.jpg;w=120;h=120;mode=crop){kind=avatar}
A West Vancouver dad is raising concerns about drug use in public places after finding needles scattered around a school playground area.
Mihai Ionescu said he was recently at the Ecole Pauline Johnson field in West Vancouver with his daughter for a soccer game and went to get some water for her at a fountain, when he noticed several needles scattered on the ground near the school, along with what appeared to be a used naloxone kit.
“It was a bit shocking to me,” said Ionescu. “It was just left out there with needles that had been used and left on the ground.”
Ionescu said he and other parents cleaned up the needles and disposed of them, but they were left disconcerted by what they had seen.
“Nobody I was there with had seen anything like this at a school,” he said. “It’s not very common to see this kind of stuff in West Van.”
Ionescu said there are increasing discussions among people he knows about how to balance the issue of compassionate support for drug users with some of the negative impacts of public drug use that end up creeping into communities.
“I never had discussions with people about this in the past,” he added.
So far, the needles found at Pauline Johnson appear to have been an isolated incident.
School administrators were notified about the needles, and the school district facilities crew did “a thorough sweep of the grass field, the gravel field and the school playground and found no other paraphernalia,” said Tricia Buckley, spokesperson for the West Vancouver School District.
Neither the municipality nor the West Vancouver Police Department have reported a recent increase in complaints about drug use in public.
Political debate about public drug use
The recent discovery of needles near a playground comes at a time when the province has been grappling with the issue of where and how to regulate drug use in public places.
In January, the province began a pilot program of decriminalizing small amounts of hard drugs in an effort to destigmatize drug use and prevent overdoses. The change was based on the idea that when drug users hide their activities, they are more likely to die of an overdose alone.
This fall, however, that legislation has been walked back to ban illicit drug use around playgrounds, skate parks and places where children gather.
Mike Little, mayor of the District of North Vancouver, said without an ability for the RCMP to deal with drug use in public, many Lower Mainland municipalities have been left to deal with any complaints using bylaw officers and fines – which he added is inappropriate for a medical issue.
Transit hubs a problem
Little said in his experience, drug use in transit hubs and near bus stops has been one of the biggest problem areas.
“We definitely have been cleaning up needles in the parks and spaces immediately adjacent to transit facilities," he said. “We’ve had to do Naloxone revivals in and around those spaces. And so, it’s been a challenge.”
Little said he’s heard anecdotal stories from his own kids who use the buses that “the state of things is pretty bad when it comes to feeling safe in some of those facilities. My own daughters have had to call the RCMP on multiple occasions because of inappropriate conduct by people who were not there for transit purposes,” he said.
“And so even though there are advocates trying to say everything’s acceptable everywhere, there is a line and I think that we need to be more assertive in where that line is.”
On Thursday, the government introduced legislation that will further restrict drug use in public, banning it within a six-metre radius from building entrances, bus stops, parks, beaches, sports fields, playgrounds, wading pools and skate parks.
In a press conference, B.C. Premier David Eby said the changes were in response to concerns voiced by both municipal leaders and members of the public.
While original changes to the law were designed to destigmatize drug use, Eby said they were never about “using drugs wherever you like.”
“The parks need to be safe for people to go to with their kids. The businesses need to be able to stay open and people need to be able to get the bus without anxiety. And I think we can strike that balance,” he said.
