Drug decrim debate impedes solutions to Sask. opioid crisis, P.A. police chief says

Debating drug decriminalization won't help the addicts overdosing and dying on Saskatchewan streets or improve community safety, says Prince Albert police Chief Patrick Nogier.

Fatal overdoses caused by illicit drugs are increasing in communities across Canada, whether they have safe consumption sites and drug decriminalization policies or not, Nogier said on CBC's Blue Sky last week.

"[Drug users] have options in British Columbia that perhaps they don't have in Saskatchewan and yet we're still seeing this alarming rate of death as a result of that drug use," said Nogier. "Despite not having a formal decriminalization policy for Saskatchewan, we continue to see deaths."

Last month, in the wake of public outcry over public drug use, B.C. NDP Premier David Eby said his province wants to end its drug decriminalization pilot program and give police back the power to arrest people for simple possession.

Eby said other provinces should learn from B.C.'s mistake. Saskatchewan Health Minister Tim McLeod told reporters last week the province has not and will never consider decriminalizing drugs.

Nogier said safety concerns about public drug use are valid, and police continue to respond to complaints and calls for service. Blatant drug use in public areas such as libraries, playgrounds and business foyers is a persistent problem, but clearly the current strategies for stopping it aren't working.

"That is having a significant impact on other people, whether it be work or play," Nogier said. "We cannot continue to go down the path that we are on, because we're not having the solutions and the outcomes that we need to have. "

Prince Albert police Chief Patrick Nogier, seen here in a previous role with Saskatoon police, says officers are responding to calls about illicit drug use in public, but solving the opioid crisis won't happen with the focus only on criminal matters. (CBC)

While communities are right to be vigilant about safety, people shouldn't assume every person using drugs in public is a threat, Nogier said.

"In some circumstances individuals while using become aggressive," he said, adding other users "become extremely passive to the point where you're walking over them. There's no concern with respect to your safety, but clearly it's not a comfortable situation to be in."

'We need to actually have partnerships': Nogier

Rob Kraushaar has seen drug addiction from both sides of the debate, as a registered social worker and a former drug user. He told Blue Sky last week that what helps one person won't help the next person. There are many paths to quitting drugs.

He said treatment and recovery worked for him, but some others aren't ready to quit.

"So when we just only focus on treatment and recovery and stuff like that, it's like us versus them and you're almost, like, just putting people at different levels," Kraushaar said.

"These are the ones that we care about because they're going to succeed. And these other people, well, if they die, they die. I know nobody will come out and say that, but let's just be honest, that's kind of how it is."

Saskatchewan recorded 337 confirmed accidental fatal overdoses in 2023, down from a high of 381 in 2021 but well above the 139 deaths five years prior, according to the provincial coroner. The opioid fentanyl and its derivatives were found in the vast majority of cases.

Last year, 85 people died by drug overdose in Saskatoon, 156 died in Regina and eight died in Prince Albert, according to the coroner.

Saskatoon Community Clinic COO Toby Esterby said drug use on the street is a public health crisis, and framing it as only a safety concern ignores the core issue. He said dedicating more resources would help addicts and improve community safety.

"The reality of treatment and recovery is that some of us still need to do the work of making sure people stay alive long enough to be ready for that treatment and recovery," Esterby told Blue Sky last week.

"I also know that we're turning literally hundreds of people away on a monthly basis from detox beds. So if we do, if we don't have the adequate capacity of these systems, then what are we going to do in the interim?"

Nogier agreed that more resources will be key to real improvements in public health and safety.

"We need to actually have partnerships," Nogier said, "to make sure that when an officer is coming across an individual suffering from mental health and addictions, at three in the afternoon or three in the morning, that there's going to be a response to that."