On January 31st, British Columbia,
in an attempt to get ahead of its
drug use problem, joined Oregon,
decriminalizing user amounts of hard drugs.
British Columbia covers the most
western segment of Canada and
includes the big city of Vancouver.
The decriminalization is part of a
multipronged approach to try and
cut down on the high number of
deaths they're connected to drugs.
As the new law there was taking
place at the end of January,
a network crew from CBC News,
that's Canada's national news outlet,
they paid a visit to Portland to
see what the future might hold.
Here's how their report began.
This is Portland,
OR 2 years after decriminalizing
personal amounts of hard drugs,
The open drug use,
the deaths worse than ever.
Where are we here now?
This is Skidmore Fountain,
which has been called fentanyl
fountain by some of the folks
that we've interacted with.
The reporter there on the
story is Lindsay Ducombe.
I caught up with her as she traveled
to cover forest fires in the BC
recently when she was in Portland.
She spent time downtown with police,
taking a look at the challenges
that we face every day.
She told me there were some obvious
differences between Portland and Vancouver,
BC, not so much in drug laws,
but in the location of the drug use.
It's very interesting to compare the
two cities because I think one of
the things that we noticed and I was
working with the producer Georgie Smice
and camera video producer Andrew Lee,
is that so many of the people who were
using on the streets and living on the
streets in Portland seem to be very spread
out over a large region of the downtown,
several blocks of whereas in BC
or in Vancouver specifically.
It certainly is more focused in
geographically to a highly concentrated
area in our downtown east side.
Now recently a tent encampment
was moved out by the city.
So it has become more spread out or at
least runs at the potential for that to
happen as the fallout from that continues.
But it was a different sort of different
sort of interaction because we did feel
that it was block upon block upon block
of seeing the real human suffering.
Of addiction.
I thought that was an interesting difference.
Hers very concentrated,
Ours kind of spread out.
She told me she'd been briefed on how
much drug use there was in our city,
so that wasn't a big surprise.
When she got here,
she wrote along with Officer David
Bayer in downtown and saw the open
drug markets of Portland for herself.
See this guy right here?
Yeah, watch this. What's he
doing? He is probably smoking funnel. See
that? And we're like, you know,
we're in what's basically a police car.
It's unmarked, but like.
We're pretty obviously the police.
Hi there. Put
that knife away, please.
What are you smoking?
OK, just powder fentanyl.
Is that where you drop?
Right there? Right there?
Can you pick that up so someone
else doesn't find it or a kid
doesn't find that? Please,
Lindsay, the Canadian reporter, said.
It all seemed very routine for the police.
Partners calling me asking for Narcan
and that means someone's overdosing. Yeah,
I used to ask for an after on the radio.
How long? How often does this happen?
Every day. But still,
two people a day die from
drug overdoses in Oregon.
British Columbia's death
toll is 3 times that.
Decriminalization hasn't
brought those numbers down.
Chase, wake up, buddy.
There you go. Thanks.
He's gotten Narcan 4 milligrams
in the left nostril.
In the first year,
opioid overdose deaths rose 52%. It's
amazing video, I think.
Emergency workers on the scene said
that same person, that same person,
had been revived from another
overdose just the day before.
Meanwhile, the CBC also covered the
first day of decriminalization in
British Columbia on January 31st.
They found many were unaware
of the new law on the streets.
The network also pointed out the
police had generally stopped
arresting anyone for having small
amounts of drugs back in 2020.
British Columbia is the first
province to decriminalize in Canada.
Toronto is requesting the same permission.
The Minister of Mental Health and
Addiction said it's a good move.
We will be able to reduce the stigma,
the fear and shame that keep people who
use drugs silent about their use or using
alone and help more people access life
saving supports and treatment. Sound
familiar? So how's it going up there?
Well, it's a bit difficult to tell
since one of the main goals is just
to reduce the stigma around drug use.
The last week I bumped into a
Canadian tourist while I was out
doing a story on Portland's downtown.
Turns out he lives just outside
the city of Vancouver,
and he does seem the same problems there
still that we're dealing with here.
Yeah, I think we're really
dealing with a lot of the same issues.
But yeah, it's just Abbottsford.
It's gotten really bad. There's.
Huge homeless population.
It's just drugs.
It's the drugs the fentanyl
and and then because they they
need the cash they they crime.
They get the drugs they're
homeless crime drugs home.
You know what I mean?
And it's and it's and they don't seem to be
worried about getting them off the drugs.
They're just they're just.
Trying to keep them not from dying.
So there you have it.
British Columbia has decriminalized
small amounts of St.
drugs and it will stay that way for the
next three years until January 31st 2026.
Now while we're talking about drugs,
Portland based DHM research is out
with new polling on Measure 110.
They found that 51% of voters
believe it has been bad for Oregon.
They also found most voters believe
110 has made drug addiction,
homelessness and crime worse in Oregon.
And that 63% would support bringing back
criminal penalties for drug possession
while keeping the funding for treatment.
And 59% of the voters think the
root cause of homelessness is drug
addiction and mental health issues,
not a lack of affordable housing.
The DHM survey was conducted
during the last week of April.
They pulled 500 people from around the state.
The results have a margin of
error ± 4 1/2 percent.
Well,
those poll results are out just as
Portland police are warning the public
about a potentially very bad batch of
drugs being bought and sold on our streets.
Eight people died from suspected
drug overdoses between 11:30 Friday
morning and 4:30 Sunday afternoon.
Here's a map showing where
each overdose happened.
You'll notice there are only
seven points on the map there,
and that's because one case involved
two men inside an apartment.
Police tell us it appears the victims
believed they were taking cocaine.
It turned out to be a blend
of coke and fentanyl,
or possibly even pure powdered fentanyl
and at least six of the eight cases.
Police say it is likely fentanyl is to blame,
with more testing needed in the other two.
The medical examiner's office is
teaming up with Portland Police
Bureau's Narcotics and Organized Crime
Unit to investigate the deaths now.