Police can’t arrest away city drug crisis

Winnipeggers have debated how to respond to the city’s worsening drug crisis for years.

There has never been much disagreement that open drug use, trafficking and disorder in public spaces are serious problems. The disagreement has been about how to respond without making a deadly crisis even worse.

The Winnipeg Police Service’s recent 10-day crackdown on open drug use has made one thing abundantly clear: while enforcing the law is entirely appropriate, the operation appears to have been poorly planned and insufficiently co-ordinated with the people who understand the crisis best.

Police have every right — and indeed an obligation — to enforce laws on drug trafficking and other criminal activity. Nobody should expect officers to simply ignore illegal behaviour on city streets.

Residents and businesses also deserve safe public spaces — those are legitimate expectations — but law enforcement alone was never going to solve this problem.

The criticism that emerged during and after the operation wasn’t that police were doing their jobs, it was that they appeared to be doing so without a broader strategy that included front-line health workers, outreach agencies and harm-reduction organizations.

Almost immediately, outreach workers warned that people were being displaced from the Main Street corridor into back lanes, parks, vacant lots and other hidden locations where overdoses become more difficult to detect and more likely to become fatal.

Those concerns weren’t theoretical.

One outreach agency reported that a woman died from an apparent drug poisoning after she was found in bushes near the West Central Women’s Resource Centre, an area with little public visibility or monitoring.

Staff later found another person in the same location. Outreach workers believe people were seeking places where they would be less likely to encounter police.

That should concern everyone.

The toxic drug supply has made overdoses frighteningly quick and unpredictable. Pushing users into isolated spaces may temporarily make downtown streets appear cleaner, but it also increases the likelihood that someone overdoses alone, without anyone nearby to administer naloxone or call for help.

That is not a successful outcome.

The concerns raised by business owners also illustrate why simplistic narratives rarely fit the realities of this crisis.

Some business owners welcomed the crackdown. Others, including Exchange District entrepreneur Natassia Brazeau, were deeply troubled by what they witnessed afterward.

Brazeau wasn’t describing increased crime or violence around her business. She described heartbreak after administering naloxone to revive a woman outside her storefront following the displacement of drug users into the neighbourhood.

Another business owner spoke about regularly defusing situations simply by treating people with dignity and conversation rather than confrontation.

These aren’t naive people ignoring public disorder. They operate businesses in affected neighbourhoods every day. They simply understand that moving vulnerable people from one block to another accomplishes very little.

Police Chief Gene Bowers deserves credit for acknowledging afterward that front-line agencies should have been consulted before the operation began.

That admission is important.

Unfortunately, it came after the crackdown was underway.

Consultation shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be the foundation of any enforcement initiative involving people struggling with severe addiction, homelessness and mental illness.

Front-line organizations possess knowledge that police simply don’t. They know where people access services, where overdoses are occurring, where outreach teams can respond quickly and what unintended consequences enforcement actions may create.

Ignoring that expertise makes little sense.

This doesn’t mean police need permission from social agencies before enforcing the law. It means they should co-ordinate with them so enforcement doesn’t undermine public health efforts already underway.

The two objectives are not mutually exclusive.

Police can target traffickers, violent offenders and organized criminal activity while ensuring outreach workers are prepared for predictable displacement.

Emergency shelters, treatment providers and harm-reduction agencies can position staff where they’re needed most if they’re informed in advance.

That kind of co-ordination should be routine, not exceptional.

The reality is Winnipeg’s drug crisis cannot be arrested away.

Neither can it be solved exclusively through harm reduction, treatment or housing.

It requires all of those approaches working together, with police serving as one component of a much broader response rather than the entire response.

Winnipeggers deserve safe streets. Businesses deserve neighbourhoods where customers feel comfortable. Drug users deserve opportunities for treatment and recovery.

People experiencing addiction deserve not to die alone in hidden spaces simply because enforcement pushed them out of public view.

Those goals can coexist.

The next time police undertake a major enforcement campaign related to addiction and homelessness, they should begin not only by planning with officers, but by sitting down with outreach agencies, health professionals and community organizations that deal with this crisis every day.

Good policing isn’t measured by the number of people officers arrest. It’s measured by whether communities become safer without making society’s most vulnerable people even more vulnerable.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca