The vast majority of ethnic and indigenous British Columbians reject the notion that drug criminalization is racist. The findings appear in a new study at the same time the provincial government says in a policy paper that drug prohibition is “based on a history of racism.”
More than half of non-white residents in B.C. disagreed that criminalizing drugs is racist, according to an Oct. 15 survey by the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy (CRDP) and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Nearly 70 percent of First Nations and those who describe themselves as multiracial share the same opinion, at 67.6 percent and 69.9 percent respectively.
“What I’ve come across time and time again is community leaders saying that the people around them don’t actually want drug legalization,” Adam Zivo, executive director of the CRDP, told The Epoch Times. “There’s a very conspicuous gap between what policymakers are saying, and what I’m hearing off the ground from minority communities themselves.”…