If anyone doubted that the conversation around harm reduction for opioid addictions has changed dramatically, it came loud and clear from Ottawa last week: The federal government denied Toronto’s request to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs for personal use. And nobody much complained.

Associate Minister of Health Ya’ara Saks, who handles the mental health and addictions file, didn’t really bother getting specific about why. She didn’t need to, the D-word having come to connote all the opioid-related urban misery we see most famously in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.