The narrative that criminalizing drugs is rooted in racism has been flipped on its head, according to a recent poll conducted in British Columbia with fewer minorities thinking that treating drug use as a crime was racist than their white counterparts.
Mainstreet Research conducted a survey in B.C. last month for the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy and the MacDonald-Laurier Institute asking residents three questions, one of which was “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”
Of the more than 12,000 British Columbians who participated, Indigenous respondents were the most likely to disagree that such a policy was racist, according to the poll’s preliminary findings.
The Drugs and Racial Justice Report has thus far arrived at the opposite conclusion claimed by harm reduction activists and many public health officials as non-white British Columbians overwhelmingly don’t perceive the criminalization of drugs to be racially motivated.
Only 26% of non-white respondents agreed that drug criminalization is racist, compared to the 55% who disagreed.
Non-white respondents were more divided among those who somewhat agreed or disagreed, however, the number of respondents who strongly disagreed was nearly three times higher than those who strongly disagreed at 43% and 15%, respectively.
Such figures suggest that respondents who felt that criminalization is not racist were far more adamant in their beliefs than the other cohort.
On the other hand, South and East Asian respondents were more likely than any other minority groups to believe that drug criminalization is racist, however, a moderate majority still disagreed with this narrative.
Those conducting the poll acknowledged that the margins of error for this poll make the results somewhat inconclusive as it is not yet complete.
However, the insights which can be gleaned for now are that First Nations respondents have the most cohesive stance on the issue, with 68% saying they disagreed that drug criminalization is racist.
Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of First Nations residents in B.C. don’t think that legalizing drugs is essential to racial justice or reconciliation.
The findings directly contradict a recent report published by the province’s Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry which called for full drug legalization and cited reconciliation as a motivating factor.
The report also claimed that prohibition is “based on a history of racism, white supremacy, paternalism, colonialism, classism and human rights violations.”
The Health Canada Expert Task Force on Substance Use released a report in 2021 that made similar claims.
However, the preliminary Drugs and Racial Justice Report data reveals that B.C.’s minority communities generally speaking, and First Nations in particular, are being ignored by addiction policy-makers.