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The Current Transcript for December 6, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

MALE VOICE: Omicron's very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we're done with COVID 19. It's not done with us.

MATT GALLOWAY: As the world waits to learn more about the Omicron variant. Some governments are not waiting to ensure as many of their citizens as possible are protected with vaccines. In 30 minutes, we head to Greece and Germany, where tough new restrictions and even fines are targeting the unvaccinated. And we'll ask whether it's time to consider similar steps on this side of the Atlantic. Also this morning:

HEATHER JONES: we have to now stand up and have the courage to face this head on to try to make a difference together. This is... this is not sustainable.

MG: The situation Yukon's chief coroner is talking about is the rate of drug overdoses. The territory has the highest rate of opioid related deaths in the country. In an hour, why cities like Vancouver and now Toronto are saying that one way out of this is the decriminalisation of small amounts of drugs. We'll talk about whether other jurisdictions in Canada could follow suit. We start, though, with a plan to put the howling winds of the Shetland Islands to good use. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Enormous wind farm on the Shetland Islands leaves a community divided

Winds of Change

MG: One of the main goals of the recent COP 26 summit was to get countries moving away from fossil fuels. It is a transition, though that is not always easy. Just ask people living on the Shetland Islands north of Scotland. The islands are about to become home to the UK's largest wind turbine farm.

FEMALE VOICE: I would say the wind farm for me is a highly emotive subject. It's how I would describe it. I feel it is one that has been forced upon the community of Shetland with no vote, no referendum and is going to have... is having, actually a massive environmental impact.

MALE VOICE: I'm probably in favour of the wind farms, but more so as I think it might provide more employment in Shetland, which you can get maybe more young folk movement back to Shetland as there's a finite number of jobs. And the jobs that have attracted back in the past has been [inaudible] and oil and gas industry. And that obviously is something worth trying to move away from, but also has a finite life.

MG: Our producer, Samira Mohyeddin went to the Shetland Islands recently. Here's Samira's documentary "Winds of Change".

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The moment I land in Samburgh or as Shetlanders call it "Sombra", the wind just envelops me. The air is salty and warm, and in the tiny portable like airport, it really feels like I'm not in Scotland anymore.

LAURIE GOODLAD: I always joke... I always tell them that they'll not get any haggis, kilts and bagpipes here. It's just not part of the culture.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Luckily, I have a ride waiting for me because the only bus doesn't come for another hour.

LAURIE GOODLAD: And like the place, names are all quite different, they're all really Scandinavian sounding and I don't think that Shetlanders feel particularly Scottish. My name is Laurie Goodlad, I'm a writer and tour guide. I've lived in Shetland all my life.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Laurie and I are the only ones on the road. The one road. To the left of us are low green rolling hills filled with sheep and small stone structures. To the right are some colourful houses, green rolling hills and more sheep. We're only 600 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, and although called the Shetland Islands of Scotland, we are much closer to Norway than we are to London.

LAURIE GOODLAD: I can trace my family back 9/12 generations, and that's something that I think that, that we're really fortunate. Living in a community like Shetland, we've got really strong oral history like I can name like great great grandparents back through the family tree. And I think when you look at a lot of communities, they don't have that same sense of belonging that we enjoy here.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: It's true everyone was saying hi to Laurie, the airport attendant, the bus driver, the fisherman. In fact, every car that passed us, when a car did pass us, would wave hello and I know what you're thinking. That's just small towns. But this felt different.

LAURIE GOODLAD: It's just different. We've got like our own flag here and even today, like you'll hear like older people saying, Oh, the worst thing that ever happened to Shetland was when we got into the law book. I think as well, because Shetlanders weren't allowed to speak the language any more. Scotland, in a lot of ways, oppressed everyday Shetland when they were here. They say that the only thing that Shetland ever got from Scotland was the expense of grain and greedy ministers.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Laurie tells me how the islands came to be a part of Scotland and what it meant for Shetland to become a base for the UK's oil industry.

LAURIE GOODLAD: In the 19th century we had the Scottish landowners came in and evicted thousands of people from their homes to make way for large scale sheep farming and meant that thousands of people emigrated away from their home, away from Shetland. They went to North America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, because they were forced off the land, they had no, they had no rights. And then in the 1970s, again oil was discovered in the North Sea and Shetland was the kind of base for the oil industry. Although Shetland has benefited hugely from the oil industry that the council at the time was able to get a really good deal. But the wind farm there's no good deal for Shetland. And again, it's just coming... It's just an outside company coming in to strip more resources from Shetland with little care what the islanders want or need.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The wind farm law is talking about was first proposed back in 2005, but construction only got underway a year ago, and that's because there was real pushback from the community. The wind farm has and is causing serious divisions and becoming a real source of anger and anguish. Supporters of the project say it will raise money for the islands, create jobs and help meet renewable energy targets. Shetlanders opposed say the development is just way too big and not necessarily green.

LAURIE GOODLAD: We've got a wind farm, Burradale wind farm here, which people are not opposed to that produces about 20 percent of our summer energy requirements. It fits the island, it fits the kind of scale of the island. What we don't want to be doing is carrying the energy burden for the whole of the UK. Why should we carry the energy burden for the central belt of Scotland? Like what did the central belt of Scotland ever do for us.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The Burradale Dale windfarm that Laurie is talking about has five turbines and they all have names. Betsy, Mina, Brenda, Sally and Karen. The plan for the new one is to have over 100.

LAURIE GOODLAD: It's even caused like fallouts within families of people who are maybe for and against it. It's really like just torn the heart out of the community in many ways.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: I'm leaving Lerwick, Shetlands main port and most populous island, and I'm heading towards the wind farm. It's about 35 kilometres north on the highest part of the island. 70 kilometres of new road has been built to get all of the equipment here. The wind farm itself is going to take up 96 hectares. That's about a square kilometre.

[SOUNDCLIP: Samira and Aaron greeting each other]

AARON PRIEST: I'm Aaron Priest, I'm stakeholder manager for Viking Wind Farm.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: I start inside the visitor centre. It's a trailer with pamphlets and safety equipment, and it's quiet in there but outside... Not so much.

[SOUNDCLIP: Loud, aggressive wind]

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: It's so windy!

AARON PRIEST: So yeah, so we always work on the basis that if you can't build a wind farm when the whole world is moving to net zero in the U.K. and potentially Europe's windiest place, then there's something wrong. So, uh, the resource you can see for yourself is second to none.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: OK, it's not enough to say the Shetlands are windy. The wind here is a wall. I really have to put my head down like a bull and just push through in order to move.

AARON PRIEST: So we're just outside the main compound for the Viking wind farm. Looking out to the West, you can see a path to the wind farm works out in the west side of the site and you can see a road cut in as well for a new public road that's being built. Viking wind farms 103, 4.3 Megawatt turbines. That will meet all of Shetland's needs from now on. At the moment, Shetland relies on a diesel power station in Lerwick to supply its needs but ultimately, once Viking is up and running and the connections are made the local grid will be supplied by clean wind energy and the rest will be exported to the Scottish mainland and help in the UK's push to net zero and decarbonisation.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The resources there and then some. But as Laurie asked, Why should this little community be carrying the energy burden for the UK? Aaron Priest chalks up the pushback to growing pains.

AARON PRIEST: There's a mixed response to the transition from oil and gas to renewables, and just the transition to net zero isn't without its ups and downs, but ultimately, Shetland Islands Council has approved this project twice on the grounds of the major economic benefits to Shetland and the need to diversify the Shetland economy, and the Scottish Government's approved it twice. The community stands to gain, as well as the jobs and employment, economic diversification, there's a £72million community benefit fund so there are lots of wider benefits for the community here. And ultimately, oil and gas will slowly phase down. There is a pressing need to transition the economy here away from that.

[SOUNDCLIP: clicking sound]

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: That's the sound of a peat digger at the wind farm. According to scientists, the Earth's peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the planet's forests combined, but peat only grows about a millimetre a year. And while the Scottish Government has pledged 250 million pounds to restore Scotland's peatlands, the Wind Farm project is digging up tons and tons of it.

LAURIE GOODLAD: It's complete greenwashing. That's just madness and the area that they're digging up at the moment. This place and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peat. Peat is known, scientifically known, to be a better carbon store than a rainforest. But if they were thinking of a rainforest that would be visible and so people would be up in arms. But because it's always described, peatlands are described as empty landscapes. Nobody seems to bat an eyelid. That they're literally digging up an entire ecosystem and a peatland is such a diverse ecosystem that supports so much life and locks in so much carbon and with every scoop of it they've got a [inaudible] they're just releasing that into the environment.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Peat is an important ingredient in some single malt scotch, and it covers 50 percent of the Shetland Islands. People who oppose the wind farm talk a lot about the amount of peat being dug up for the project as being one of the main reasons they oppose it.

AARON PRIEST: The majority of peat on the site were on is actually in heavily eroded condition and is actually a net emitter of CO2 and methane, so there's a 260 hectare habitat management plan to help actually reinstate that peat to seal that peat in and stop it from emitting CO2 to stabilise it and then over the longer term to return that to active blanket bog. So we're in the business of trying to leave things... The peat in better condition than we found it overall.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Like everyone I've met, he points out, he's from these parts too

AARON PRIEST: I'm a Shetlander born and bred. I'm very proud of this project, very proud of the employment that it's creating and the long term prospects for economic diversification in Shetland. This will be the UK's most productive onshore wind farm.

LAURIE GOODLAD: People here are quite pragmatic, and we do understand that Shetland has benefited hugely from the oil industry. We do know that, but we also know that we have lost so much with the coming of the oil because of that money and people moving into the island. Yes, it brought jobs. But we have lost an awful lot. We've lost a lot of culture as well. So in many ways, Shetland has already paid the price for energy. We've already made that sacrifice, why are we being asked to make another sacrifice all over again?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: A couple of kilometres just south of the wind farm is Weisdale Valley, a hamlet in the central mainland of Shetland. I'm going to see the Morrisons and their house Setter. People name their homes here. It's a beautiful white stone house with an arch doorway sitting upon a winding green hill.

[SOUNDCLIP: Samira greeting the Morrison's]

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: I'm led into this cute little kitchen and the fire alarm in there keeps chirping. They don't know how to fix it. Mrs. Morrison quickly begins preparing tea and toast with butter and apricot jam.

[SOUNDCLIP: "Thank you so much. You don't have to do that".]

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Mr. Morrison and I head into the living room, which has a brick fireplace and large windows. Behind the living room as a greenhouse. A new addition to the house. And it's filled with plants and rocks that Mr. Morrison collected from when he was working on the house.

DONNIE MORRISON: My name is Donnie Morrison. I'm a native Shetlander.

EVELYN MORRISON: And I'm Evelyn Morrison and I have lived here since I returned to Shetland in 1972.

DONNIE MORRISON: This place was in my family from 1917. My grandfather bought this place. The house had been standing empty for about 40 years, so I felt it was kind of appropriate to restore it, never expected in my wildest dreams that this was going to happen.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: I ask Evelyn how they first came to know about the wind farm.

EVELYN MORRISON: I think it was a leaflet, a pamphlet came through the door.

DONNIE MORRISON: Yeah.

EVELYN MORRISON: We'd heard murmurs about it but, that was the first time we saw the full extent. I just couldn't believe it, right by the house. This morning it was about half past five, and I lost count of all the cars and vehicles that were going up the hill, on top of the hill. And it's just unbelievable that this was going on.

DONNIE MORRISON: I used to be able to stand there that night and hear the... How shall I describe it? You can tell the change of the season up here. Now, you're standing at night, you hear generators 24/7. You look out, you cannot see the northern lights now because there's floodlights at night.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The Morrison's home directly faces the sight of the wind turbine farm. There are very long and newly paved asphalt roads, with lots of trucks and construction trailers and diggers lining the roads up to the wind farm site. The £72million community fund is just not enough for them to overlook the blight on the landscape.

DONNIE MORRISON: [inaudible] at this big community benefit fund that everybody's going to get millions, but we're paying for it. What benefit does the community need? I mean, it's just money.

EVELYN MORRISON: Yeah, but the community, there is no community... [cross talk]

DONNIE MORRISON: There's no community, the community is gone, the community is bitterly divided. So the community benefits fund is a god damned lie. It's just a bribe, a disgusting bribe and the people falling into it. If everybody said stick it... But they won't. Shetlanders... And Shetlanders are the most double people you would ever find, they'll be nice to your face and stab you in the back. They always have been. And I can say that because I am a Shetlander.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Speaking with Donnie and Evelyn, I can tell how much the divisions in the community are bothering them.

EVELYN MORRISON: And the folk down here they're against it as well. Three families behind they're against it, and then the next again house is the son of the big landowner...

DONNIE MORRISON: They're all for it.

EVELYN MORRISON: Who are all for it. So yeah, and it's difficult sometimes because we've had friends and we've thought, I wonder if they're for or against it. You don't quite know, so you're chatting carefully and don't speak about the wind farm.

DONNIE MORRISON: Utter destruction, our way of life has been here for thousands of years. That means utter destruction of an environment that's been here for thousands of years, destroyed in less than a decade and you can't take it back. Once it's gone, it's gone. It's destroyed. It's very sad. Very, very sad. I feel angry, but I also feel very sad that the industrialisation of what was a pristine environment.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: The Morrison's were actually one of the families who helped raise over £200,000 to try and fight the Viking Wind Farm project, but the Supreme Court in London ultimately ruled in favour of the wind farm.

EVELYN MORRISON: It was like about maybe five or six old judges sitting around a table and I'm sure half the old men sitting there in that room were just thinking when are we going to get away to get our glass of whisky.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Donnie and Evelyn haven't looked out the window once since we began talking.

EVELYN MORRISON: I try not to look to be honest, I try to look that way.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: They did everything they could to stop the Wind Farm project from going ahead. As I look out, I can see the trucks making their way up the hill and the diggers continuing their work. I can't help wondering how long Evelyn can continue looking away.

EVELYN MORRISON: And it's just unbelievable that this was going on. It's just horrible, really...[gets choked up]

DONNIE MORRISON: It was lovely up here before and now, it's just, Hey ho, this is progress and we're saving the planet.

MG: A documentary produced by Samira Mohyeddin a producer here on The Current since the climate summit, COP26 and with the storms in B.C. and Atlantic Canada, we have received a lot of correspondence here at the program asking just kind of one question, What can I do to help fight climate change? There are many Canadians who feel a real sense of urgency. The problem, as you know, can feel daunting and overwhelming. So on Wednesday, we are devoting the entire program to climate solutions, what individuals can do in their own lives to help fight climate change. If you have a climate question, perhaps about the steps that you could take to help address climate change, maybe you've taken some steps and you wonder whether they're working. We want to hear from you. Tweet us @Thecurrentcbc. Or better yet, email a voice memo, just take your phone out, record a voice memo and then email it to us. The address is: Thecurrent@CBC.ca, again, Thecurrent@CBC.ca, and we'll talk about climate solutions and what individuals can do coming up Wednesday on the program. Your CBC News is next, and then we stay in Europe. Talk about countries grappling with rising COVID counts and how those countries are introducing strict new measures mandating vaccines, to introducing fines for the vaccine holdouts. That's coming up in about six minutes. My name's Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music: Theme]

How Greece, Germany and the U.S. are tackling the omicron variant

Guests: Anthee Carassava, Kai Kupferschmidt and Amesh Adalja

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music:Theme]

MG: Still to come, people across Canada continue to die from opioid overdoses now jurisdictions are looking at new ways to curb the epidemic, including decriminalising some drug possessions. That's coming up in just under 30 minutes. But first, desperate attempts to keep COVID under control in Europe.

[Music: Theme]

URSULA VON DER LEYEN: One third of the European population is not vaccinated. These are 150 million people. This is a lot and not each and everyone can be vaccinated. So they are very small children, for example, or people with special medical conditions. But the vast majority could. And therefore, I think it is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now, how we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union, this needs discussion. This needs a common approach, but it is a discussion that I think has to be lit.

MG: Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen laid out the need for stricter measures to control the spread of COVID now in the face of the Omicron variant. Some countries are beginning to take a more forceful approach. In Greece, starting in the new year, anyone not vaccinated and over the age of 60 will be fined 100 euros. That's about $145 every month. Anthee Carassava is a reporter in Athens. Anthee, good morning.

ANTHEE CARASSAVA: Good morning to you, too.

MG: We know that case numbers in Greece have been going up significantly over the last couple of months. What's the latest on the situation there when it comes to the pandemic?

AC: Well, unlike the first run of this pandemic in which Greece has prided almost as a near COVID free country, one that took action fast and contained the spread of COVID 19. Infection rates here have been surging since September, as was the case again last year when they surged after the end of the tourist season. And the government has been prodding and pushing and campaigning people to get vaccinated and to get their booster shot. 63 percent so far have and that's well below the EU average of over 67 percent, and that has the government extremely concerned.

MG: And so was there a specific breaking point that would lead the Greek government to announce these fines, saying that you're fined €100 every month if you're over the age of 60 and you're not getting vaccinated?

AC: Well, effectively, the breaking point was because there was a rapid surge and the health care system came under extreme strain yet again. And it was seeing that eight in 10 of these people who were being hospitalised and even greater numbers who were being, you know, killed off, if I may say by this virus, were senior citizens aged over 60. And that's why the government focussed on these over 60 year olds to get them vaccinated and to impose fines on them.

MG: This is a story that's made news around the world. How is the idea of the fines going over with the Greek public?

AC: Not very well. Obviously, you know, there's a very... there's a strong, anti-vax movement here, one that has been cultivated and pushed mainly by the Greek Orthodox Church here, which, you know, 60 year olds and over are strong churchgoers here. And there is strong resistance to this, and it remains to be seen whether this measure will be effective. There was an initial surge in numbers of people who were going there simply because they had said that if forced to... in polls, they had suggested that if forced to, they would go. The numbers tripled in the first couple of days. But then again, amongst those anti-vaxxers, 48 percent say that regardless, whatever measure would ever fine, they will not seek any kind of vaccination.

MG: What is it within that group and perhaps beyond in the vaccine hesitant, not just the strict anti-vaxxers? What is it that they don't trust in the government's mandate that they don't believe that the government has, you know, their best interests at heart? What's going on there?

AC: Well, I think there's a bigger issue of trust overall in Greece with the government. You know, anything that comes down from the government is seen as conspiratorial almost as something that is being dictated by other bigger powers and bigger interests. Over 60 year olds, as I've said before, are also very, very much in tune with the Greek Orthodox Church that has refused to adopt a lot of these measures and a lot of these, you know, simply because they say that, you know, churches cannot be seen as gyms and theatres kind of blocking people and anti-vaxxers from going to attend church. So the church has been quite reluctant, actually adamant about not accepting a lot of these measures. And so many of these anti-vaxxers have fallen into this anti-vax... into this propaganda or campaign of the church.

MG: Given that, does it seem like a hundred euro fine will compel people to comply?

AC: Absolutely not, because there is a strong resistance to this movement. And as I said before, you know, surveys are showing that 48 percent of those who refuse to get the jab will continue to resist. But even so, whatever the government says, whatever you know, additional person it can get protected that will save lives and that will... it will ease the strain on the health care system.

MG: Where does that leave the Greek government? I mean, we're seeing in Austria and Germany, we're going to speak about Germany in just a moment, but in those two countries, there are lockdowns on those who are unvaccinated. Is this sort of a first step for Greece? Could the government impose those sorts of restrictions if this fine doesn't work?

AC: Well, that's clear... I mean, speaking to several government aides and aides of the prime minister, obviously a national lockdown of the type of Austria is something which the Greek government wants to avoid, more so in Greece, simply because Greece has come out of a 10 year economic recession and locking down a country imposing kind of economic restrictions in trade that, you know, would just be devastating for the economy. And the prime minister made this very clear in his announcement about the fine that it kind of salvages the economy also salvaging, you know, lives and that he does not want to be forced to resort to that measure. Ultimately, if things do get out of hand, though, it may happen.

MG: Anthee, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

AC: Thank you.

MG: Anthee Carassava is a journalist in Athens. As I mentioned, Germany, like Austria, is looking at more strict measures. There's a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated. A mandatory vaccination policy also seems to be on the horizon in Germany. Kai Kupferschmidt is a contributing correspondent for Science Magazine. He's in Berlin. Kai, hello to you.

KAI KUPFERSCHMIDT: Morning, Matt.

MG: What would a mandatory vaccination policy mean in Germany?

KK: I think that's exactly what is being discussed now. What we do know is that a lot of politicians actually early on ruled out any type of mandatory vaccination. This was, you know, in the summer of 2020 and... Well in the summer of 2021, sorry. And the tune has changed a lot simply because we haven't reached the kinds of vaccination coverage that we were hoping for. We are at less than 70 percent at the moment. I think 69 percent are double jabbed. And that's simply not enough, as we're seeing at the moment. We have, you know, the biggest case numbers that we've had in this whole pandemic. Of course, the vaccines are doing the job, so we are seeing much less... much less death and severe disease, but it's still enough to strain the health system. And so I think that the biggest shift recently has been that a lot of politicians have come around to the idea of having some type of mandatory vaccination. The question is what will that policy look like? And one thing that is clear is that it's going to start with mandatory vaccination for certain professions. So we're going to get mandatory vaccination for doctors, for nurses, for care workers that's already being prepared. And then the larger debate about how to implement a mandatory vaccination for everyone that's something that you really have to think about very carefully. There's things like, you know, what exceptions do you accept? How do you penalise people who don't get the jab? These are difficult questions, and there's a lot of danger in deepening the divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated as well in Germany. So, it will be, you know, we have to design this very carefully, I think.

MG: Let me go back to something that you said, which is about, you know, the tune changing. The tune has changed for Angela Merkel, the outgoing chancellor who called a vaccination mandate an act of national solidarity. Is that surprising and does that carry weight as she leaves that office?

KK: You know, I'm not sure it's that surprising. I mean, she is in a way, a stand in for a lot of politicians that have changed the tune. But what I find surprising is that two years into this pandemic, a lot of politicians are still making the mistake of just ruling out certain options. I mean, we are in a highly dynamic situation. We really don't know where this virus is going. We're still finding out a lot about the virus, the vaccines. And in that situation, as a politician to say, OK, I can definitely rule out that we're going to do this or that just seems like very bad communication because it does erode a lot of trust when you're then forced to backtrack and say, well, actually, we are going to do this after all. So I'm glad that we're kind of in this space now where we're having a debate about it. But I do think it would have been better if we hadn't, you know, if politicians hadn't ruled it out beforehand.

MG: Well, how did Germany get to this place? Now, I mean, why is something like this necessary? Why are these measures on the table now?

KK: You know, I honestly still struggle to understand it a little bit. I think it has to do... I mean, it has a lot to do with the fact that we live in this information ecosystem now where misinformation and, you know, and bad actors really have a lot of power and certainly a lot of people are scared. I do think there is another element when I talked to scientists in Denmark, for instance, it turns out that Denmark has much higher vaccination rates, but actually the amount of people or the percentage of people that are quite worried about the vaccine possibly having some side effects, for instance, is very similar to Germany. The difference is that these people do decide to get vaccinated anyway in Denmark because they feel that that is something that they owe to society. And it feels to me like we have gone down a route where medicine has a lot to do... it's all about the individual. You know, it's individualised medicine. It's what's good for you. And I think we've kind of neglected in countries like Germany this idea of public health as a common good. I mean, the most common kind of argument against mandatory vaccination is freedom. You know that people say you can't take away our freedom not to get vaccinated. But of course, at the moment, the unvaccinated people who are a minority are taking away a lot of freedom for the people who are vaccinated and who have done everything that's been asked of them and who, you know, still find themselves in this very difficult situation in Germany. So I really think that the debate around this has to change a bit.

MG: What are politicians most worried about? You talked about this in the concerns around this being particularly divisive and the isolation in some ways of people who are not vaccinated. So what are politicians most worried about as they consider these sorts of mandates?

KK: You know, I haven't really talked enough politicians to be sure what they're worried about. I know that the scientists I talked to, the psychologists and the social scientists, they're most worried about the data that we have that shows that this can lead to some people on the fringes of, you know, the vaccine sceptics becoming more extreme and even potentially resorting to violence, there is a danger of further losing trust in the government. But a lot of these scientists have also changed their minds quite a bit because what they're saying now is that we also seeing trust erode in the majority of the population that has gotten vaccinated because there was kind of an implicit bargain between them and the politicians saying, OK, if you do all of this, then we are going to get to a better place. And because they're not seeing that, I think a lot of them feel that it is time for mandatory vaccination. And so I think politicians are probably trying to balance these two... with these two opposing forces that both have to do with losing trust in a way in the government and society fraying a little bit.

MG: What do you think the next step in Germany is as the Omicron variant... And again, people are waiting to find out more information about this, but as it begins to spread, what could be on the horizon for Germany?

KK: Yeah, I think that is... everybody is trying to figure that out. I mean, if we've learnt anything in the last two years, it should be that, you know, when we don't know what's coming, we really need to get into a position where if it turns out to be quite bad, we can deal with it better at the moment we have. You know, ICU's that are already stretched. We have very high case numbers. We have contact tracers that are overwhelmed. That is not a situation in which if another fast spreading variant comes on top of that and potentially, you know, even if it... And this is a big if, even if it causes milder disease, if cases accrue even faster than they used to, we're still going to face, you know, an overwhelming number of hospitalisations. So it is very clear to the scientists, the modellers that I speak to, that we need to reduce infections. That's always been the game in a way. And I think Tedros put it quite well recently, the director general of the W.H.O., he said, you know, the vaccines were the light at the end of the tunnel and some people got blinded by that. And I think that's very true. And I think we need to remember that it's not just vaccines, that there's a lot of other things that we can do and that we need to do.

MG: In the meantime. Could you imagine... You know what's happening in Greece right now, the idea of these fines for those who are unvaccinated, who are over the age of 60, could you ever imagine something like that coming to Germany?

KK: I mean, there's two elements to that. I think, yes, I can imagine that. I think if you're going to make vaccination mandatory, you're going to have to have some kind of fine to enforce it. Otherwise it doesn't mean a lot. I can imagine that, but it will be quite divisive. And the other point is the question of should we really target a certain group? There's quite a lot of data that shows that if you do that, you're actually reducing the willingness to get vaccinated in the other group because you're sending a signal that, you know, these are the people that really need to get vaccinated. And for the rest of you, that's not so bad. That's also in consideration, by the way, with the vaccine in general, if you make a certain vaccine mandatory. We do know that there's a psychological reaction. The reactants is what psychologists call it, which leads people to then, you know, not take other vaccines that they don't have to take because that's where they kind of get their freedom back to say no. So yeah, I think we have to consider these things very carefully, but it is an extraordinary situation we find ourselves in. And, you know, these are kind of last ditch measures. I think it's important to remember that the fact that we are in this situation is a failure and we do need to have a debate about how we got into this place in the first time... at the first place. But you know, that's a hard debate to have in the middle of all of this.

MG: It certainly is. Kai, it's great to speak with you again. Thank you very much.

KK: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Kai Kupferschmidt is a contributing correspondent for Science Magazine. He was in Berlin. On this side of the Atlantic, U.S. President Joe Biden continues to plead with Americans to get vaccinated. Dr. Amesh Adalja is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security. Doctor, good morning to you.

AMESH ADALJA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: You've been listening. How different is American public health policy from what we've just heard about when it comes to vaccine mandates in Greece and in Germany?

AMESH ADALJA: Well, there are some differences, but there are some similarities in the fact that all of these countries are dealing with a population of unvaccinated that are becoming increasingly harder to reach. I think what the main difference is, is that U.S. policy has really not been focussed on mandates as a government issue or as a condition of living. In the United States much of our vaccine policy is focussed on activities, and a lot of it does fall on organizations like schools or workplaces to require the vaccination as a condition of participation. There are some places where it has been government driven. So for example, in New York City, you have to be fully vaccinated to indoor dine. But it's often premised on an activity. And I think that's the biggest difference is that in the U.S., there's a lot of resistance historically based on kind of the origin of the country against vaccine mandates as a condition of life. And they've always been controversial when they existed. And the only time that really happened was during the smallpox, the smallpox issues in the 1800s, and the early 1980s, and it did spark a big Supreme Court case. So there usually is reticence to use those types of measures. And I think there's some issue of whether... how they would fare in courts if they were challenged because we've already seen challenges to the Occupational Safety Health Administration rule for employers above 100. And also the Medicare rule for hospitals that take Medicare money for vaccinations. Those are both blocked by courts. And so there's an idea that this would get tied up in courts and not be very effective as well.

MG: Well, tell me more about that. I mean, how do you think... You use this phrase 'condition of living'? How do you think those sorts of tough measures would go over in the United States to try to nudge people in a more forceful way to get the shot?

AMESH ADALJA: I think it would be disastrous. I think it would actually create protests, lawsuits and remember, we have a federal system. So many governors would then... would then try and legislate something the exact opposite of that, which is what's happened already with... For example, in Florida, where companies, you know, companies are free to require vaccinations... In Florida they've made it illegal to do that. So I think it would really increasingly make this pandemic more divisive than it already is in the United States, if that's even possible. And I don't think it would actually succeed. And President Biden has basically said as much that that's not the route he's going to do. And there would be an immediate court challenge and it would be put on hold anyway. And I think that's what would likely be the result that it would basically not move the needle into anybody's arm.

MG: So what are the policy options that are left then for public health in the United States when you have 60 percent of Americans fully vaccinated?

AMESH ADALJA: We're running out of policy options, and I think what's happened is, is that we have a lot of people that are dug in and it's going to be very, very difficult to get any of them vaccinated other than to kind of do what we know works, which is having primary care doctors meet with people and address their questions and sort of nudge them along. That's... I don't know that we'll ever get to vaccination rates in the U.S. the way you have in Canada, for example, and certainly not the way they are in countries like Portugal. I just think that this has become a political issue now and people are not going to... It's just going to be increasingly hard to get that high. What's going to happen is a lot of people are going to get infected and they are getting infected and we're going to be left with some levels of natural immunity from prior infection in combination with the vaccine. And that's kind of how we stumble through this pandemic because I increasingly think that these mandates are going to get tied up in courts and never actually come to fruition until after the fact. After we've come up with solutions to this, to this pandemic or it tames itself because we've got antivirals and we have enough people vaccinated. So I think it's... we're in a unique situation in the United States and I think some of the safeguards against vaccine mandates as a condition of living or being alive, that there's some reticence to use that I think makes sense because I think that we have explosive politics around this vaccine, and I think it could only get worse with that type of measure, even though some people are saying now that they want vaccine requirements for domestic travel from the FAA, which I think would also cause a major issue. I think it would be great if an airline like Delta Airlines, for example, said, everybody that comes on, our airline has to be vaccinated. I think that would be more palatable. But when it's the government, there's always that issue in the United States about how to handle it, and it's only intensified during this pandemic.

MG: What is it like for you to watch this? As you say, it becomes more politicised, that it is removed from public health and ends up in the hands of politicians or ends up in the courts.

AMESH ADALJA: I think it's frustrating because to me, these vaccines are some of the best pieces of technology we've ever seen, and we know that this pandemic has affected everyone's life, even if they didn't get sick, if they didn't get infected, it's disrupted their lives, and this vaccine is incontrovertibly the way to put it behind us. And when people shun that for no reason, none of the objections are really scientifically valid, they're all politically based or just based on misinformation. That makes it extremely hard because we're not actually... we're not actually using the tools of science or rationality or logic to convince people it's now went into some different realm. And you don't know how people... you don't have any, you know, rulebook of how to get people to get vaccinated when they're not open to rational persuasion or they don't... or they think the data is falsified or they think... they have conspiracy theories about it. You're dealing sort of with the voice of the dark ages. And that's not something you can reason with very well. And the fact is, it's that group of people, the 60 million plus eligible Americans who are not vaccinated, that's what's holding back this country. That's why we have, you know, a thousand plus deaths every day that are all vaccine preventable. It's really sick to see a self-inflicted wound like this in the United States because we are causing this to be as bad as it is by choice, not because of ignorance, but because people are choosing. And that, to me, is mind boggling and almost nihilistic.

MG: It doesn't sound... I mean, it sounds as though you're stuck in some ways. That if you can't put those mandates in because people would rebel against them but people aren't getting the vaccine, then you're stuck in that bind.

AMESH ADALJA: I think that's definitely the case because that's why you see so much emphasis in the U.S. on booster vaccinations, which we all know that booster vaccinations are not going to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States. They're not going to keep hospitals from worrying about their capacity. It's first and second doses. But increasingly, if you listen to President Biden's speech last week, he barely talks about the unvaccinated. He's just moving to boosters, boosters, boosters because a lot of people have written off the unvaccinated and they're just going to let it burn in because it's happening in certain states where... You know it concentrates in certain states that are considered, "red states". It's become now a "red state" problem versus a "blue state" problem, which is the complete opposite of how you want to handle this. But it's been like that since the very beginning of this pandemic, and I think there was a lot of public health miscommunication and and just not very good... Talking to the general public way back in January of 2020, and it's now something that we're all paying for now that half the country is triggered one way and the other half is triggered the other way, and people only look at the vaccine through the narrow lens of what tribe they're in. So if you're in one tribe, you love the vaccine, you want to be boosted every day. You know that that's one group. And the other group you look at it through their lens. They want nothing to do with the vaccine. This is not something that they're going to even think about. This is all a government control program, and those two tribes just don't. They just can't. There's no integration between.

MG: Dr. Adalja, we'll leave it there. It's good to speak with you. Thank you.

AMESH ADALJA: Thanks.

MG: Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security. Coming up after your regional update: the opioid epidemic has intensified during COVID. Now, provinces and cities are looking at new ways to curb the death toll. We'll talk about decriminalisation coming up in about 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

The push to save lives by decriminalizing small amounts of illicit drugs

Guests: Kennedy Stewart, Doris Bill, Jeanette Bowles and Shauna Pinkerton

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. Across Canada as more people are dying of opioid overdoses, calls for decriminalization are growing louder.

EILEEN DE VILLA: What we're proposing is rather than taking the criminal approach, which actually stigmatises drug users and pushes them, actually forces them into increasingly unsafe behaviour. We're proposing a health focussed approach. This is a health issue and it should be addressed as such.

MG: That was Toronto's Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa, speaking on CBC's Power and Politics. Today, that City's Board of Health will discuss whether to seek federal approval to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs. Both the City of Vancouver and the province of B.C. have already asked Health Canada for an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act after overdoses spiked during the pandemic. Kennedy Stewart is the mayor of Vancouver. Mayor Stewart, good morning.

KENNEDY STEWART: Hi, Matt, how are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. You have described the loss of life due to drugs during the pandemic as "another wake up call in a long line of wake up calls". What do you want decision makers to wake up to?

KENNEDY STEWART: Well, they can wake up to what... First of all, what I wake up to every Monday where I have a report from my staff that comes in that says 10 more people died last week and 150 were revived using naloxone or Narcan or whatever you want to call it. That's every week that we're losing 10 people and it's some kind of macabre Groundhog Day every Monday, and these are neighbours there from every walk of life. And in fact, include my own family members, which are really tough as anybody in Vancouver will tell you and our, you know, our city of 700,000 people. That's a lot of folks to die over the last five years since a public health emergency was declared in this area.

MG: How would decriminalization help in that regard?

KENNEDY STEWART: Yeah, there's really three things that need to be done. The first is safe supply, where the poison drugs, and that's the thing, people are injecting substances that they don't know what's in it... And it's... 99 percent of it's laced with fentanyl. So you need to have an alternate supply of safe drugs that are predictable. Decriminalization, though, is really modifying police behaviour. We don't have a lot of arrests for possession here in the city of Vancouver, but what we do have is drug seizures, where police will stop you for shoplifting or something. And if you do have substances on you, they'll remove these and say you're a survival sex trade worker. It forces you into much riskier behaviour that would include what you have to do to get the money to get your new supply of drugs. But also you may go to a dealer with whom you're not, you know, familiar with. And this can also, you know, this can also lead to your death. The... And it also precludes you from testing your drugs because you're scared of getting caught.

MG: The mayor of Toronto, John Tory, has said that he's open to considering the idea of decriminalization. There's a caveat to that. But first, how significant is it that Toronto could add its voice to this call? Vancouver's been out ahead of this, but looking at other cities now, perhaps standing up behind you?

KENNEDY STEWART: Yeah, I think it's because the death toll is spreading across the country. It's been... We've lost 2000 people here in Vancouver, I mean, 2000 people in the city of 700,000. It's unfathomable. And you know, it's important that John and others add their voices. But you know, essentially what's happened is the senior levels of government have just left this to cities. They've brought in dump trucks of naloxone, and turn it over to our firefighters and peer workers and said, 'Hey, keep reviving people until they die'. And that's the strategy to this point.

MG: John Tory has said that he would be open to considering this, but only if better addiction supports are put in place first. Is that a sensible condition?

KENNEDY STEWART: Yeah, sure. Treatment is, you know, there's this kind of... Folks who aren't familiar with this topic will kind of cross our fingers and hope if we get enough treatment beds, everybody would be clean and would go on with normal lives. But that's not going to happen. You might get 10 to 20 percent, perhaps off of drugs, and most will have to maintain their addiction for their entire life. And if they're doing it with poisoned drugs, then they're going to die. So I think we need to have an adult discussion about what's actually happening here, and we have had it just as policymakers. Look, I was an MP for seven years. I mean, that's a very theoretical place where I don't think there's ever been a serious discussion about the massacre that's happening on our streets here.

MG: If your province's application to Health Canada is approved, people 19 and older would be allowed to possess four and a half grams of heroin, fentanyl, crack or powder cocaine and methamphetamine. Garth Mullins, who's with the Vancouver Area Network of drug users, says if the goal is to decriminalize drug use like drug users, you have to look at what drug users actually possess. Why that amount? Why four and a half grams?

KENNEDY STEWART: While that's the provincial application to Health Canada, we have a separate application here at the city of Vancouver that was... it's been sitting in front of the health minister since last July. And I had a great conversation with Carolyn Bennett, the new mental health and addictions minister. So I'm very hopeful something's going to happen. For me, it's always been about getting a Section 56 exemption. I mean, I'm a social scientist by training, so we get this exemption and we bring in the research teams and we monitor the effects that the decrim. is having on people's lives and then modify it as we go forward based on science. That's the difference between our application at the city and the provincial application that ours has the full support of the police. Chief Adam Palmer, who's one of the top police chiefs in the country, has signed on to this, where the provincial application doesn't have the support of police.

MG: Well, how confident are you? I mean, I ask this to a politician, but how confident are you that the science will be followed and that this doesn't get wrapped up in politics because politics runs through this.

KENNEDY STEWART: It's built into our application. So we've applied for funding as well, I mean we built our whole application with the advice of scientists. It's a tricky balance, though you have to balance the health, the community and the police, and we've done that in our application. I'm really proud of it and I just need a signature on it so we can get going. I needed it six months ago, but we need it now and so we can get going. And we can also pilot this for many other cities that are going to be facing their own overdose epidemic if they aren't now.

MG: What does it tell you that this push is being led by a province and a city, or maybe a couple of cities seeking exemptions rather than the federal government?

KENNEDY STEWART: Yeah, I just don't think the folks that are dying for the most case matter that much. And that's the sad bit of it. I really think that, you know, a lot of people are scared of radical change to... that we're going to have to undertake to keep folks alive, to get them to have better lives. And they're just scared of having the conversation. Like I said, seven years in the House of Commons, never heard it once.

MG: But I saw it in a conference room in Thunder Bay with Patty Hajdu, who's the former minister of health. She designed the Thunder Bay drug strategy, and she refused to talk openly about the idea of decriminalization being... And safe supply being the way out of that. She says that this is not a silver bullet, in her words, that there have to be other ways. What do you think politicians are afraid of?

KENNEDY STEWART: Well, first of all, in terms of how many folks decriminalization will save, if I think of the 10 dead people in my city last week, maybe two, maybe peer support and treatment saves another two, but it's safe supply that's going to save the rest, that'll save the six. And so decrim. on its own is not a silver bullet, but maybe it drops my emails from... my Monday morning email from 10 people to eight people, and we just can't talk about it anymore. I know it's trite to say, but we have a way forward in our city and we need the permission to go ahead and do it. And I can't do anything else. All I can do is tell our firefighters to do the best they can with naloxone and tell our peer workers to do the same and then have the coroner pick up the bodies. That's the situation we're in here and increasingly in municipalities right across the country.

MG: Kennedy Stewart, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

KENNEDY STEWART: Thank you.

MG: Kennedy Stewart is the mayor of Vancouver. In Yukon 21 people have died from overdoses this year. The territory has the highest per capita rate of opioid related deaths in the country. Chief Doris Bill is from the Kwanlin Dun First Nation. She's with me from Whitehorse. Chief, good morning to you.

DORIS BILL: Good morning.

MG: What are you seeing in your community?

DORIS BILL: Well, it's not just our community, it's right across the Yukon. You know, we've lost some citizens here at Kwanlin Dun, but across the Yukon, it's a very scary and a very tragic situation. You know, since the spring of 2016, we lost 54 lives in the Yukon to opioid use, with more under investigation, I understand. There have been other opioid, non-opioid related deaths as well. According to the Yukon coroner, she is now... opioid deaths now make up 20 percent of the people she... the clients she is seeing in her office. You know, we're seeing the drug supply become more and more toxic and unstable. Naloxone is not even... is becoming less and less effective. The natural disaster in British Columbia has had some effect on the supply chain as well. People are turning to other chemicals and making the supply, which is making it more lethal. Yukon it's a small jurisdiction. When someone passes in our communities, we all feel it. The opioid crisis has come... has combined with COVID, has left us with unimaginable loss. The grief is just unbelievably... It's unbelievable.

MG: And you... So you just heard Kennedy Stewart, the mayor of Vancouver, talk about the importance of decriminalization and of a safe supply. What kind of difference would that make in your community, do you think?

DORIS BILL: Well, you know, in our community, we look at things in an indigenous way. We accept people for who they are. We accept them, you know, we accept that addictions exist. It's up to the rest of us to help the people through their addictions. Our people have been through immense trauma and we don't need to put them through anymore. We all recognise that. I think, you know, in our community, I think that we have to change the way we are looking at the crises in this country. I think that the only... for us decriminalization could probably... would probably lead to better outcomes for people, I think. It can lead to safer drug practises that can save lives. If people are using alone, you know, the decriminalization could help make it more comfortable for people to know that if they call EMS or the police, they won't be thrown in jail. We have to recognize decriminalization is in itself a significant harm reduction measure. You know, I also think in the long run, it'll save money. Those resources can be better, better spent elsewhere, such as land base healing and treatment. You know, I think we must use every available tool to end this crisis.

MG: What do you think just in the last minute and a half that we have, what do you think it would take to get that conversation on the table? Because it is, as we've heard from Kennedy Stewart and others, it's a difficult conversation to get started as important as it might be.

DORIS BILL: Yeah, I know and I've been watching B.C., you know, and wondering if Yukon gets behind them, because here we haven't really started that conversation around decriminalization. You know, it is being talked about in some circles, but publicly political leaders, including the chiefs, have not really talked about it. And I'm hoping that towards the end of January, we will begin that conversation because the Yukon Government is holding a mental health and wellness summit, and the Chiefs are also holding their own health summit. So I'm hoping that we can have a well-rounded conversation around this and whether or not we should get behind British Columbia and Toronto in their efforts.

MG: We'll talk more about this in weeks ahead, certainly because the situation in your community is a frightening one. In the meantime, Chief Bill, it's good to speak with you this morning. Thank you.

DORIS BILL: Thank you.

MG: Chief Doris Bill is chief of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation. We reached her this morning in Whitehorse. The calls for decriminalization are also coming from those tasked with enforcing drug crimes. This is the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Bryan Larkin.

BRYAN LARKIN: Our correctional system was never designed to deal with the complexities of addiction. Tragically, what we see is this continued cycle where individuals that are arrested and moved into the judicial system for small amounts of possession really don't have the opportunity to actually address a health issue. And so we've criminalized addiction, which is a health issue. And what we're looking at is an opportunity to look at a larger approach to this because in many ways, we've actually moved to a model of decriminalization, particularly in the Lower Mainland in British Columbia. If you look at the amount of possession charges laid in Toronto, it's extremely low. But the reality is people are still dying. And so the Canadian chiefs recognise that we need to move from a criminalized approach, an off ramp into the healthcare system. But we also need to address safe supply. The issue of consumption treatment sites, as well as overall investment in our healthcare system to make sure that people have the ability to seek treatment when they're ready for treatment.

MG: Those working on the front lines with drug users know the complexities of addiction well. Jeannette Bowles is a fellow at St. Michael's Hospital with the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation in Toronto. Shauna Pinkerton is a harm reduction worker in Dryden, Ontario, and a former drug user. Good morning to you both.

BOTH: Good morning.

MG: Jeanette, what difference would the decriminalization of illicit drugs mean when it comes to the folks that you work with in Toronto?

JEANETTE BOWLES: Well, I think it's most important that we first look at why criminalization was an approach to reducing drug use. Deterrence was an idea that if we could set up a system that deterred people from using drugs, they might not start using drugs to begin with, which we have seen as failed. In addition to that, punishment for using drugs has failed as well. We see that criminal records follow people around for the rest of their lives. We see that this approach has been an experiment. Criminalization has been an experiment that has failed, and it's at a point that it needs to end and we need to take a different approach in order to address many of the harms of drug use, including overdose and including the hyper incarceration of people who use drugs.

MG: Want to talk more about what that different approach might look like in a moment? Shauna, from your perspective, given the work that you're doing in Dryden, what difference do you think decriminalization would mean for the people that you work with?

SHAUNA PINKERTON: Well, I think it would mean less overdoses. People would be more likely to call the ambulance. I think that it would free up our police because in our community, we really only have the police in the hospital for services, we have zero resources here. And I think that Canada just needs to take the leap and follow countries such as Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, they... those countries have proven, they're stats have all gone down... To help with the, you know, to preventing death and the despair that we're seeing in our community. Not too long ago, like the Vancouver chief of police is talking about every Monday, he sees 10 overdoses, well two or three weeks ago, we had two in one week here. So we... like and then I give out Narcan like candy. Just, like I can't. I can't get it out fast enough. People are dropping. Places I'm going, I'm seeing overdoses and helping revive them, people not wanting to call the police or the ambulance because of fear of the police. For fear of, you know, small amount of their own personal possession, not you know, huge, huge amounts, and I think it's important that we recognise that this isn't legalization. This is just decriminalization for the purposes of personal use.

MG: Can you tell me about the work that you do and why you do that work?

SHAUNA PINKERTON: So I go around in the community. I handle harm reduction supplies. I helped get the needle exchange up and running here, many moons ago in the early 2000s. So I handle harm reduction supplies. I help with welfare applications, housing applications, ODSP applications. I had let them use my phone for court purposes. That's another huge issue that we're facing right now. That decriminalization would help with all these people with simple possessions that now have breaches, upon breaches, upon breaches because everything's via Zoom or call in and nobody has a device, I give rides.

MG: You're a big part of the community.

SHAUNA PINKERTON: I'm getting there. Yeah. And this all started after last year, right around this time. December 6, today actually was the day we had our first overdose or suicide, pardon me, we had three suicides, all under the age of 25 in less than three weeks. And then right after that, a fatal overdose and someone was beaten to death. That all happened within the span of two months, so for a community of 8000 people, then we're up to around 85 homeless people. We're in big trouble here. We're swamped and all we have to depend on here is the police and the hospital, like I said. So by decriminalizing it and not having the police so involve some of that money to go towards housing like we have all of these empty houses, subsidised housing, they're all empty.

MG: Well, that speaks to, in some ways, some of the larger conversations that go around this where people talk about how decriminalization is part of this. But I mean, as I said earlier, the former health minister, it's not a silver bullet that there are other remedies that might be valuable or perhaps even more important. Take a listen to a conversation. This is Dr. Paxton Bach, who's an addictions medicine physician at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, co-medical director for the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, talking specifically about the issue of a safe supply.

PAXTON BACH: My main concern around safe supply is not around that fear of increasing opioid use disorder, but it's more around viewing this as a potential panacea for very significant societal problems that are often underlying a lot of the substance use that we see. So I believe that safe supply is going to be a necessary tool in curbing overdose deaths. But I do worry that without a very dedicated conversation on addressing some of these underlying drivers, like racism and poverty and stigma and trauma and access to mental health supports that we're going to continue to fall short.

MG: Jeanette Bowles, what do you make of that, that the deeper root issues aren't being addressed as important as a safe supply is?

JEANETTE BOWLES: Oh, I couldn't agree more. A safe supply isn't a panacea whatsoever. We need a consortium of robust services in place of the criminalization of drug use, which would include access to comprehensive and, you know, quality treatment centres, medical systems that are free of stigma, robust harm reduction measures. This is about, we need a toolkit that is going to address the various structural and individual harms that have resulted in this vulnerability onto people who use drugs. And I use the term vulnerabilities. I see people surviving who have incredible strength amid a world that has not been designed for them to thrive. And so it's not about people who use drugs being vulnerable. This is about structural vulnerabilities that have been created through stigma, through criminalization, through this view of people who are using drugs as being deviant. When really this is not the case, this is about diverting funds from a criminal justice system over to a more comprehensive system that would approach drug use. In a way that really does get at the root of what is causing harms, which includes lack of access to housing, lack of access to, you know, like I mentioned, health care that's free of stigma. And ultimately, we need to seek to stabilize folks. And safe supply is a part of the toolkit that would seek to, you know stabilize folks who are dependent on the unregulated supply right now.

MG: What would a safe supply have meant for you, Shauna, when you were using?

SHAUNA PINKERTON: Oh, it would have meant the difference between me ending up on twenty years of... 20-some years of torture on methadone and... Like had I had a safe supply that I was able to be weaned off of and not put on to... like I'm talking about like a medical maintenance supply so like morphine, hydromorphone, contin and being weaned off it. I think it would have made the world difference in my case, as well as for my criminal record, which still follows me, although I do have an opportunity to have that expunged now.

MG: Are you confident, I mean, we're almost.... We just have a couple of minutes left, but are you confident, Shauna, given the work that you do, but also the experience that you have as somebody who used, that the conversation is different now that we're having a different conversation about how to truly address this?

SHAUNA PINKERTON: I would... I would say so because back when I like, when I first I was, I came from the Downtown Eastside, like I'm from Dryden, but I moved out to Vancouver and I got addicted to heroin. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.

MG: No, that's OK. I mean, given that, do you see? Are you optimistic that we're going to talk about this in a way that's going to lead to fewer people dying, which is really what's at the heart of this.

SHAUNA PINKERTON: I think that there are more open eyes. It was great. When I was asked to do this, I wasn't really familiar with decriminalization until I started researching it. And I think it's wonderful to see that the B.C. and Toronto and the Yukon... Not wonderful what's going on there, but that they're fighting for, advocating for these things. And yes, I do hold out hope that this conversation is changing and will lead us into the right direction.

MG: What about for you, Jeanette? We just have a minute or so left, and I guess part of it is how important is it that people like Shauna are involved in this policy making, that their voices are being heard in what it is that's decided.

JEANETTE BOWLES: It's critical none of this can be done without centring the voices of people who use drugs who have lived experience and who are actively using drugs today to ensure that we are understanding what the needs are in order to address this adequately, effectively and properly.

MG: And do you see optimism? Very briefly, that this is changing now that that conversation is different than even 5/10 years ago?

JEANETTE BOWLES: In comparison to 5/10 years ago, absolutely. I think that there is a large push, especially in the work that I do, which is research and evaluation work to ensure that the voices of people who use drugs are centred not only in in the research process, but in the research development process from beginning to end to ensure that we are doing this the right way.

MG: It's really good to speak with you both about this, and as I say, we'll talk more about this as this moves forward. In the meantime, thank you very much.

BOTH: Thank you.

MG: Jeanette Bowles is a fellow at St. Michael's Hospital with the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation in Toronto. Shauna Pinkerton is a harm reduction worker in Dryden, Ontario, and a former drug user herself. You're welcome to comment on this in terms of how the conversation has changed and what you want to see come out of that conversation. Email us at Thecurrent@cbc.ca That is The Current for this Monday, Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Tom Power speaking about Christmas music with Norah Jones. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow.

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Monday December 6, 2021 Full Transcript

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