The program needs to be fixed, or abolished, as soon as possible

For almost a year, harm reduction advocates and their allies in the Liberal government assured the public that Canada’s “safer supply” experiment was going splendidly. They insisted, often quite aggressively, that giving out free drugs to keep addicts safe is an “evidence-based” strategy and that any concerns raised by critics, such as the mass resale (“diversion”) of these drugs on the black market, was just “disinformation.”

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Well, it turns out, unsurprisingly, that they were wrong. Safer supply is demonstrably failing and it needs to be fixed, or abolished, as soon as possible.

Last spring, the B.C. government ordered a report from Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry into safer supply after reporting by National Post columnist Adam Zivo. Zivo extensively detailed how these programs are being widely defrauded, flooding communities with diverted opioids and fuelling relapses and new addictions, including among youth.

When these stories first emerged, many dismissed them as “disinformation” and “fearmongering.” For example, after Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre spotlighted them and pushed to defund safer supply, the federal Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction told CBC News that it was “incredibly irresponsible” to “state untrue information about safer supply.”

Yet, no one provided any credible evidence to suggest there was anything inaccurate in our reporting, and it was enough to spur the B.C. government to investigate........

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