The effects of British Columbia's policy change regarding illicit substances on opioid-related hospitalization rates and expenditures from hospitals in the province

British Columbia’s opioid crisis has a significant contributing factor to the decline of public health. The usage of opioids has been a problem for years, contributing to 14,849 deaths since the province first declared a public health emergency in 2016 (Substance Related Harms Report, 2024). Despite the overarching negative effects of opioid usage, the federal government granted British Columbia a exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in 2023. This means that citizens over 18 years of age can possess up to 2.5 grams of specific illicit drugs, including opioids. Although there is an abundance of research on the legalization of various substances in America, as well as studies on the opioid crisis overall in Canada, there is a lack of information on the effects of this policy. Consequences have only just begun to appear as the policy change was rather recent. The goal of this paper is to fill the gap in information available surrounding this policy change, and to understand how this exemption has impacted public health expenditures. These conclusions were drawn by running a difference-in-difference regression using nation-wide data on hospitalizations, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) usage, and deaths caused by opioids. Since this implementation, it was found that opioid death and hospitalization rates have increased by 22 and 35% respectively, contributing to an estimated $5,181,192 of additional healthcare spending in British Columbia.