the essence of the debate — and as flawed as it was, it was one the Eby government was never going to win.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.