Hour 4 of Ottawa Now for Tues. September 1st, 2026

British Columbia’s contentious experiment decriminalizing fentanyl, cocaine and other hard drugs was hailed by provincial health leaders as a “vital” means of keeping people from dying from drug overdoses. It appears it didn’t. New research found no significant changes in drug-related hospitalizations or toxic drug deaths compared with the rest of Canada, where the drug laws hadn’t changed. “I think there’s a real risk of over-promising simple solutions” to the opioid crisis, said the study’s senior author, Dr. Daniel Myran, in an interview. Although drug poisoning deaths dropped...