The Kamloops councillor pushing to have the use of illicit drugs banned in local parks says she fully anticipates her plan, if successful, could be a legal test for decriminalization.
Katie Neustaeter has put forward the notice-of-motion to ban the use of illicit drugs – the possession of which is now decriminalized in B.C. – in Kamloops parks.
“We don’t allow drinking in public, you can’t go to Riverside Park and crack a beer while you listen to Music in the Park so why should that be any different?”Neustaeter said. “You can’t smoke in public parks so why would this be any different than that?”
Speaking on the NL Noon Report, Neustaeter says she came up with the idea after attending a workshop with provincial authorities that was discussing how the decriminalization of simple possession was going to take hold in municipalities.
“My take away from that was that there really aren’t any (guardrails). The answer was ‘let’s see what happens for the next six months and then we will kind of figure it out from there, but we recommend that you don’t pass any bylaws.'” Neustaeter said.
She notes if her plan moves forward, she anticipates there will be legal challenges. That said, she also anticipates those are challenges the city would be able to survive.
“In Sicamous, the pushback that they received was there are no safe injection sites where people can utilize these personal amounts in a safe way,” Neustaeter said.
“But that’s not true here in Kamloops, we do have opportunities for folks to use safely and to make sure that there are those harm reduction pieces in place, so that’s not a valid argument there.”
Neustaeter concedes the one issue that Kamloops will have to dive deeper into is how any ban on the use of illicit drugs in public parks would be enforced.
“As we look at the need to change bail reform, the need to end catch and release, all of those pieces so that people can use responsibly in the right areas and safely and that we also make sure that it does not unnecessarily negatively impact the rest of our community,” she said.
Her notice-of-motion is set to be debated by Kamloops council in mid-April.
