In December 2023, the Canadian Government’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (HESA) initiated a study on “Opioid Epidemic and Toxic Drug Crisis in Canada”. The study consists of a series of meetings with invited witnesses and allows for written submissions of briefs. The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition submitted a brief on January 10, 2024. The submission focused on changes to the unregulated drug supply and made the core recommendation to regulate all currently illicit drugs. The brief also discussed the disproportionate impacts to Indigenous, Black, and racialized people, problems with involuntary treatment, public support for human rights and public health approaches, and the recommendation to declare a national public health emergency from HESA’s own 2016 study on “The Opioid Crisis in Canada”.
For more about the HESA study, click here. For background on HESA, click here.
