NDP MLA “deeply concerned” about discouraging hard drug use in schools

A British Columbia NDP MLA says she is “deeply concerned” about “explicitly discouraging drug use” in schools.

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A British Columbia NDP MLA says she is “deeply concerned” about “explicitly discouraging drug use” in schools.

The comments came on Monday in the legislature from B.C. NDP MLA for Ladysmith–Oceanside Stephanie Higginson. She said she will not support the Drug Use Prevention Education in Schools Act because she finds “explicitly discouraging drug use” to be “deeply concerning.”

Higginson called the Act’s approach “outdated.”

The Act, introduced by Conservative MLA for Richmond–Queensborough Steve Kooner, would require a mandatory “anti-drug curriculum” for all public and independent schools in the province.

Its stated purpose is to “ensure that schools in British Columbia deliver clear and consistent anti-drug messaging to students.”

If passed, he said, the legislation would compel schools to “explicitly discourage drug use.”

In other words, it would require schools and teachers to tell students that drugs are bad.

“It reminds me of the 1980s ‘scared straight’ approach that was in place when I was young,” Higginson said of the proposed legislation.

The 1980s were a very different time.

Recent data from the provincial government shows roughly five people die every day in B.C. from drug overdoses.

In the 1980s, overdose deaths were so rare that the government did not even track them.

Based on recent numbers alone, few in B.C. would dispute that the overdose crisis is real and has been worsening for decades.

Higginson’s concern with the Act is that it “risks undermining the very outcomes it seeks to achieve” through the promotion of “stigma.”

“Stigma,” Higginson believes, increases overdoses based on “decades of research and experience.”

True North sought clarification from her office on what research the Ladysmith–Oceanside MLA referenced but our phone calls were not returned.

Kooner’s private member’s bill came largely in response to concerns over incidents where children were reportedly exposed to materials that appeared to promote drug use at school events.

One such example was documented by True North near the end of the last school year, when a Nanaimo mother raised concerns about drug information cards marketed toward children.

The concerned mother came across the cards as they were being handed out at a school-sanctioned “Pride Month” event. The cards not only promoted but also instructed children on how to consume hard drugs such as cocaine and fentanyl.

A card labelled “meth,” for instance, described the drug’s euphoric effects, its reported ability to increase libido, and even included recommended dosages.

A card for GHB, more commonly known as the “date-rape drug,” read that the substance can “make the user feel more relaxed and more sociable,” adding that “G can also increase libido.”

Kooner, his fellow Conservative MLAs, and numerous parents were not impressed.

“This isn’t education. It is grooming kids into drug culture,” Kooner said in a June statement promoting his private member’s bill.

True North has since determined that Higginson—the NDP MLA who voiced her opposition to Kooner’s bill on Monday—represents the riding where those “drug information cards” were distributed to children, some as young as ten years old.

Following Higginson’s comments, Kooner took to X to respond, saying he found it “deeply concerning that this government can’t put their radical ideology aside for a single second to protect B.C. school kids from life-destroying drugs.”

A Member’s Bill, rather than a government bill, Kooner’s proposed law is less assured than a government-introduced piece of legislation and remains early in the legislative process.

Introduction has occurred, but it has not yet completed all the steps required to become law, which means its passage is uncertain.