Can policing be the solution to increased open drug use in Ottawa's Chinatown?

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Police say a number of approaches are in effect in and around Chinatown and the broader downtown core, including neighbourhood resource teams, mobile crisis teams and community police officers.

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Alternate Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) is also available in the Somerset and Kitchissippi wards as an alternative to dispatching police to mental health and substance abuse crises. The program will expand this summer to the ByWard Market, Sandy Hill, Lowertown, Vanier and Overbrook.

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But Li also acknowledges that this problem goes beyond enforcement and involves addressing deeper-rooted issues. It’s a perspective legal experts agree with.

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Can police solve the problem?

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Legal experts say law enforcement simply won’t work to solve the rise in open drug use and crime plaguing downtown Ottawa neighbourhoods.

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“We’ve had almost 120 years of criminal prohibition of drugs in this country, and we still have these problems that you see every day on the street,” said Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa lawyer and part-time criminology professor at the University of Ottawa.

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“Police cannot solve this problem by applying criminal law, and in many ways, it’s unfair to impose that on them, because they’re being asked to solve a problem with a tool that doesn’t work.”

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While law enforcement may be able to go in and sweep the area, Oscapella said all it will do is shift the problem elsewhere.

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“You can push problematic drug use out of one neighbourhood, but as long as the conditions exist for people to use drugs, people will use drugs,” he said. “As long as we don’t address those underlying causes of problematic drug use, all we’re doing is shifting the problem around and shifting it from one place to another.”

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Joao Velloso, a law professor at uOttawa, said increased enforcement will just create more of a workload for police officers, all “with very little outcomes.”

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“They may arrest people who are going to plead guilty for possession, and they’re going to get out over the weekend, which isn’t solving any problem,” he said.

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Security stands outside a clinic on Somerset Street in Ottawa in early April. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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Under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, a summary conviction for drug possession has a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail for a first-time drug offence, though penalties may vary on the type and quantity of the drug. The maximum penalty for possession is set at seven years in prison.

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“Targeting possession may sweep things away under the carpet,” Velloso said.

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One way police enforcement may be of use in solving these problems, Velloso added, is by targeting drug trafficking to limit the number of illegal, and potentially harmful, drugs circulating on the street.

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“It’s a more complex job to do with the potential for more violence, but these folks are getting drugs somewhere,” he said. “They’re not popping up on trees.”

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Closure of supervised consumption sites worsens the problem

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For Oscapella, many of the problems facing Chinatown stem from the closure of supervised consumption sites as the province continues to cut off funding.

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And with the impending closure of Ottawa’s last two sites at Inner City Health and Sandy Hill Community Centre in June, many fear the problem of open drug use is only going to intensify.

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“The implicit assumption is that if they don’t have a place to use drugs, they won’t use drugs, which is absolute and utter nonsense,” Oscapella said. “They will use drugs. They will just not have a private, supervised place to do it.”

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Ottawa police were parked and putting a man in handcuffs Sunday March 22, 2026 in front of the New Dawn Medical: Addiction Treatment Centre. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia

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And not only are the closures forcing more drug use on the street, but Velloso said community “hot spots” for drug use around the consumption sites will no longer exist, causing the issue may further disperse throughout downtown neighbourhoods.