{"id":19266,"date":"2021-01-27T09:35:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T14:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/?p=19266"},"modified":"2022-10-04T21:39:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T01:39:35","slug":"statement-civil-society-applauds-city-of-montreal-decriminalization-motion","status":"publish","type":"news22","link":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/statement-civil-society-applauds-city-of-montreal-decriminalization-motion\/","title":{"rendered":"STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY APPLAUDS  CITY OF MONTR\u00c9AL DECRIMINALIZATION MOTION"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 align=\"center\"><b><span lang=\"EN-US\">STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY APPLAUDS\u00a0<\/span><\/b><b><span lang=\"EN-US\">CITY OF MONTR\u00c9AL DECRIMINALIZATION MOTION<\/span><\/b><\/h1>\n<p align=\"center\"><b><span lang=\"EN-US\"><i>The following can be attributed to Richard Elliott, Executive Director, HIV Legal Network.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-US\">January 26, 2021 \u2013 Montr\u00e9al \u2013 <\/span><\/b><b>The Montr\u00e9al city council today passed a motion to call on the Government of Canada to decriminalize possession of drugs for personal use. <\/b>We at the HIV Legal Network applaud this initiative and congratulate all who fiercely advocated for it. We are proud to stand among you.<b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s motion joins the growing call for decriminalization in municipalities across the country, including\u00a0Toronto (Board of Health), Vancouver, and numerous others.\u00a0<b>Cities now recognize the many harms of criminalization, which marginalizes people who use drugs and pushes them away from harm reduction efforts. <\/b>Removing the threat of criminal law will allow people who use drugs to do so more safely. Lives will be saved.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>We urge the City of <\/b><b>Montr\u00e9al to follow through on this motion by requesting an exemption from the Government of Canada under Section 56 of the\u00a0<i>Controlled Drugs and Substances Act<\/i><\/b><b>,<\/b>\u00a0as the City of Vancouver did last month<i>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>We urge the Government of Canada to issue\u00a0such an exemption to any municipality that requests it\u00a0\u2014 and to further act to decriminalize drugs across this country. <\/b>Lives are at stake and there is no reason to wait.\u00a0Criminalization contributes to the public health crises of HIV, HCV, and overdose, and now COVID-19 is making things even worse.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Other\u00a0jurisdictions should\u00a0follow suit. <b>It\u2019s time to change bad laws and policies and save lives.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">-30-<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Download our primer, which outlines\u00a0why and how\u00a0<\/b><b>provincial <\/b><b>and municipal governments should\u00a0<\/b><b>request such an exemption:\u00a0<\/b><a href=\"..\/decriminalizing-people-who-use-drugs-a-primer-for-municipal-and-provincial-governments\/?lang=en\">..\/decriminalizing-people-who-use-drugs-a-primer-for-municipal-and-provincial-governments\/?lang=en<\/a>\u00a0<b><\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-US\">Media Contact:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Janet Butler-McPhee, Director of Communications and Advocacy, HIV Legal Network<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Mobile: 647-295-0861\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Email: jbutler@aidslaw.ca<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY APPLAUDS\u00a0CITY OF MONTR\u00c9AL DECRIMINALIZATION MOTION The following can be attributed to Richard Elliott, Executive Director, HIV Legal Network.\u00a0 January 26, 2021 \u2013 Montr\u00e9al \u2013 The Montr\u00e9al city council today passed a motion to call on the Government of Canada to decriminalize possession of drugs for personal use. We at the HIV Legal &#8230; <a title=\"STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY APPLAUDS  CITY OF MONTR\u00c9AL DECRIMINALIZATION MOTION\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/statement-civil-society-applauds-city-of-montreal-decriminalization-motion\/\" aria-label=\"More on STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY APPLAUDS  CITY OF MONTR\u00c9AL DECRIMINALIZATION MOTION\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"publication_topics":[147],"publication_language":[184],"class_list":["post-19266","news22","type-news22","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","publication_topics-drug-policy","publication_language-english"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/19266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news22"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/19266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22538,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news22\/19266\/revisions\/22538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publication_topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_topics?post=19266"},{"taxonomy":"publication_language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_language?post=19266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}