Dateline: June 18

Canada is in the grip of a fentanyl overdose crisis. In Vancouver, radical experiments are underway to prevent deaths.

Tonight Dateline looks at the reversing of liberal drug laws.

In 2023, British Columbia became the first Canadian province to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs in an effort to combat the spiralling opioid overdose crisis.

Under a three-year pilot program, adult users were allowed to carry up to 2.5g of heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, or crack cocaine, and could use them in certain public places without facing criminal charges.

At the time, Canada’s minister of health and addictions Caroline Bennett said the policy would serve as a template for other provinces to address the rising number of opioid overdoses happening throughout the country.

Over 80 per cent of accidental opioid-related deaths involved fentanyl, a pharmaceutical painkiller that is 50 times more potent than heroin and is increasingly being laced into street drugs.

But only a little over a year into the program, British Columbia abruptly reversed the course of its experiment in response to complaints about soaring drug use in parks and restaurants while police were unable to address it.

At the end of April, the government made drug use in all public spaces a crime again.

9;30pm Tuesday on SBS.