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Please indicate your organization’s endorsement of this call to action by Toronto by completing the fields below.

At this time, we are only asking organizations with significant presence in Toronto to sign below. While organizations need not be physically based in Toronto, they should serve clients in Toronto and/or work/advocate on behalf of people who live and work in the Greater Toronto Area. This can be part of a provincial mandate, for example. Please use your judgment.
 
Between January 2016 and September 2020, almost 20,000 people in Canada were reported to have fatally overdosed — deaths that have skyrocketed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 In Toronto, calls to paramedics for suspected overdoses were 90% higher in 2020 than in 2019, and paramedics attended a record nu mber of fatal overdose calls in 2020 and 2021.2   

While the toxic drug supply is largely responsible for these dire numbers, the illegal market is driven by Canada’s long-standing policy of criminalizing drugs and the people who use them. In 2018 alone, there were 6,712 drug arrests in Toronto.3 This punitive approach fuels stigma and discrimination and pushes some people to use their drugs in isolation, compromising their ability to take vital safety precautions and deterring people from essential health care and social supports. Having exacerbated epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C, drug prohibition is now worsening other public health crises.

Drug prohibition also disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous people. While they are not more likely to commit drug offences, Black and Indigenous people are more likely to be charged for drug offences in Canada. In Toronto, data collected from 2003 to 2013 by the Toronto Police Service indicate Black people with no history of criminal convictions were three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people with similar backgrounds.4 Similarly, a 2019 study of cases between 2007 and 2013 found that Black youth accused of cannabis possession in Ontario were more likely to be charged and less likely to be cautioned than youth from other racial backgrounds.5 A 2020 study found that Black and Indigenous people continue to be overrepresented in cannabis possession arrests across Canada.6
Amid the dual public health emergencies of overdoses and COVID-19, calls for drug decriminalization are mounting. In Ontario, a February 2021 poll showed 60% of respondents in Ontario support decriminalizing drugs.7 There is also strong support for drug decriminalization from organizations of people who use drugs, families of those who have overdosed or otherwise been harmed by punitive drug laws, community organizations, harm reduction and human rights advocates,8 health professionals’ associations, including the Canadian Public Health Association,9 the Canadian Mental Health Association,10 the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine,11 the Canadian Nurses Association,12 and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario,13 and public health authorities including Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health.14 On three separate occasions, Toronto’s Board of Health has also recommended decriminalizing simple drug possession (i.e. possession for personal use), including urging the federal health minister to issue exemptions from prosecution for possession, as she has the power to do under section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA).15

While federal law reform would enable people across Canada to reap the benefits of drug decriminalization, we cannot wait for the federal government to act. Vancouver, with unanimous direction of city council, has already made a request for a section 56 exemption from the CDSA to decriminalize personal drug possession in the city.16 and Montreal and multiple other cities across Canada have also recently endorsed decriminalization.17 Too many lives have already been lost and there is an urgent need for decisive, local action.

We call on Toronto to:
  • Request the federal health minister to issue an exemption under section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to effectively decriminalize drug possession in our city; and
  • Meaningfully consult with people who use drugs, drug policy and human rights advocates, and public health researchers to determine the legal framework for this exemption.
NOTES

1 Government of Canada, Opioid- and Stimulant-related Harms in Canada - Public Health Infobase | Public Health Agency of Canada, March 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many harm reduction services have been either reduced or shut down indefinitely, meaning more people are using alone — and the substances they’re using are increasingly likely to be unsafe due to pandemic-related disruptions to the criminalized drug market.
2 Tableau Public, Toronto Overdose Information System, March 15, 2021. Online: 
3 Statistics Canada, Safe Cities profile series: Key indicators by census metropolitan area: Toronto, Ontario, May 15, 2020. 
4 J. Rankin and S. Contenta, “Toronto marijuana arrests reveal ‘startling’ racial divide,” Toronto Star, July 6, 2017.
5 K. Samuels-Wortley, “Youthful Discretion: Police Selection Bias in Access to Pre-Charge Diversion Programs in Canada,” Race and Justice 1-24 (2019).
6 A. Owusu-Bempah and A. Luscombe, “Race, cannabis and the Canadian war on drugs: An examination of cannabis arrest data by race in five cities,” International Journal of Drug Policy (2020), 102937.
7 Angus Reid Institute, Canada’s other epidemic: As overdose deaths escalate, majority favour decriminalization of drugs, February 24, 2021.
8 Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Canada must adopt a human-rights based approach to drug policy, November 22, 2018. Online: . The statement was endorsed by Amnesty International Canada, Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, Canadian Nurses Association, Canadian Public Health Association, Criminal Lawyers’ Association, HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO), Moms Stop The Harm, moms united and mandated to saving the lives of Drug Users (mumsDU), and Pivot Legal Society.
9 Canadian Public Health Association, Decriminalization of personal use of psychoactive substances, position statement, October 2017. 
10Canadian Mental Health Association, Care not Corrections: Relieving the Opioid Crisis in Canada, April 2018. 
11P. Leger et al, “Policy Brief: CSAM in Support of the Decriminalization of Drug Use and Possession for Personal Use,” Canadian Journal of Addiction 12(1): pp. 13-15. 
12 Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, supra note 8.
13 Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, Pivot Legal Society et al., Letter to Canadian Government: Decriminalize Simple Drug Possession Immediately, May 14, 2020 (last updated March 3, 2021).
14 E. Mathieu, “Chief medical officer calls for decriminalization of all drugs for personal use,” Toronto Star, July 9, 2018; Santé Montréal, “La directrice régionale de santé publique de Montréal salue les recommandations de Toronto,” news release, July 27, 2018; J. Ling, “Seven Chief Public Health Officers Call for Drug Decriminalization, But Justin Trudeau Isn’t Budging,” Vice News, September 2, 2020; Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Position statement on harm reduction, December 2016; C. Bains, “B.C. doctor calls for illicit drug regulation to save lives,” The Globe and Mail, July 26, 2019; British Columbia Office of the Provincial Health Officer, Stopping the Harm: Decriminalization of People who use Drugs in BC, April 2019.
15 Toronto Board of Health, Item HL28.2: A Public Health Approach to Drug Policy, July 16, 2018; Toronto Board of Health, Item HL17.2: Toronto Overdose Action Plan: Status Report 2020, June 8, 2020; and Toronto Board of Health, Item HL23.2: Opioid Poisoning Crisis in Toronto – Update, November 16, 2020.
16 City of Vancouver, Standing Committee of Council on City Finance and Services Minutes, Wednesday, November 25, 2020.
17 Ville de Montréal, Résolution: CM21 0109: Motion non partisane demandant à la Ville de Montréal d’exhorter le gouvernement Canadien à décriminaliser la possession simple de drogue pour usage personnel, 26 janvier 2021. See also Moms Stop The Harm, “Moms Stop The Harm Takes Its Message to Municipalities,” November 24, 2020.

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* 1.  Name

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* 2.  Your title

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* 3.  Organization

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* 4.  Email address

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* 5.  Website and/or social media handles

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* 6.  If signing on behalf of an organization, do you have the authority to do so?

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* 7.  Please confirm that your organization has presence/does work in Toronto (and on behalf of people in the GTA).

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* 8.  Would you be willing to amplify campaign messages on your website/listserv/social media?

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* 9a.  As an individual, could you briefly tell us why decriminalization in Toronto is important to you?

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* 9b.  Do we have your permission to use your quote on social media or in other advocacy for decriminalization in Toronto?

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* 10.  Would you like to be added to the Legal Network’s mailing list for email updates on this and other issues related to HIV and human rights?

Thank you for endorsing the call to decriminalize drugs in Toronto. We will send you the call to action with all the endorsements once it is released.

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