A legal factory of death in your pocket

As of today, it is legal for any person in British Columbia older than 18 to carry up to a combined 2.5 g of cocaine (crack and powder), methamphetamine, MDMA, and opioids (including fentanyl, heroin, and morphine) for personal consumption. Let us pause to consider that the lethal dose of fentanyl is approximately 2 mg (see photo above for an illustration of what that quantity looks like.) Therefore, 2.5 g of pure fentanyl could kill 1,250 people. The BC Coroner’s Office has just released a report finding that 2,272 people died from illicit drug consumption in British Columbia in 2022—all of whom could have been killed by less than a single person’s legal stock of fentanyl over 2 days (4.54 g.) And yet there are “experts,” users, and advocates declaiming that the limit of 2.5 g is not high enough and that decriminalization is only a “half measure.”