Policy Stances
Involuntary treatment involves mandating people who use drugs into treatment programs. Usually these treatment programs are bed-based and focus on abstinence. CSSDP denounces involuntary treatment and supports access to evidence-based voluntary treatment. Research suggests that people who are mandated to treatment return to substance use after treatment and are more likely to experience a drug poisoning event after release. This form of ‘care’ is grounded in carceral logic and perpetuates systemic racism and colonial violence. Involuntary treatment policies also undermine people who use drugs’ autonomy, dignity and fundamental rights to make decisions about their own health.
CSSDP supports evidence-based prevention efforts to reduce harmful drug use. This includes, but is not limited to, evidence-based education and information campaigns. We believe prevention efforts must also meaningfully address the social (e.g. income, housing), commercial (e.g. corporate interests) and Indigenous determinants (e.g. colonialism) of drug use. Prevention efforts that target these determinants or ‘upstream’ factors not only support the health of people who use drugs, but the health of wider communities.
CSSDP recognizes that our members work, study and live on the unceded territory of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We acknowledge that Canadian drug policy has historically been rooted in racism and colonialism, resulting in disproportionate impacts on the Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) population. We strive to ensure that our work is grounded in the principles of decolonization and anti-racism to challenge oppressive and harmful policies.
Harm reduction policies, programs, and practices seek to uphold values of social justice and human rights by minimizing the harms associated with substance use. CSSDP supports full spectrum harm reduction – that is, harm reduction policies, programs and practices that incorporate all people who use drugs, all methods of drug use, and all sociopolitical and environmental contexts (YouthRise, 2024). We support evidence-based harm reduction programs including but not limited to supervised consumption sites, needle/syringe exchange and distribution, naloxone/narcan distribution and training, and drug checking. We believe that all people who use drugs, including young people, should have access to harm reduction programs in their communities. Youth-specific harm reduction approaches are needed throughout Canada.
Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) strongly opposes Canada’s ongoing approach to drug policy, which criminalizes participation in activities (ranging from personal possession to large-scale production and sale) related to specific drugs (e.g., heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine). Without a legal framework to regulate these activities, it is not possible to protect the consumer by regulating the quality and safety of these products (as is done for legal products like prescription drugs and food products). As a result, people are forced to access drugs from a toxic and unpredictable non-legal drug supply (commonly referred to as the ‘unregulated drug supply’), which is driving devastating levels of drug toxicity and overdose deaths across Canada. In addition to the harms stemming from consuming drugs of unknown quality, people who use unregulated drugs also experience significant harms from the enforcement of criminalization. As enforcement is disproportionately imposed upon people who are structurally marginalized by other intersecting systems of oppression (e.g., racism/colonialism, cis-heteropatriarchy, poverty), criminalization exacerbates existing health and social inequities.
In light of the harms directly stemming from criminalization, CSSDP supports alternative drug policy approaches for all drugs. Depenalization (also known as de facto decriminalization) refers to changes in enforcement and/or prosecution practices where criminal sanctions are not applied for certain activities (despite maintaining their criminal status within the relevant legislation). Decriminalization (also known as de jure decriminalization) removes these criminal sanctions from the legislation, without replacing them with a legal framework (in effect, these activities are neither legal nor illegal). Finally, legalization refers to the inclusion of drug-related activities (that are currently criminalized) within a legal framework. Each of these alternative drug policy approaches is associated with unique benefits and limitations; however, CSSDP strongly advocates for legalization as the preferred drug policy approach. Legalization is the sole drug policy approach that not only moves beyond the removal of criminal sanctions to ensure the legal status of these activities, but also provides avenues for providing a regulated drug supply for all drugs. Altogether, legalization has the potential to significantly reduce fatal and non-fatal overdoses and improve access to health and social supports among people who currently access the unregulated drug supply, ultimately improving their health and wellbeing.
In line with our opposition to criminalization as an approach to drug policy, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) strongly believes that no youth should be criminalized for the possession of cannabis. The well-established harms stemming from enforcement activities — extended beyond the sole role of law enforcement officers to also include employers, healthcare professionals, and school officials — pose a substantially greater threat to youth than the harms stemming from cannabis use. Youth that are socially positioned at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression (e.g., racism/colonialism, economic insecurity, cis-heteropatriarchy) are disproportionately affected by the unbalanced enforcement and impacts of criminal sanctions, exacerbating the health and social inequities they already experience. CSSDP therefore advocates for abolitionist approaches to drug policy, removing punitive sanctions and criminal legal system involvement related to cannabis use among youth. In addition, CSSDP supports calls for sweeping expungement of all non-violent cannabis-related criminal records among youth, and for the establishment of equity programs to support individuals who were criminalized for non-violent cannabis-related offences in joining the legal cannabis industry.
In an effort to reduce use of toxic and unpredictable drugs, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) supports the provision of a safer supply of medical-grade drugs (also known as a ‘regulated’ supply) to people who use drugs. The Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs define safer supply as “a legal and regulated supply of drugs with mind/body altering properties that traditionally have been accessible only through the illicit drug market.” Notably, medications provided through opioid agonist therapy (OAT) are not considered safer supply. There are a range of potential safer supply models, ranging from community-run models like compassion clubs to medicalized models where healthcare providers prescribe drugs to patients. People who use drugs tend to prefer community-run models; however, safer supply in Canada is predominantly provided through prescription-based models. While some people have reported benefits associated with receiving prescriptions for medical-grade alternatives to the unregulated drug supply (e.g., reduced overdoses, improved connections with family members, decreased engagement in informal/criminalized income generating activities), restrictions on prescribing practices (e.g., limitations on which drugs can be prescribed, maximum dose caps, daily witnessed consumption requirements) and capacity constraints (e.g., geographic variation in the number of prescribers willing to participate) have limited the success of safer supply in Canada. CSSDP therefore endorses the implementation of non-prescription-based safer supply models.
Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) supports the development and implementation of compassion clubs that provide access to a safer supply of drugs that are typically only available through the unregulated drug market, and are run by and for people who use drugs. While there are a range of possible models, common benefits of compassion clubs include decreased drug costs and reduced drug-related harms for members, achieved by leveraging collective buying power to impose quality control measures and economic benefits of scale.
After Health Canada’s rejection of the application submitted by the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) to operate a compassion club under an exemption to the relevant sections of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, DULF filed for a judicial review of this rejection (as of August 1, 2024, this judicial review is still ongoing). Despite the rejected exemption application, DULF operated their compassion club in Vancouver, British Columbia between August 2022 and October 2023. This compassion club purchased heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from the ‘dark-web’, tested them to ensure that they were not contaminated, packaged them in standardized sizes, and sold them to members. Through providing drugs of known quality and potency, DULF addressed the underlying driver of drug poisoning and overdose deaths (consumption of toxic and unpredictable drugs obtained via the unregulated drug supply). Despite the reduction in overdose-related harms among members, DULF’s compassion club was raided and shut down by law enforcement in October 2023, and the co-founders have been criminally charged with possession for the purposes of trafficking. CSSDP strongly condemns the criminal charges against DULF’s co-founders, and emphasizes that the urgency of this drug toxicity crisis requires governments to pivot away from their current prohibitive drug policy approach to provide access to regulated drugs for anyone accessing the unregulated drug supply.
CSSDP advocates for evidence-based drug policies at all scales, including on campuses. Despite national legalization of cannabis, many campuses maintain highly restrictive cannabis policies, which do not reflect the needs of the entire student community or the reality that students do use cannabis. CSSDP supports the reform of campus policies to align with national cannabis legislation, which is based on the best available evidence and aims to eliminate stigma for people who use cannabis. CSSDP also supports the creation of designated on-campus cannabis consumption spaces, which provide a safe space for those who wish to use, while simultaneously respecting the rights of campus members who do not want to be exposed to cannabis.
CSSDP affirms the human rights, fundamental freedoms, and inherent dignity of all disabled and neurodivergent people. We recognize that punitive drug policies and an inadequate medical system have disproportionately harmed disabled and neurodivergent young people, by restricting access to essential medications, diagnoses, healthcare, and supports. As a result, they may be pushed to self-medicate through the illicit market. In advocating for sensible drug policies, CSSDP aims to elevate the perspectives of those most harmed by drug policies—including disabled and neurodivergent people.
Moreover, CSSDP recognizes that preventing the transfer of illness is a form of harm reduction and solidarity with immunocompromised people. This is not new, the provision of safer sex supplies and needle exchanges or sterile syringes is an ongoing form of harm reduction as disease prevention. Today, this includes precautions to prevent the spread of COVID and other transferable diseases through regular vaccinations and testing as accessible, and masking.
CSSDP is unequivocally supportive of bodily autonomy. We acknowledge that prohibitionist drug policy is a means to control and criminalize bodies, including but not limited to poor, racialized, Indigenous, disabled, Two-Spirit, queer, trans and non-binary people. As a result, we affirm dignity, self-determination and bodily autonomy as a foundation of harm reduction. We affirm that every person deserves to choose how they engage with substances and access to the knowledge or education, support, and care they need to do so. This extends beyond drug use, every person deserves dignity and control over their body.
We stand firmly against any and all forms of sexual violence. We support and fight alongside all those working against the missing and murdered crisis, and recognize land back as a central fight in connection to consent and autonomy. Our understanding of bodily autonomy and consent is based on a colonial history that stole, pillaged and destroyed these lands without respect or consent.
As part of bodily autonomy, we firmly support all two-spirit trans, non-binary and gender diverse kin, who deserve care and access to all desired gender affirming care. As gender affirming care is increasingly threatened and used as a political means rather than necessary healthcare, we stand for the bodily autonomy of every person.
Similarly, we support the right to reproductive and menstrual support for every person. Every person deserves access to knowledge, resources and practices for safer sex, as well as the autonomy and support to make the best decisions for their body. Moreover, we believe every pregnant person deserves access to the breadth of care they need before, during, and after pregnancy, including medical and community support for pregnant people and parents who use substances. We affirm that people who use substances are not inherently unfit to be parents or be pregnant, and deserve care across the spectrum of drug use, from reducing substance use to safe supply during use. Child removal, especially of Indigenous children, has been used as a policy of control and assimilation. Children of parents who use unregulated substances deserve their parents in their lives, and they deserve parents who can use substances for pain management, self-treatment, and recreation in the same way parents can use regulated substances like alcohol, nicotine and cannabis.
CSSDP is exclusively led by students and young people, many of whom use drugs. As an organization and community, CSSDP is committed to listening to and amplifying the voices of youth who use drugs, especially those who are marginalized and/or have been harmed by drug policies. We strive to ensure that their lived and living experiences are meaningfully included in important and necessary evidence-based interventions, responses, and actions against stigma, the toxic drug supply, and harmful and oppressive drug policy.
As such, CSSDP encourages peer engagement, consultation, and advising on projects, services, and policies related to harm reduction and substance use. This includes mandatory consultation and advising by youth and individuals with lived or living experience of drug use. Additionally, we advocate for hiring youth and/or people with lived experience of drug use for relevant work in government, research, healthcare, harm reduction settings, and on boards of directors. As with all work, individuals should receive fair and equitable compensation for their time and expertise.