Only 26 per cent of non-white respondents in B.C. survey agreed that drug criminalization is racist; more than twice as many disagreed

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Harm reduction activists often claim that criminalizing drugs is racist, and that legalization is necessary for racial justice and Indigenous reconciliation. A new poll, however, shows that a clear majority of non-white British Columbians, particularly Indigenous ones, disagree with this view.

The Centre For Responsible Drug Policy (an organization I founded and direct), in partnership with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, contracted Mainstreet Research last month to add three questions to a poll of over 12,000 British Columbians, including: “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”

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Though the poll will only be completed later this month, we decided to release our preliminary data now, before B.C.’s upcoming provincial election, through an interim “Drugs and Racial Justice Report.” With a sample size of 6,320 responses, the document shows that — contrary to what is claimed by harm reduction activists and public health bureaucrats — non-white British Columbians overwhelmingly don’t think it is racist to criminalize drugs.

Only 26 per cent of non-white respondents agreed that drug criminalization is racist, and more than twice as many (55 per cent) disagreed.

While there was a near-equal split between non-white respondents who........

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