26 | The Alberta Model (w/ Marshall Smith)

On this episode of Journal, we tell the remarkable story of Marshall Smith, former Chief of Staff to Premier Danielle Smith and the man behind Alberta’s dramatic turnaround in its approach to drug addiction and treatment. What makes Marshall stand out is that he was once one of those individuals that we saw sleeping on the streets of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. As an addict, he had been beaten up, repeatedly, put in jail, and threatened. What makes his story even more meaningful is that he came from a modest family, worked his way up to a position in the British Columbia government, and even served as part of the successful Olympic committee. He was in a good place. And then came the Vancouver Sun headline: “BC Political Aid caught in Drug Raid.” That was in 2004 – and that’s when the spiral downward began. Fortunately, this riches-to-rags story has an enormously happy ending. After being told that it was treatment or jail by the police, Marshall, with a lot of help, was able to overcome his terrifying addiction. This lived experience is the reason he is so passionate about making drug recovery the focus of provincial addiction initiatives, rather than solely concentrating on harm reduction. Of course, as you can imagine, this approach is controversial in those circles promoting safe injection sites, free drug paraphernalia, along with a safe supply of drugs – some even want this so-called “safe” supply to be distributed even without a prescription, taking away a possible point of intervention by a doctor. So what can we learn from the Alberta model that could be applied in British Columbia?