Had news broken just a couple of days earlier about British Columbia’s latest misadventure in harm reduction, it would have been indistinguishable from an April Fool’s joke. And like most April Fool’s jokes, it wouldn’t have been funny.

According to a memo leaked to the opposition B.C. United party, nurses in the province’s Northern Health district have over the past year been instructed to allow drug addicts admitted to hospital to use their substances of choice just as they would on the street. (The government has clarified that this policy does not apply to smoking drugs indoors. The harm-reduction lobby may be mighty, but it’s nothing compared to the anti-smoking lobby!) Staff are not to inspect drugs, let alone confiscate them, from patients or their visitors.