Former chief coroner describes years of calls for changes to help toxic drug crisis

The former chief coroner for British Columbia says the provincial government didn’t seem influenced by evidence or expert advice on preventing overdoses because it ignored recommendations to create a safe drug supply.

Lisa Lapointe told a judge in the constitutional challenge by two people found guilty of possession for the purpose of trafficking after running a “compassion club” that sold tested heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, which set off three expert panels into the overdose crisis since 2017.

Lawyers for Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx, the founders of DULF, or the Drug Users Liberation Front, are arguing that shutting down the compassion club violated the Charter rights of those wanting to use the safer, tested drugs instead of those purchased on the streets.

Lapointe said the last two panel reports in 2022 and 2023 recommended the government oversee a “non-medical” model of providing drugs without the need for a prescription, similar to what DULF was doing.

She said in 2022, the government responded to the recommendations with a list of projects that were underway to expand prescription safer supply but didn’t speak directly to the recommendations to broaden safer supply.

Lapointe, who retired last year after 13 years in the position, says she found out at the news conference while releasing the third report that the government had already said that a non-medical model was not being considered.