By Adam Zivo

[This article was originally published in City Journal, a public policy magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research]

Is drug prohibition racist? Many left-wing institutions seem to think so. But their argument is historically illiterate—and it contradicts recent polling data, too, which show that minorities overwhelmingly reject that view.

Policies and laws are tools to establish order. Like any tool, they can be abused. The first drug laws in North America, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguably fixated on opium as a legal pretext to harass Asian immigrants, for example. But no reasonable person would argue that laws against home invasion, murder, or theft are “racist” because they have been misapplied in past cases. Absent supporting evidence, leaping from “this tool is sometimes used in racist ways” to “this tool is essentially racist” is kindergarten-level reasoning.

Yet this is precisely what institutions and activist groups throughout the Western world have done. The Drug Policy Alliance, a U.S.-based organization, suggests that drug prohibition is rooted in “racism and fear.” Harm Reduction International, a British NGO, argues for legalization on the grounds that drug prohibition entrenches “racialized hierarchies, which were established under colonial control and continue to dominate today.” In Canada, where I live, the top public health official in British Columbia, our most drug-permissive province, released a pro-legalization report last summer claiming that prohibition is “based on a history of racism, white supremacy, paternalism, colonialism, classism and human rights violations.”

These claims ignore how drug prohibition has been and remains popular in many non-European societies. Sharia law has banned the use of mind-altering substances since the seventh century. When Indigenous leaders negotiated treaties with Canadian colonists in the late 1800s, they asked for “the exclusion of fire water (whiskey)” from their communities. That same century, China’s Qing Empire banned opium amid a national addiction crisis. “Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality,” the Daoguang emperor wrote in an 1810 edict.

Today, Asian and Muslim jurisdictions impose much stiffer penalties on drug offenders than do Western nations. In countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Singapore, and Thailand, addicts and traffickers are given lengthy prison sentences or executed. Meantime, in Canada and the United States, de facto decriminalization has left urban cores littered with syringes and shrouded in clouds of meth.

The anti-drug backlash building in North America appears to be spearheaded by racial minorities. When Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s former district attorney, was recalled in 2022, support for his ouster was highest among Asian voters. Last fall, 73 percent of Latinos backed California’s Proposition 36, which heightened penalties for drug crimes, while only 58 percent of white respondents did.

In Canada, the first signs of a parallel trend emerged during Vancouver’s 2022 municipal election, where an apparent surge in Chinese Canadian support helped install a slate of pro-police candidates. Then, in British Columbia’s provincial election last autumn, nonwhite voters strongly preferred the BC Conservatives, who campaigned on stricter drug laws. And in last month’s federal election, within both Vancouver and Toronto’s metropolitan areas, tough-on-crime conservatives received considerable support from South Asian communities.

These are all strong indicators that racial minorities do not, in fact, universally favor drug legalization. But their small population share means there is relatively little polling data to measure their preferences. Since only 7.6 percent of Americans are Asian, for example, a poll of 1,000 randomly selected people will yield an average of only 76 Asian respondents—too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions. You can overcome this barrier by commissioning very large polls, but that’s expensive.

Nonetheless, last autumn, the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy (a nonprofit I founded and operate) did just that. In partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we contracted Mainstreet Research to ask over 12,000 British Columbians: “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”

The results undermine progressives’ assumptions. Only 26 percent of nonwhite respondents agreed (either strongly or weakly) that drug criminalization is racist, while over twice as many (56 percent) disagreed. The share of nonwhite respondents who strongly disagreed was three times larger than the share that strongly agreed (43.2 percent versus 14.3 percent). These results are fairly conclusive for this jurisdiction, given the poll’s sample size of 2,233 nonwhite respondents and a margin of error of 2 percent.

Notably, Indigenous respondents seemed to be the most anti-drug ethnic group: only 20 percent agreed (weakly or strongly) with the “criminalization is racist” narrative, while 61 percent disagreed. Once again, those who disagreed were much more vehement than those who agreed. With a sample size of 399 respondents, the margin of error here (5 percent) is too small to confound these dramatic results.

We saw similar outcomes for other minority groups, such as South Asians, Southeast Asians, Latinos, and blacks. While Middle Eastern respondents also seemed to follow this trend, the poll included too few of them to draw definitive conclusions. Only East Asians were divided on the issue, though a clear majority still disagreed that criminalization is racist.

As this poll was limited to British Columbian respondents, our findings cannot necessarily be assumed to hold throughout Canada and the United States. But since the province is arguably the most drug-permissive jurisdiction within the two countries, these results could represent the ceiling of pro-drug, anti-criminalization attitudes among minority communities.

Legalization proponents and their progressive allies take pride in being “anti-racist.” Our polling, however, suggests that they are not listening to the communities they profess to care about.

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Fifty thousand flags blanket the north end of Tyee Spit in Campbell River, B.C. — a staggering visual memorial to the lives lost in Canada’s opioid crisis since it was declared a public health emergency in 2016.

Called the Blue Hat Memorial Project, the installation spans nearly the length of a football field. It features 36,000 blue flags to represent the men and boys killed by toxic drugs, and 14,000 purple flags for women and girls.

“The actual installation does something you can’t do by just reading [about it],” said Ron Kerr, the artist behind the project. Kerr is also a city councillor in Campbell River, a city of 38,000 on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.

“You’re visually seeing it, and it’s going right to your heart and creating an emotional response,” he said.

The installation’s name is a reference to the blue hard hats worn by newcomers or trainees on blue-collar job sites. Kerr says one of his aims is to draw attention to how the drug crisis has acutely affected working-class men. Between one-third and half of the individuals who died of opioid poisoning worked in the skilled trades, according to public health data.

Kerr, who has worked closely with tradesmen as an artist and advocate in men’s peer support groups, describes many of these tradesmen as “functional addicts” — employed, seemingly stable individuals who privately use drugs to manage pain or depression without others noticing.

“They are doing drugs at home or in their garage, and people don’t even know that they are [because] they’re functional, they’re working,” he said. “They’re able to control their depression or occupational injury through opiate drugs.”

Tradespeople are especially vulnerable to developing substance use disorders due to the physical demands, long hours and high injury rates associated with their work. Many use stimulants to stay alert or opioids to manage pain or cope with isolation in remote jobs.

“There is an expectation to get out the next day and get to work, no matter how you’re feeling,” said Kerr. “Self-medication is the easiest way to do it — a slippery slope from Tylenol to prescription drugs.”

A 2021 survey by the Construction Industry Rehabilitation Plan found that one in three B.C. construction workers reported problematic substance use. More than two-thirds screened positive for PTSD.

Loneliness is another major driver. Experts say men often avoid seeking help due to stigma, leading to further isolation.

“The opposite of addiction is connection,” said Kerr. “Men don’t have a place to go when they can’t deal with their issues, so they self-medicate.”

A pattern flipped

When Kerr first launched the installation in August 2024, he and a team of volunteers initially planted only blue flags. But in response to questions like, “Where are the women?”, he added purple flags this year.

“It was a blending — to give them their due,” he said.

Kerr’s installation sits on the unceded territory of the Liǧʷiłdax̌ʷ people, including the Wei Wai Kum Nation, a nation of nearly 1,000 people.

Wei Wai Kum’s chief, Chris Roberts, told Canadian Affairs he does not want the project’s focus on men to overshadow other key trends.

In B.C., Indigenous people die from drug poisoning at nearly seven times the rate of the general population. And within many Indigenous communities, the gendered pattern is at odds with national trends: women are dying at even higher rates than men.

“The opioid crisis has significantly affected my community as well, and it continues to — we are overrepresented as Indigenous people,” Roberts said.

“In our case, the gender split is much more balanced,” he added.

An aerial view of the Blue Hat Memorial Project in Campbell River, B.C., April 2025. | Courtesy of Ron Kerr

‘Inadequate recovery’

Currently, Campbell River — the overdose epicentre of northern Vancouver Island — has only one aging recovery centre.

“[The city is] a hub for the whole North Island, but we have very little in terms of recovery,” said Kerr. “[There is] just one inadequate recovery centre in a 50-60 year old house with tiny rooms.”

Kerr is critical of how B.C. has implemented harm reduction strategies. He says policies such as drug decriminalization and safer supply were launched without the recovery infrastructure needed to make them effective.

“[Portugal] legalized drugs too, but the most important thing was that they provided the recovery services for them — they went all in,” said Kerr. “In this province, they just haven’t spent the money and time on doing that.”

Kerr also worries too many resources have gone to safer supply programs, without offering drug users a way out.

“When you get a person in full-blown addiction, and you’re giving them all the drugs they need, the food they need, and the clothes and shelter, what’s going to stop them from carrying on?” he said.

Kerr wants his installation to draw attention to the need for more recovery-oriented solutions, such as treatment centres and housing. In particular, he points to a lack of affordable or free housing for people to live in after initial recovery.

“What you need is a good, clear off-ramp,” said Kerr. “They need to have recovery options that are either affordable or free so they can get off the road that they’re on.”

Chief Roberts agrees. Wei Wai Kai Nation is currently converting the former Tsạkwạ’lutạn resort into a 40-bed healing centre that will combine medical care with culture-based recovery.

“We’ve made investments to acquire properties and assets where people can go and reconnect with the land, the territory and their identity as a Ligwilda’xw person,” Roberts said.

Kerr says he will consider the Blue Hat Memorial a success if it leads to more funding and momentum for these types of recovery-oriented services.

The Blue Hat Memorial remains in Campbell River until the end of April. But Kerr, who previously re-created the installation in Nanaimo and West Vancouver, says he remains committed to doing more projects.

“I’ve got no expectation of senior government to come along and do this without a groundswell of grassroots people saying ‘we need this,’ and pushing government to do it,” said Kerr.

“I’m going to keep having the installation until that happens.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.