Green Party vows to expand safer supply of drugs in B.C. [Video]

Former British Columbia chief coroner Lisa Lapointe has emerged from retirement to throw her weight behind a BC Green’s campaign pledge to expand safer supply of opioids and other drugs to deal with the province’s deadly overdose crisis.

Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau says other party leaders have indulged in “dehumanizing rhetoric” against drug users that she says is unacceptable.

Furstenau says a broader system of prescribed safer supply of drugs, including fentanyl, is needed, as well as a “demedicalized model” to reduce stigma and barriers in the current system.

The Greens are also pledging an evidence-based standard for treatment and recovery, with Lapointe saying there’s a lack of evidence that compulsory drug treatment plans pushed by other parties will work.

Lapointe, who joined Fursteanu at a Victoria news conference, retired earlier this year after 13 years on the job and in the midst of the toxic drug crisis that has …