Harm reduction activists often claim that criminalizing drugs is racist, and that legalization is necessary for racial justice and Indigenous reconciliation. A new poll, however, shows that a clear majority of non-white British Columbians, particularly Indigenous ones, disagree with this view.

The Centre For Responsible Drug Policy (an organization I founded and direct), in partnership with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, contracted Mainstreet Research last month to add three questions to a poll of over 12,000 British Columbians, including: “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”