Today, Sandra Ka Hon Chu, Co-Executive Director at the HIV Legal Network, on behalf of Angela Robertson, Executive Director, Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, and Jason Altenberg, Chief Executive Officer, South Riverdale Community Health Centre, made this deputation to the Toronto Board of Health regarding Toronto’s submission to Health Canada for a section 56 exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
“Our organizations support the long-overdue decriminalization of drug possession. The war on drugs has waged grave and disproportionate harms on Black and Indigenous communities, and decriminalization is a necessary anti-racism strategy. Going forward, we implore Toronto Public Health to center the people most directly affected by criminalization in the exemption process: people who are most often profiled, harassed, arrested, and charged for their drug use.”
Read the full deputation: