Reports of drug seizures by police rose during first year of decriminalization, SFU study finds​

People in Vancouver experienced an increase in police drug seizures during the first year of British Columbia's drug decriminalization pilot project, according to a Simon Fraser University study.

During the pilot, police in B.C. were not meant to arrest or charge people for possessing drugs for personal consumption, a threshold defined as 2.5 grams. One of the goals of decriminalization was to reduce interaction between the police and people who use drugs, says Kanna Hayashi, co-author of the study. 

“Instead, our study found a significant upward trend of police drug seizures without making arrest,” says Hayashi, professor of health sciences and St. Paul's Hospital Chair in Substance Use Research. 

Although police officially reported Vancouver police officers conducted zero possession seizures below 2.5 grams between February and October 2023, experts say their data—based on self-reports from people who use drugs—allows different parts of the picture to emerge.

Hayashi says the published police-reported statistics only account for events where police officers documented an interaction as being related to drug possession and may or may not have involved an arrest.  

“Our data may have some overlaps with the police-reported data but likely captured events that did not go on to the police records as well. Each dataset is incomplete on its own but offer deeper insights when viewed together,” she says.

The three-year decriminalization pilot ended in January 2026. Published in the journal BMC Public Health, the survey-based study analyzed data from 490 participants in the long running Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS) between March 2022 and February 2024.

Before the decriminalization pilot began Jan. 31, 2023, the quarterly prevalence of police drug seizure without arrest (regardless of the quantity of drugs possessed) were endured by between 0.8 per cent to 2.1 per cent of individuals. During the pilot, that number rose to between 1.1 per cent and 4.1 per cent. 

The study also found participants who reported having drugs seized by police without arrest were three times more likely to experience a non-fatal overdose.

“In a toxic drug-supply crisis, losing a drug supply can have serious consequences,” Hayashi says. “People may feel they need to replace those drugs immediately. If you’re rushing to get new drugs from an unknown source and then rushing to use them to avoid withdrawal symptoms, it may increase the risk of overdose.”

The findings align with concerns long raised by people with lived experience of drug use, says Scotty Archondous, a researcher-member at Police Oversight with Evidence and Research (P.O.W.E.R.).

“As a community-based researcher across multiple projects, I heard directly from many people about their experiences of drug seizures of their personal supply during decriminalization,” says Archondous, who is also a board member of Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU).

“We already live so precariously, and these seizures, often without charges or arrest, put our lives at higher risk of violence and harm based on what comes next: debts, desperation and sometimes disrupted access to a trusted source.” 

For Hayashi, data informed by people with lived experience must be viewed in tandem with official police statistics.

“Even though the pilot has ended, it's important to understand what happened and what can be improved. Those lessons can help shape future decriminalization policies here and elsewhere,” she says.