Compassionate Intervention is "Criminalization" By Another Name

The Government of Alberta has announced that they will be tabling legislation called the “Compassionate Intervention Act” that allows for the forced treatment of people who use substances.

Their press release the states that: 

The Compassionate Intervention Act will allow a family member, doctor, or police officer to make a petition to family court for a treatment order when someone is a danger to themselves or others. The treatment order would require that person to engage in treatment for their addiction and drug use.

While we understand that families grasp at any solution that might promise hope, we stand firmly opposed to this legislation and similar legislation in other provinces, including BC. Forced detox and treatment is ineffective, harmful, not supported by research, and  does not deal with underlying conditions. 

We ask why we would spend millions on forced intervention while people who want care have to wait for weeks and months and in many cases die waiting?

There are no research studies showing positive outcomes of forced care, but several studies point to potential harm. A Massachusetts study found that one-third of drug court participants with opioid use disorder (OUD) relapsed on the day of program completion, and 50% by two months after completion.

The Protection of Children Using Drugs Act (PChAD) has been used to force children and youths into treatment since 2006, without any data collection or reporting of the effectiveness of this intervention. We have members in our midst who have experienced PChAD, with traumatic and tragic consequences, 

Angela Welz lost her daughter Zoe after two attempts at involuntary treatment, she reflects on her experience. 

I can understand why the families of young people using unregulated drugs would want to force their loved ones to get help. You’re scared. You’re really scared, and you just want to keep them safe. I wasn't really confident in the involuntary treatment route, but we just didn’t have any other options. I did what I thought was best given what I knew at the time. Ultimately it was the worst thing we could possibly do and it severed any trust that Zoe had in our relationship. The 10 day detox program was simply not effective. She died shortly after her 18th birthday from fentanyl toxicity. 

As Angie Staines and her son Brandon Shaw explain:

What this government is offering is not real. In desperation I turned to PChAD to get help for my oldest son Brandon.  The apprehension was violent and traumatizing and it broke the trust in our relationship. This led us both down a path of trauma substance use, isolation and pain for many years . These programs rely on the fact that the desperation we feel will lead us to believe there’s a magic solution to all of this, but unfortunately there isn’t. We need to ensure our relationship with our loved one is strong with healthy boundaries and we are a safe place. We need to look past the drug use and see what’s behind it. Brandon is proof that when you ask a person what they want and love them in those hard times even harder. when they are ready to make some changes that are right for them we are a safe place landing place and will advocate for their needs and help them navigate a system that continues to tear them down and and traumatize our loved ones.” - Angie Staines 

“When I was apprehended and put into treatment it was violent and degrading and the only thing it accomplished was that it made me angry and ashamed which just increased my drug use and piled more trauma on my shoulders for almost 15 years and the one person I would of turned to, my mom, I didn’t trust anymore.” - Brandon Shaw

Indigenous people in Alberta are eight times more likely to die from drug poisoning than non Indigenous populations. If this legislation is enacted we expect people of colour and Indigenous people to be disproportionally affected by apprehensions. Sarah Auger, a Nêhiyawak (Cree) women in Edmonton who lost her son Lakotah in 2023 explains how Indigenous people who use drugs are trapped in a carceral system (citing the UpEND Movement).

Carceral logic has responded to the presumed inevitability of danger in the same way – to keep “the innocent” safe, an authority must intervene and forcibly prevent the “terrible few” from enacting harm. Instead of thinking critically about what it means to co-create safety, carceral logic tells us that the only way we can be safe is by entrusting the state to punish those who have caused (or who are presumed to have the pathology to cause) harm. As a result, we see the proliferation of systems of surveillance, regulation, and punishment.

The proposed Compassionate Intervention Act is part of this carceral system that has trapped Indigenous people in residential schools, disproportionally in the correctional system and now, under the disguise of compassion, in yet another carceral system.

Friends of Medicare asked important questions in their response to the new legislation: 

“Will these new centres be run as part of our public health care system? Our corrections system? By a private operator? What will the procurement processes be? Who will build them? Own them? Work in them? What programming will be offered? These are fundamental questions and Albertans deserve answers.

We can’t stand by idly and have this system take hold that will not only take the rights but also the lives of people who use drugs. Join us. Learn more about upcoming actions to fight this unjust legislation.

Recent media stories, reports and research studies for further reading: 

Background is a chain-link fence. Text in white Care is not Forced. Moms Stop The Harm Logo (text only)

Background is a chain-link fence. Text in white Care is not Forced. Moms Stop The Harm Logo (text only)