Saskatoon police say drug decriminalization 'alone is not sufficient'

The Saskatoon Police Service is reaffirming its commitment to approach drug use as a public health issue in a report to the police board this week — but not without reservation.

While it says the service “as a whole” has embraced that “shift in mindset” — with officers being instructed not to lay charges for simple possession and instead refer them to support — the lack of suitable treatment services for drug users means they have few options at their disposal to deal with something that is still technically a crime.

In the report, Supt. Blair Pellerin with the Criminal Investigations Bureau writes that police services across the country have been moving away from punitive approaches to drug possession since 2020, when the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police published a letter calling for the decriminalization of personal drug use. 

That letter was followed by policy changes from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada raising the threshold for the prosecution of possession of illicit drugs, requiring Crown prosecutors to consider alternatives to possession charges in all but the most serious cases.

In 2022, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act was amended to reframe substance use as a health and social issue — reserving judicial resources for offences that pose a risk to public safety.

For a while, the trends seemed to point toward the eventual decriminalization of drug possession.

But following the rocky experiment with decriminalization in British Columbia — the Saskatoon police are now taking a more nuanced position, Pellerin says.

In Jan. 2023, in the wake of a massive surge in opioid-related overdose deaths, Health Canada issued B.C. a three-year exemption from section 56 of the controlled drugs and substances act, decriminalizing the possession of illegal drugs for personal use.

The exemption was hastily amended in April to mitigate complaints around widespread public drug use and social disorder.

Pellerin turns to a quote from Fiona Wilson, deputy chief constable of the Vancouver Police, to illustrate his point.

“Decriminalization has been a massive challenge for the police because it’s taken away our ability to arrest someone. We don’t have any grounds to approach a person who is publicly using illicit drugs in the absence of any other criminality.”

In its report before the board of police commissioners on Thursday, the Saskatoon Police Service confirmed it’s opting for a more balanced approach — while still pushing with full force to disrupt drug trafficking.

“Decriminalization alone is not sufficient. We realize that frontline police officers will always play a critical role in any diversion model as they are often the first point of contact to assist users onto a pathway of care,” Pellerin writes.

After the shift in the guidelines on drug possession from the public prosecution service in 2020, Pellerin says the Saskatoon police began developing strategies for pre-charge diversion with its restorative justice program coordinator.

“The policy governing pre-charge diversion allows for the offender to take responsibility, be accountable and make reparations,” Pellerin wrote.

If an offender doesn’t follow-through on their pre-trial diversion commitments, the idea was that police could then lay a charge.

But Saskatoon police soon discovered pre-charge diversion made little sense since the new prosecution guidelines mean that most people facing a charge of simple possession alone will not be prosecuted.

As a result, Pellerin says Saskatoon police had to pivot, directing officers to connect people with the Saskatoon Tribal Council’s Drug Awareness Program. The uptake for referrals to that program have been slow, he says.

Where police do lay possession charges, they tend to be in conjunction with another violation, like the breach of court-imposed conditions, or accompanied by other charges like weapons offences or trafficking.

While the police service says it’s reinforcing to its members that their interventions with drug users should be “interactions of empathy and dignity,” Pellerin says they have limited tools at their disposal.

“Unfortunately, without our community having a holistic multi-partner approach, with treatment services being readily available to those who are experiencing substance use disorder, our police officer response is extremely limited in guiding those in need to treatment.”